Chapter 13: _ The Red-Haired Stalker

My fingers brushed the back of my neck where an icy chill had suddenly settled against my skin.

"What’s wrong with you?" Bren asked, pausing a few paces ahead.

"Nothing," I said, shaking off the sensation and pulling my woven shawl tighter around my shoulders. "Just a draft."

"Drafts don’t make you look like you’ve seen a ghost, Elira. Though considering everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if your imagination is playing tricks on you." Miriel noted dryly, smoothing the front of her skirts as she stepped around a puddle.

"It wasn’t my imagination," I muttered, but I didn’t push the issue.

Ahead of us, the ember-moth hovered in the air. It fluttered forward, turning down a narrow, descending stairwell that led away from the main central thoroughfare and down toward the Sunken Arch.

As we descended, the noise of the upper plazas faded. Overgrown ivy clung to the stone arches, and the damp smell of moss hung in the air.

"I still don’t like this," Bren’s eyes scanned the shadows beneath the stone overhangs. "Tobin might be a Sylven, but Sylvens answer to their own leaders. Setting up a ’support group’ in a secluded courtyard feels like a prime setup for an ambush."

"Tobin didn’t strike me as a strategist, Bren," I replied, keeping my pace aligned with the floating moth. "He looked just as overwhelmed as the rest of us."

"Naïveté is a luxury commoners can’t afford. Though I suppose if someone were going to murder us, they’d have chosen a location with a better view." Miriel kept glancing nervously over her shoulder.

We crossed beneath a crumbling archway that marked the boundary of the Sunken Arch. The space was mostly deserted, save for a few distant figures whispering near an old stone fountain. The ember-moth drifted toward an alcove at the far end of the courtyard, circling before dissolving into a cloud of blue light that faded into nothing.

"We’re here," I said, stopping near the base of a weathered pillar.

"Where is ’here’ exactly?" Bren asked, turning in a full circle. "I don’t see your wood-sprite."

Before I could answer, the air behind my left shoulder went entirely cold.

It wasn’t like the subtle breeze from earlier. This was a suffocating pressure, so dense it felt as if someone were standing inches away from me, breathing down my neck without making a sound.

I whirled around.

Yet again, there was nothing except the ivy-covered wall and the empty flagstones.

"Elira?" Miriel asked, her brow furrowing as she watched me. "What are you doing?"

"Do you feel that? Do you feel like we’re being followed?" I asked, taking a step backward.

Miriel let out an impatient sigh. "Elira, there are thousands of initiates roaming the fortress today. People pass through these arches constantly. You’re jumpy because of those seniors on the balcony."

"No," I insisted, my eyes locked on the empty air ten feet away. "This isn’t paranoia."

There was something in that empty space. I could feel a pull tugging directly at the center of my chest. It was an instinct I couldn’t explain, a magnetic force telling me that the air in front of me wasn’t empty at all.

I took another step forward, glued to the spot, unable to tear my gaze away from a patch of bare stone near the ivy.

The air there began to warp.

CRACK.

A sound like shattering glass burst through the quiet courtyard.

Wind blasted outward, and with a pop, a body tumbled out of thin air, crashing hard onto the flagstones on one knee

Miriel shrieked, jumping backward into Bren. Bren instantly whipped her hunting knife from its sheath, stepping in front of us with her blade raised.

The male on the ground gasped for breath. His broad shoulders heaved beneath an impeccably tailored red coat lined with heavy silver threading. He raised his head, and for a second, none of us moved.

He was striking. Messy red hair framed a sculpted jawline, and his broad chest and muscular frame gave him the look of a trained warrior rather than a mere student. He looked like high nobility... a lord, or perhaps something higher.

For a second, his emerald eyes gaped directly at mine.

He didn’t look at Bren’s drawn knife. He didn’t look at Miriel, who was staring at him with her mouth fully open. His pupils dilated, unable to tear his gaze from mine.

"You..." he choked out with a tough baritone voice.

"Who are you?" I demanded, taking a half-step forward. "Why were you–"

Before I could finish the sentence, he shook his head violently, gritting his teeth as a green aura erupted from his spine.

With a WHOOSH, a pair of emerald wings burst from his back, tearing through the air and sweeping a cloud of dead leaves and dust into our faces.

His pained eyes bored into mine one more time, sending sparks of chilly sensation across the very fiber of my being.

Then his wings snapped open.

WHOOSH.

He shot upward, clearing the archway in seconds. And then he was gone.

No explanation. No threat. Nothing. Just gone... Just like that.

Silence slammed back down over the Sunken Arch.

Bren slowly lowered her knife, her eyes wide as she stared up at the empty sky where the man had been a second ago. "What in the name of the Seven Realms was that?"

"He had wings," Miriel breathed in a shaky voice as she clutched her hairbrush like a weapon. "Such emerald wings... but his clothes... his coat... he was noble. High nobility!"

"He materialized out of thin air," Bren said, turning her head slowly to look at me. "Elira... he was standing right behind you. How did you know he was there?"

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

My gaze was fixed on the exact spot where the red-headed stranger had knelt. Resting on the damp stone was a silver pin that had snapped off his lapel during his frantic retreat.

I stepped forward and picked up the pin.

Carved into the cold metal was the detailed crest of a snarling wolf’s head positioned over a crossed broadsword.

I turned the pin over in my palm, my thumb tracing the edge of the silver wolf.

He hadn’t just been passing by. He hadn’t been lost. He had been standing right behind me, completely invisible, watching my every move.

And somehow, without magic, without a dragon’s senses... I had caught him. Our eyes had been locked in some kind of haze that I couldn’t seem to shake off.

What... what was this feeling?

Who the hell was he and why had I known he was there?