**BOOK II OF THE FOUR REALMS SERIES**
When war came for Azura, Fara of Calate lost everything. Her husband, her new home, her freedom. When her captor - the formidable commander of the Leoth army - saves her life, she begins to see the enemy as som...
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The boy hummed softly to himself as they went, side-stepping easily and with practice over the rocks and boulders snuggled into the carpet of the grass, and ducking to avoid low hanging branches that reached out for them like fingers. Soon they came to a crude makeshift bridge which hung over a misty darkness. The boy did not hesitate before stepping onto it and moving apace across the black ravine.
Theodan stared at it. Would it even hold his weight? A grown leoth carried more weight in one leg than this child did in his lean little body. He hesitated, studying the worn-looking rope which acted as a handrail with trepidation.
The boy was more than halfway across when he turned to address the fact that Theodan did not follow.
'We can go the long way around if you would prefer?' The boy asked. He didn't shout but he did not need to; his voice carried easily over the ravine. 'Though it will be noon on the morrow before we reach the caravan.' He punctuated it with a knowing smile for he knew what it meant.
Vala would be dead by noon on the morrow.
'It will hold?' He raised an eyebrow at the boy.
'You are larger than any who have tried it.' The boy shrugged. 'There is but one way to know.' There was a light challenge in his face which reminded him of Elyon.
In the end, it was the nonchalance in the boy's expression which pulled him onto the bridge. If the thing did not hold then the boy would fall to his death too and survival was weaved through the Sun Kin's blood. The bridge would hold.
Holding his breath Theodan stepped onto the wooden platform. It groaned under his weight and his stomach fell, dropping into the depths of the ravine. This was not the same as soaring through the skies on Nux. This was entrusting his life not to a powerful beast bred to fly, but to a few crudely lain planks and twisted twine. As he took a step forward the boy flashed him another of his crooked smiles before turning to hurry across the bridge.
As Theodan followed, quickly, each step came with the expectation of the snap of wood and the whip of the rope as it was snatched from his grip.
When he reached the other side, sweat-licked from fright, the boy was waiting, his eyes gleaming with anticipation (and disappointment Theodan thought).
They crossed two more bridges, slid around a cliff-edge, and climbed the face of a rock four times the boy's height before they arrived in a sunken valley snuggled between two mountains.
The camp ahead of them was not overly large, perhaps twice the size of Teredia's courtyard, with tents of varying shapes, sizes, and colours dotted here and there. He followed the boy down a hilly decline toward the camp and two Kin guards. They wore rounded hats made of soft leather and dark scarves covering the lower part of their faces. Each held a bow firm in their grips and a hung a curved sword from their belts. They did not look surprised or alarmed to see him, a Leoth, here in their well-hidden camp, though they eyed him with suspicion before nodding at the boy.
