The hooded figure moved — just a twitch, barely a shift of cloth — but Avin's eyes caught it instantly. His breath slowed, the pulse in his neck syncing to the rhythm of danger. And then, in the blink of an eye, the man was gone.
The forest swallowed him.
Avin's hand snapped up, dagger flashing through the air in a clean horizontal arc. Nothing. No resistance. No contact. Only the whistle of metal through open space and the whisper of leaves disturbed by motion too fast to follow.
He turned sharply, scanning the shadows between the trees. "Where—"
A faint thump above.
His eyes lifted—and his pupils shrank.
The hooded man was descending from the branches like a reaper, his dagger poised downward, aimed directly for Henry's head.
