The forest had a way of playing tricks on you.
Ryka had noticed it about an hour into their trek—the way shadows seemed to shift when you weren't looking directly at them. The way certain trees appeared twice, like the forest was folding in on itself.
"We're making good time," she said, more to fill the silence than anything else.
Svenja said nothing, she just kept walking, her pale eyes fixed straight ahead, her two orbs hovering in lazy orbits around her shoulders.
Ryka was getting used to it, the silence. Svenja didn't talk much—never had—but over the past three months of training, Ryka had learned to read her in other ways. The slight tilt of her head when she was calculating something, the subtle tilts of her fingers. The almost imperceptible shift in her posture when she'd made a decision.
Right now, Svenja looked calm and focused. Which meant everything was going according to plan.
They'd already taken two tags.
