CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alec marched across the plains of northern Soli, the hills rising and falling, staring into the rising sun, bleary-eyed, weary with exhaustion, numb with cold, and no longer feeling the hunger in his belly. He and Marco, beside him, had hiked all night through Whitewood, neither, after their encounter with the Wilvox, willing to take a chance at sleep. Alec could feel the exhaustion in his legs, and as he hiked, watching the horizon, the clouds began to part and the morning sun broke through, lighting the green hills he remembered from childhood—and he felt so grateful to have emerged from the forest. There was nothing like being under open sky. He marveled that he had survived the long trek, so many long and nights, all the way from The Flames.
Alec, still smarting from
