CHAPTER 449: FINDING XADEN

For a long time, Marro didn’t speak.

He stood silently in the clearing, his small chest rising and falling with shallow breaths as he stared at the wristband in Jasmine’s hands. It was stained and frayed, the leather softened by time, but it pulsed with memory. With grief. With the last flicker of hope.

Jasmine said nothing. She let the boy have his silence, her hand resting gently over the curve of her belly. Kire sat beside them, his tail twitching, his golden eyes sharp and scanning the trees. The forest around them was hushed, as if even the birds dared not interrupt.

Finally, Marro looked up. His voice, when it came, was quiet and yet steady.

"I’ll take you." He said

Jasmine’s breath caught. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "If he dies... and I could’ve helped... then it’s like they all died for nothing. My entire family and I won’t be able to live with that guilt."

Jasmine could hardly believe it.

Such a little boy had faced such a terrible thing and yet he was so strong

Jasmine didn’t argue.

She just knelt, holding his hand in both of hers, small, dirt-smudged, and trembling, and helped him onto Kire’s back behind her.

"Hold on," she whispered, and he did.

They rode.

The forest thickened around them, turning dense and shadowed. Jasmine felt as though they were descending into the belly of the world. The trees rose like sentinels, their limbs bare and whispering, their roots gnarled and swollen with secrets.

Marro guided them with careful murmurs. "Left at the broken pine... then straight past the hollow log."

His voice was thin but certain. Jasmine never questioned him.

The further they went, the more the world seemed to hold its breath.

"How long ago was it?" she asked, when the silence stretched too long.

"Two nights," Marro murmured. "They attacked during moonrise. I couldn’t leave home because I as being punished for being in the forest, I would have left earlier."

Jasmine felt him tighten his grip on her waist. A silent tremor passed through him.

"I hid in a pit near the trees," he said, voice cracking. "After they had chased me down the market. I’m really small so they didn’t find me and I haven’t done my adult shifting so they couldn’t scent me. Alpha hunter and his men."

"Hunter," Jasmine muttered. The name tasted like metal on her tongue.

Marro nodded faintly. "I had found your friend At the river bend. He was bleeding so much I thought he was already gone."

A wave of nausea twisted through her. The idea of Xaden lying there—wounded, discarded, forgotten—nearly unmoored her.

"While he was still asleep I dragged him to a cave," Marro whispered. "It’s not far. I gave him so water and cheese when he woke up."

"You did everything right," Jasmine said fiercely, glancing back at him. "You saved him, Marro. Don’t ever forget that."

He didn’t answer, but his grip on her waist loosened just a little.

They rode in silence after that, Kire weaving like a shadow between trees and over moss-slick roots. The sun was beginning to lower behind the western ridge, casting long shadows across the forest floor.

Then, Kire stopped.

The air changed—sharp, heavy, metallic.

Kire growled low—not in threat, but in warning.

Jasmine tensed. She slid off his back and helped Marro down.

"Stay close to me," she said, eyes scanning the trees. There was something in the air. A sour tang. Faint, but unmistakable.

Blood.

The scent grew stronger as they walked.

They reached a ridge of mossy rock, its face cracked with time. Between two stone outcrops was a narrow cave mouth, low and unassuming.

"This is it," Marro said, pointing. "I left him here."

Jasmine’s heart pounded as she ducked inside. The air was damp and stale, the stone walls slick with condensation. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dimness—and then they caught the dark stain on the ground.

Blood.

Lots of it.

There were drag marks, smeared across the stone floor. A scrap of fabric was half-tucked beneath a fallen rock. Jasmine reached out with trembling hands and pulled it free.

Part of a shirt.

Xaden’s shirt.

Behind her, Marro stepped into the cave. "He was right there," he said, pointing to the spot. "I... I left him right there."

Jasmine stared at the blood, the fabric, the faint indentations of where a body once lay.

But there were footprints too. Large ones. Several of them, headed out of the cave and into the forest.

They’d taken him.

Her stomach churned. "Someone found him," she said through clenched teeth. "They took him."

"But he couldn’t walk. He was barely breathing."

Jasmine’s eyes burned. She gripped the shirt scrap tightly in her fist. "Then they carried him. Because they didn’t want him dead."

Kire waited outside, pacing. Jasmine emerged from the cave, her skin clammy, her heart thundering. Kire sniffed the air and began tracking, nose low to the ground.

"Can you follow them?" she asked.

But after only a few steps, Kire froze. He let out a frustrated huff and circled back. He sniffed again, deeper, more intently. Then he snorted and growled softly.

The trail was gone.

"What is it?" Jasmine asked, though she knew.

Someone had masked the trail. Covered it with herbs, false scents, mud, clever. Calculated. Ruthless.

It was the monster’s called hunter’s. Her senses told her.

"We’re too late," she muttered. "They’ve covered their tracks."

Marro came to stand beside her. His face was pale and drawn, his mouth trembling.

"What do we do now?"

Jasmine looked down at him, this child who had lost everything, and yet still stood tall.

"We find them," she said. "We keep going until we do."

His lip wobbled, but he nodded. "Okay."

Kire sniffed the wind again, then let out a low chuff and turned westward, toward a new path. He hadn’t found a scent—but something had caught his instinct.

Jasmine helped Marro onto his back, then climbed on behind. She clutched the bloodied cloth in one hand and wrapped her other arm around Marro, steadying him.

The forest darkened as they rode.

But Jasmine’s resolve burned brighter.

She would not stop.

Not until she found him.

Not until she brought him home.