By midday, the sun filtered weakly through the canopy, its warmth barely touching the forest floor. My breath puffed in faint clouds every time I exhaled, reminding me again how unforgiving the mountains were becoming.
But the cold wasn't what made my skin crawl.
It was the memory of those footprints.
Fresh dew.
Small feet. Bare.
Followed by larger prints trailing behind.
Someone knew exactly where I slept.
Someone had walked right up to me while I lay defenseless.
No rider in Draven's army would move that silently.
No villager would venture this deep into the mountain passes.
No lost traveler would risk the winter cold barefoot.
Whoever tracked me was deliberate.
And that terrified me more than any patrol.
I moved with a new kind of urgency, leaving the gentler slope behind and climbing toward the jagged ridges lining the western side of the valley. The ground here was uneven, a mix of loose rock and thick underbrush. Perfect for someone who didn't want to leave tracks.
Every few steps, I paused, listening.
The forest breathed around me - branches shifting, leaves rustling, the faint trickle of water in the distance.
Normal sounds.
But beneath them was something else...
a tension I couldn't shake.
I followed a narrow deer path until it disappeared beneath a tangle of fallen branches. As I stepped over them, a sudden gust of wind swept through the trees, stronger than anything I'd felt since reaching the valley.
I froze.
The wind carried a sound with it - not animal, not human.
A low, distant horn blast that seemed to echo off the mountain walls.
My heart stopped.
Not a village horn.
Not a hunter's call.
A war horn.
The kind used by the Alpha King's patrols when sweeping large territories.
My fingers dug into the bark of the nearest tree as dread flooded my body.
They were expanding the search again.
I wasn't sure how far the sound had traveled - sound carried strangely in the mountains - but the fact I could hear it here meant only one thing:
Draven's reach was growing.
The idea made my stomach twist.
Why now?
Why push harder?
Why refuse to let the search fade?
Was it the prophecy?
His instincts?
Some whisper of fate tightening around us?
Or - a more chilling thought - had my running changed something?
I swallowed hard, trying to push the panic down.
The wind shifted again, bringing with it the bitter scent of smoke. Not from the distant fire trail I'd found earlier - this was sharper, fresher, almost metallic.
And the horn...
There it was again.
Longer this time.
Louder.
Closer.
The forest around me seemed to stiffen, as if the trees themselves understood what that meant.
I crouched low, scanning the tree line. My breath quickened as I scanned for shadows moving between the trunks, for the glint of metal, for the thud of hooves.
Nothing yet.
But the wind carried more than just sound.
It carried intent.
Orders.
Movement.
Frustration.
The kind of frustration Draven was known for.
The kind that made him break treaties.
The kind that made him infamous.
A shiver ran through me-not from cold, but from memory.
"Traitors don't get second chances."
His voice-the one that lived in my nightmares-echoed faintly, and I clenched my jaw against it.
He didn't know me yet in this timeline.
He didn't know what I looked like.
He didn't know my scent.
But Draven Nightfall didn't need knowledge to be dangerous.
He needed only a reason.
And I suspected I had just given him one by running.
I forced myself to move again, climbing higher, careful with every step. My leg muscles screamed in protest, but I pushed on until the path led me to a narrow ridge overlooking the valley below.
I peered down through a slit in the branches.
Smoke.
Not from a campfire this time - but from torches.
Dozens of them.
Distant.
But moving.
Patrols.
They weren't in the valley yet - just on the outskirts, moving along the lower forest line like ants circling a nest.
They were searching wider.
Deeper.
Pressing into areas they had never touched in my first life.
My throat tightened.
This wasn't normal.
This wasn't random.
This was a king who refused to lose.
And he was turning the entire kingdom inside out to find someone who had not even met him yet.
I backed away from the ridge slowly, keeping low until the torches disappeared behind the tree line. Every inch of my body shook-not from cold, but from the knowledge that my second life was not as unbound from fate as I hoped.
I descended the ridge with a racing heart, scanning for new hiding places, deeper caves, tighter shadows - anything that could keep me invisible for longer.
The wind swept past me again, cold and sharp.
But this time, it wasn't a horn it carried.
It was a whisper.
A change.
A shift in the air that I felt in my teeth.
A warning.
The world itself seemed to say:
Run.
Because this time... he will not stop.
