If you like music while you're reading, try "Don't Forget Me" by Nathan Wagner. This song has been on loop in my ears for days in the lead-up to writing the following chapters. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me. It cries Reth and Elia's hearts to me.
*****
RETH
They hurried. They raced. They pushed through weakness and thirst and fear—and still, the climb, though easier in their beasts, took half an hour.
Reth knew they'd finally made it when Elia's beast reached a small outcropping and leaped onto it, then sank almost to her belly, hissing.
Reth leaped up alongside her, then shifted back, Elia following him a heartbeat later.
The rocks and dirt around them were deep in shadow, almost dark as night. But the sky overhead was beginning to pink, and in the far distance, the first beams of sunlight danced across the canopy of the WildWood and made the sands of the desert glow.
