Alarna hadn't slept. Not a blink. She lay in the dark, her breath shallow, her eyes fixed on the ceiling of the tent as she waited. The drug should have taken effect by now. Any moment, Jian Ci would begin to feel it—the shift, the pull, the unraveling of his restraint. And when he did, she would show up just in time to save him.
There was suddenly a rustle outside. The soft crunch of boots against branches. Her heart leapt. He was leaving.
She waited, counting the seconds in her head. One hundred. Two hundred. Then she rose, silent as a shadow, slipping out into the night.
What she didn't see was Leane, half-shrouded in the folds of her own tent, eyes narrowed, watching Alarna's silhouette vanish into the trees. Suspicion flared in her chest like a struck match.
