Sara ran.
Her bare feet pounded against the forest floor, the cold earth and sharp stones tearing at her soles, but she did not feel them. She could not feel them. Her body was moving on instinct alone, driven by a fear so cold and sharp that it cut through her like a blade, a fear she had not felt in centuries, a fear that she had thought she had buried deep beneath layers of ice and indifference.
She had been tricked. The realization burned in her mind like a brand, searing and relentless. The jester had not been trying to escape. He had not been trying to fight. He had been buying time.
While she had been slaughtering demons and wolves in that clearing, while she had been demanding answers from a monster who had been laughing at her the entire time, something else had been happening. Something far worse.
"Anaya."
