"We're in for a nasty night," Mariol observed, with a smug note in his voice that I really detested.

"We've slept in the rain before," I replied with a shrug, watching the mage concoct our dinner. I was making batter for breadcakes; I was the only one who could cook them without burning them.

"Not in the mountains," he pointed out with a perverse satisfaction.

"If you want to say I told you so, go ahead and get it out of the way. The build-up is starting to get annoying."

Mariol didn't answer. I checked the pan to make sure it wasn't too hot and poured the batter onto the skillet. While the little cakes cooked, I watched Brial and Ar'ami, who were trying to find a way into the dense shrubs at the rear of our campsite.

"There must be a spring here," Brial was saying. "I think I can hear it."

"It could just be water farther up the mountain," Ar'ami disagreed. "These shrubs are almost like a wall and I've never seen kudzu growing at this altitude before."

He was prodding the hairy vines with a long stick. I peered at the unfamiliar plant with its reddish-purple flowers and huge leaves.

"I don't like not knowing what is behind us," Brial muttered.

"I don't think it's anything but rock." There was a tinge of doubt to Ar'ami's voice.

As I flipped the breadcakes over, Mylan joined the Elves. "What are you looking for?"

"A way through this jungle."

"Why worry about it?"

"There is something ... conscious about it," my husband said, his black eyes scanning the vegetation.

"Don't the Elves feel that way about all plants?"

"Well, yes, but this is different," Ar'ami replied when Brial didn't answer. "It's almost threatening."

Mylan nudged a shrub with one foot, peering into the clump of bushes. "It all seems the same to me."

Mariol spooned out dinner into the bowls, calling the others as he did, and the three men rejoined our group by the fire. While we ate, the summer storm broke over us. The pounding rain raised mist from the heated ground and obscured our vision as it struck.

I awoke in the middle of the night to the incessant thrumming of the rain on the canvas overhead. I took a moment to look around me. Brial was gone on his watch. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the tent, I reached for the Huntress' bow and pulled on my cloak.

Brial turned as I emerged from the tent with the goddess' gift in my hands. "Why are you awake, alanna?"

"Something doesn't feel right."

Brial was too accustomed to my instincts of danger to dismiss this. "I have seen nothing on the trail," he said, drawing his sword even as the words fell from his lips.

My eyes fell on the tangled undergrowth behind the dozing horses. Brial came to my shoulder and stared in the same direction.

"There's something in there," I breathed.

Brial moved as if to make for the thicket, but I put a restraining hand on his arm. He waited as I sent a faint surge of magic through the canopy of kudzu blocking our way. At first, I sensed nothing save the plants. Then a flicker of another being caught my attention as it flashed across the ravine, a whisper of magic and a tenuous feeling of awareness that jarred in the stillness of the night.

I pulled my power back. "I don't know what it is. I've never sensed anything like it before."

The sound of my footsteps was hidden in the slap of hard raindrops bouncing into the earth. A thin sound reached my ears, almost like a line of song. I paused in confusion. I couldn't hear the music, but my blood raced as its melody brushed past the edges of the kudzu-covered shrubs. "What is that? Can you hear it?"

He listened for a moment and a swift frown dropped over his face. "I do, but I do not know what it is."

We were only a few feet from the edge of the thicket, when the vines began to writhe and a high-pitched screech pierced the rhythmic beat of the rain. I jumped back, startled, but not before several of the hairy vines wrapped around my right ankle and yanked me to the ground. The bow flew from my hands as I hit the leaf-strewn earth, winded.

Metal flashed in the dim light and Brial's sword flashed through the vine not five inches from my foot. I scrambled backwards. Before we could get further, more vines joined in the attack. It was as if the thicket was a living, sentient being trying to drag us into itself.