Chapter Nine
Her one thought was to get as far from Ren as possible, as far from the dreadful thing she’d done to him as possible, but she couldn’t outrun her shame. It stayed at her heels, as tenacious as a huntsman’s hound.
“Maythorn!” Ren cried.
Maythorn veered down the path beside old Dowse’s cottage and burst out onto the starlit common.
“Maythorn!”
Maythorn fled across the common. Grass wrapped itself around her ankles. Sheep lurched out of her way. Glade Forest loomed ahead, blacker than the night sky. Behind her, Ren shouted her name again.
She ran harder, panting and sobbing. The forest closed around her, cool and dark and quiet. Without the faint starlight, she was blind. Maythorn blundered into branches, stumbled over roots, running, running, shame biting at her heels. She
