Page 98 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

My head snapped up and back the way we’d come. “Your notebooks. My siblings must have gotten their hands on them. At least enough to know the direction we’re headed. They must have found a way over the mountain while we travelled under it.”

“Wouldn’t that have taken them longer?”

I grimaced. “The mutts have nothing to lose. We would have followed that mountain trail with an aim of staying alive, but if their numbers are as big as they seem? My siblings would have ordered them through regardless of losses and taken the seaway themselves.” I rubbed my brow with a sigh. “It’s also possible they summoned more. If they’ve made a deal with them, they might have gathered every mutt in Golthwaine to come after us. Either way, we need to be prepared for them to try to take us down where they think they’re most likely to succeed.”

She frowned. “Which is where?”

“We won’t know until they strike. The only advantage we have is that I threw the vial last time. If they think I have more surprises like that, maybe they’ll keep their distance until they’re certain they have me.” I rolled my shoulders, settling my pack more comfortably along my spine. “Let’s keep moving. If we stop, we become targets. They might know what path we’re taking, but they don’t know where we’ll end up. How much detail does your notebook give about where the amulet is buried?”

“None,” Glory said as she hurried to keep pace with me. “It’s why we had to start at the beginning. I know it’s somewhere near Blue Harbour, but that’s it.”

“That’s a wide area. The clue will help us narrow it down, and they won’t have access to that. We can still hope to keep ahead of them, and we only need to outsmart them for three days. Then we’ll be on the ship and they can race us home. Everything ends for them as soon as Evaniel gives me what I want.”

I kept watch on the trees once we returned to the woods, mindful of the shadows, of every creak among the branches.

There was a reckoning coming, and the day it arrived, I would revel in it. But Glory wouldn’t be involved. She had already suffered enough for my family’s problems. The next fight I faced with my siblings would be between me and them. Hopefully with Glory a continent away.

Glory

XLIII

I paid attention to the bond as we passed into yet another thick forest and as the sun sank below the horizon, shrouding the trees in darkness. Cammon led us without breaking stride, his emotions firmly reined in. More than once I wondered if it would be wise to hunt while we could, before the light grew too dim to see by, but every time I started to suggest it, Cammon stiffened and pressed us harder.

I saw nothing to make me immediately worry, no sign of the mutts creeping up on us, but I trusted Cammon’s instincts more than my own on this. Experience and the knowledge of his family primed him to anticipate their moves.

Unless he was wrong about who was controlling the mutts. If it was whoever had placed the curse on Brynna, they’d have good reason to want to stop us from reaching the amulet. Regardless, it was motivation to keep pressing through the night.

Only when we reached a massive tree in the middle of a glen did Cammon let us stop. He shifted out his wings, pulled me against his bare chest, and flew us up into the middle branches of the towering oak. I stared down among the leaves and tried not to think of how long a fall it would be if I rolled in my sleep.

“I’ll keep you safe, Buttons,” he murmured in my ear.

A thrill ran through me, and it never occurred to me not to put my faith in him.

It turned out I needn’t have worried about doing anything in my sleep. Very little sleep occurred. Snuffles kept me awake. The sound of creatures moving around among the shrubs and forest debris that sounded too large to be regular forest animals. A low growl startled me out of a doze at one point, and Cammon’s arm tightened around me, suggesting that he wasn’t catching much sleep up here either.

This was silly. We needed to be well rested. Tersey had two final clues for us. One more landmark and then the key to reveal the prize we’d come all this way to retrieve. He would have saved his hardest puzzles for the end, wanting to deter anyone who happened across them by accident. We had to be sharp, ready for anything. I wished I had the magical control to set all his traps on fire.

The harder I tried to sleep, the more sleep evaded me, and when dawn arrived the next day, I was ready to tumble out of the tree. My stomach grumbled, my back complained, and I wished we could be closer to the final clue so I could stretch out in a cabin on the ship and go home.

But even that thought held less comfort than it had the day we’d set out.

I hated that I was torn in a million directions, as though the mutts had already achieved their aim, and it was just by chance that I still had all my limbs attached.

I pulled out the clue alongside the map and skimmed through it, wanting to refresh my memory about where we were going. We would find the signpost today, I was sure of it. Based on the map, we’d leave these woods before mid-afternoon and reach the hill marked as the Widow’s Hood. Then we’d have one more signpost to go. And then the ship.

“Any sign of the mutts?” I asked Cammon as he rolled up the blanket and tucked it into his pack.

“Not that I can see. Wait here while I take a quick look. I’ll see if I can scrounge up some breakfast at the same time.”

His black wings rippled, and I stared after him as he leapt from the branch and swooped over the ground. So graceful. So beautiful. So powerful. He had the potential to be so much more than a simple treasure hunter. I was happy for his sake that he was close to achieving his dreams.

I went over the map again and again, growing worried when Cammon didn’t return. Surely I would have heard a fight if he’d found the mutts? Finally, the leaves rustled, and he dropped down from above. The line of his jaw was set, his eyes narrow and gaze sharp.

“They’re nearby but hiding. If we’re lucky, they spent all night trying to reach us and now they need to rest for a bit. We should move while we can. I’ll fly us to the hill.”

I frowned. “Are you sure? It’s not that far, but it’s far enough.”

He nodded his chin towards our packs. “We can leave some of the extra blankets behind along with anything else we won’t need anymore. With one, maybe two, nights left on the road, we can get away with bare necessities. If I’m carrying only you, I’ll be fine.”