The forest was silver with early dawn when I finally allowed myself to stop. The air held that familiar bite of cold, the kind that settles deep into your bones and makes every breath sharper than the last. I found a shallow hollow between two fallen trees, their roots twisting like knotty fingers above me. It wasn't much, but the branches overhead kept the worst of the wind away.

I curled into the space and drifted into a fitful sleep.

It didn't last long.

Something woke me-a shift in the air, a faint prickle against the back of my neck, like being watched from just outside a dream. My eyes flew open.

The forest was still.

Quiet.

Gray light filtering through broken branches.

For a moment, I thought I'd imagined it.

Then my breath caught.

Something was different.

Wrong.

I crawled out from between the trees, pushing aside damp leaves-then froze so suddenly my heart nearly burst out of my chest.

Footprints.

Fresh, clear footprints pressed into the thin layer of morning dew.

Not mine.

Not animal.

Human.

Barefoot.

My pulse leapt painfully as I knelt beside the closest print. It was small-smaller than mine. The toes spread unevenly, as if the person walked with caution... or fear.

The dew on the edges hadn't evaporated yet.

Whoever left these prints passed by less than an hour ago.

Right by where I slept.

Right beside me.

My hands trembled as I touched the cold earth around the track. The print pointed away from me-toward the deeper forest.

Someone had come close.

Very close.

And left without waking me.

Why hadn't they approached?

Why leave without disturbing anything?

My throat tightened.

I replayed the moment I'd first woken-the faint sensation of being watched, the prickle on my neck. It hadn't been a dream.

Someone had been here.

Someone had stood close enough to touch me.

The forest suddenly felt too open, too quiet, too aware.

I backed away from the prints, scanning the trees. The branches overhead creaked in the light breeze. A raven called distantly, its cry echoing through the valley like a warning.

Footprints in the dew.

Not the large, heavy tracks of a grown man.

Not the loud, stomping prints of a rider's boot.

Not the delicate trace of a woman.

A child.

My mind flashed to the boy I'd glimpsed near the stream the other day-the one with wild hair and bare feet. But he would've had to follow me far, too far, deep into a valley no child should know how to navigate.

And even if he had... why track me?

Why come close?

Why run away without a word?

My skin prickled cold.

There was only one answer that made any sense:

The child wasn't alone.

Someone older-someone dangerous-had sent him. Or watched him. Or lived here with him.

And they knew now that someone else was in their territory.

I rose slowly, keeping my breathing tight and controlled. I needed to leave. Immediately. I gathered the berry pouch, checked my walking stick, and slipped into the shadows of the trees.

Every step felt heavier than the last.

Every sound sharper.

I moved silently, placing my feet where the ground was firm, avoiding twigs and brittle leaves. But even as I distanced myself from the footprints, the unease stayed coiled inside me.

Someone had found me once.

It could happen again.

My thoughts spun with growing dread.

I couldn't outrun Draven. Not forever.

I couldn't outsmart whoever lived in the valley unless I knew who they were.

I couldn't trust the forest when it was full of eyes.

I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. Instead, I focused on the path ahead. The forest thickened into a maze of roots and moss, the canopy blotting out most of the early light.

As I moved, I found something that tightened my chest even more.

Another footprint.

Smaller. Smeared, as if the child had stumbled.

Fresh.

Then another, deeper one-larger than the first.

Not a child.

An adult.

My blood ran ice-cold.

Two sets of tracks.

Two people.

And they were following the same path... not far from me.

I crouched behind a fallen tree, heart slamming so hard it hurt.

I strained my ears.

Listened.

Waited.

A distant sound floated through the forest: the faint snap of a twig. Not close. Not dangerously near.

But close enough to know I wasn't imagining this.

Someone was moving parallel to me.

Shadowing.

Watching.

I crouched lower, pressing a hand to my chest. My heartbeat felt too loud. Too fast. Like the strangers could hear it if they were close enough.

For several long minutes, I stayed perfectly still. A cold breeze swept past, brushing the hair on my arms. The smell of damp leaves filled my nose. A bird flew overhead, its wings beating softly.

Finally, the forest settled again.

I didn't wait another second.

I moved fast, pushing deeper into the western slope of the valley-the rougher side, where the trees grew in thick clusters and the ground rose unevenly.

Every step echoed with one relentless truth:

I wasn't alone here.

Someone else walked these mountains barefoot.

Someone else moved quietly enough to get near without waking me.

Someone else had their own reasons for hiding here.

Reasons I didn't want to discover.

I needed to relocate.

Find higher ground.

Stay hidden for real this time.

Because whoever had left those footprints...

They weren't searching blindly.

They knew exactly where to look.

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.