It was too much to ask for a good night's sleep, even after such an eventful day.

At least Lyssia wasn’t stuck in a dream that fooled her into believing she was awake. She was aware that she was in another world as soon as her mind settled on a location.

The first thing she noticed wasn’t a sight or a sound or a smell. It was a feeling.

She felt like she was falling.

It was a slow descent. She was able to have a debate with herself over whether she wanted to open her eyes. The problem was that she couldn’t remember ever falling from a great height. If she wanted to remember where she was, she would have to open her eyes.

As soon as she did, she realized she wasn’t falling.

She was flying.

The wind slapped her in the face, making it hard to take stock of her surroundings. She turned her face into her shoulder and her foot shifted, almost pitching her forward into the empty air. She grabbed the edge of the crumbling stone wall beside her and pulled herself up straight.

“Watch it, Lys! Be careful! Get back from the opening!” Roakev shouted from somewhere beneath her.

“Step yelling at her, Ro! She’s fine! Hey...you okay?”

Lyssia glanced over at Azerian, who was crouched precariously atop a pile of rocks at the top of his tower. Seeing him so at home up here made it easier for Lyssia to take a deep breath. The cool air stung her lungs and cleared the cobwebs from her mind. She knew exactly where she was.

Her fingers dug into the stone wall and her eyes watered as she tilted her face back to survey the ageless forest laid out before her. Miles and miles of tree canopy, wild and green, leaves and high branches dancing with the wind. Giggling, Lyssia lifted a hand and waved back.

To the west and south, green fields dotted with evidence of life rolled out from the edge of the forest like a great lumpy rug. The roots of the mountains ran deep, invading the fields as far as she could see even though their real job was to stand guard at the eastern border.

Lyssia glanced nervously at them over her shoulder. The mountains did not wave in welcome as the forest did. They stood as silent sentinels, watching her, judging her. Up and up, her eyes followed the curve of the highest mountain, Aturnel, to its mist-shrouded peak.

Mighty Aturnel, the guardian, some called it. It climbed so high that none could touch its peak. The closest you could come to reaching it was by climbing Rilken's tower, which she now stood atop.

Of course, she wouldn’t dare to climb to the very top which some long-ago battle had reduced to a thin spire. Time had further damaged the tower and its seven brethren, who sat circled around a raised dais in a cleared spot of land like grumpy old grandfathers gathered together to complain about their missing teeth and old bones.

Azerian had taught her to climb the ivy-covered towers, taking advantage of chinks in the stone face, carved out niches and holes that left the stone structures open to the elements, and the occasional partly preserved stairway. But never had she dared climb so high as this.

The discussion of what purpose the towers had served in its time was a question that had stolen hours of their time, but at this moment she didn't care to know what answer the builders would give. Rilken's tower held a singular purpose for her today.

She had begged her cousins to help her slip away from the hunting party, begged Azerian to guide her to Rilken's tower and climb beside her, begged Roakev to be their lookout, braved the wind and her nerves and her father's displeasure, all for the chance to stand here on this semi-sheltered lip of stone, turn her face toward the north, and feast her eyes on the vast sea that Rijek and his sons had sailed across.

There were no words to describe the disappointment she felt when all she could see of the great waters was a shimmering line on the horizon.

Was that even there, or was she imagining it?

"Anything?"

Lyssia swiped at the wind-fed tears that threatened to spill out of her eyes and leave sticky tracks under her mask. This heavy leather thing was uncomfortable enough already; she didn't need to add to it.

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"No!" she called back as she sunk into a seated position. "Nothing! Absolutely nothing…"

The view seemed diminished to her now. Even the sight of the branches waving at her didn’t thrill her as they had before she realized her reason for coming was a fantasy. What had she been thinking? Of course, she wouldn’t be able to see the sea from the forest of stone.

The closest she was going to come to the sea was the sheltered view from the forest that butted against the Thivness. Chances were, she wouldn’t even get that far.

Perhaps that should have been her goal. She had been desperate enough to sneak away to this forest of stone. Why not make it all the way to the jagged cliff that marred the northern edge of the forest? The Thivness. The wildest place in all of Ilvana.

Or at least, she imagined it must be so to have earned such a name. Thivet meant “wild” in the old tongue. She had learned the word from her father’s Skald during her writing lessons.

Thivness - the Wildness - who would choose to name a place such a thing? It made about as much sense to her as naming a mountain without eyes or teeth a guardian.

“Lys!”

Azerian’s shout interrupted her thoughts. She jumped, her eyes automatically turning toward the archway that served as an entrance to the forest of towers. Ordinarily, she would have assumed that no one could hear them from this great height. Their voices should have been caught and flung aside by the wind, but in the old forest of towers, sound didn't travel as one would think.

The dais and the steps leading up to it had been built in a slight valley before Aturnel and the towers placed so that any sound directed toward the dais from the stone steps up to the heights of the towers was magnified and carried out through the double archways facing the mountains and the trees opposite them. They were facing out from the dais and the mountains, toward the forest, so it was probably fine.

Lyssia eased back to her feet, her eyes sweeping across the horizon again, and then back to the visible rent in the forest that marked the boundary of the Thivness. Somewhere between here and the Thivness, her father led the hunting party as they tracked a herd of Elken and led them into position for today’s hunt.

Their first hunt.

Lyssia tried to reach for the excitement she had felt this morning as she rolled out of her tent, fully outfitted for the hunt but preparing to sneak away. Her first hunt - a great honor at thirteen. Traditionally, fourteen was the year that young sons took their first shots in an Elken hunt. Roakev should have been allowed to make his first shot last year, and Azerian should have been made to wait another.

She would have joined Azerian, she supposed. They would have happily shared the rite. But her father had decided a compromise was preferable, and now she had to share the hunt with both her cousins and Rijek's sons as well.

The thought of competition should have added to her excitement. But it was gone, like her thrill at climbing the tower and her joy at viewing the forest from up high. All she felt now was a growing sense of unease.

"Lys!" Azerian called again, waving his mask at her. He was trying to coax her to take hers off. She should agree to it easily. She should have slipped her mask off a while ago. A smile and a quick check over her shoulder should have been enough to convince her to relax enough to enjoy this small taste of freedom.

It had that day. The day of her first hunt. She had enjoyed several minutes of freedom before the rider sent to find them interrupted the fun, and she had been sent skittering like a bug on all fours into the hollow of the tower.

A moment of panic, but once her mask was back in place, she and Azerian would climb down to meet Roakev and the messenger, they'd ride off to meet the party, and the hunt would begin.

That's what was supposed to happen, but a feeling like a hot poker stabbed right through her heart and made it impossible for her to raise her hands. She remembered more than that. She remembered more than the joy of the hunt. This day had ended in tears. It was not a happy memory.

That feeling - that was a reminder that she didn’t have to re-live this day again. Was it worth it?

Her gaze shifted from Azerian to the mountain behind him. Aturnel, the toothless guardian. A wave of unease hit her again, but she rolled her shoulders, shaking it off like a heavy blanket.

She flashed a smile toward Azerian - and the mountains - and tugged at the buckle on the side of her mask.

"Rider!" Roakev's call rang out through the hollow.

"Get down," Azerian hissed, but Lyssia had already crawled back from the tower's edge and refastened her mask. It would have been nice to have one minute to enjoy without it, but there was no time to bemoan the loss. With a quick signal to Azerian, she lowered herself one-handed over the side of the tower and stretched her fingertips to find the first handhold.

It was a long way down, and there was no room for hesitation. But she was not afraid of falling. Not here. Not now.

Keep him looking the other way, Roakev. We're coming.