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Somehow, the sound of the Sirius River did not reach their ears. If someone was indeed looking for the Origin, this would be the first thing they ought to look for, but the river was nowhere in earshot.

“No, we haven’t. Well, that’s what it seemed like when you figured she was following the river, but we’ve been slowly drifting away from the river. At some point, you started running so fast that I couldn’t focus on the sound of the river. I simply had to keep up with you,” the man responded, trying to make sense of all this as well.

Now that Rana had the chance to think about it, he could now tell his alpha had been acting a little bit out of character since their run began.

The prince pondered, pacing about the forest floor in search of an answer to their sudden misdirection situation, “I followed the sound of the river and we ran downstream. I’ve made this journey countless times before, Rana. I wouldn’t make such a mistake...”

“I don’t doubt your familiarity with the way to the Origin, my Lord, but do you recognise where we are at the moment?” the beta alpha asked him.

Just as the man turned to look around, the scent he’d been tracking vanished completely from his nostrils, like someone had blown out a candle, leaving his last sign of direction gone.

Without the certainty of his mate’s scent, all he had to look for was the Origin. Cirrus had been searching for Jane and not the Origin and somehow, he had lost track of both.

The prince looked around, the grey wolf’s eyes widening in shock, “Rana... I’m going to ask you an odd question. Which way are we running?”

.....

Rana, who’d also been pacing about, spun in a random direction and pointed to his back, “We came through...” the trees he pointed to were completely identical to the ones he’d perceived as the forward direction and those on the sides.

It was only then that the beta alpha noticed that all the trees around them had turned completely identical to each other, surrounding them in a clear circle that couldn’t be distinguished from any side. What was worse was that eh canopies had ground thick enough to obscure the sun in the sky.

They couldn’t tell which way was North... which way was South either. The streams of light that managed to make it through the thick canopies tore straight to the ground, bending in no particular direction.

The prince had woken up at an odd time and lost his sense of time. They couldn’t tell which side the sun was supposed to be headed, which way was east or which was west... “No, this is impossible.”

“It’s not that we lost track of where we were going, Rana. We were led off track, but the forest itself,” Cirrus observed, remembering the odd behaviour of the vines that had almost buried his beta alpha alive that morning.

The prince frantically scanned the ground, but just like he’d suspected, their pawprints had also vanished, replaced by a fresh vibrant patch of green grass. It was like they’d never taken a step before.

To test how dire their situation was, the prince forced a paw print into the ground and watched with his own eyes, as the soil bulged back up and the grass repaired itself, completely obscuring the signs of his movements in a matter of seconds.

“What do we do now, my Lord?” the beta alpha asked, turning yet again in an effort to tell where they had come from. Even the sound of the wild had gone completely still. There wasn’t a creature in sight. No birds... no squirrels... nothing. There wasn’t a sign of life at all in all directions, “We could try picking a direction and running that way.”

“That could take us forever, Rana. We’ve already been running for days now. Who’s to say we won’t die of starvation if...”

“Right now, there is no other thing I can think of, your Highness and I can tell there is nothing going on in your mind either. Every direction looks the same and we both know nothing is going to change. There are no animals near us and that means we can’t hunt. The rations we have right now can only take us a day at most. We need to focus on surviving, my Lord,” the beta alpha argued while he still had the chance to talk back to his master.

“You’re suggesting we give up our mission. Is that what you’re saying, Rana?” the royal bellowed, assuming the tone he used when commanding the Death platoon.

Rana flinched at the man’s tone, “No, that’s not it, sire. Fine, let’s follow the woman’s scent then. That could give us some sort of direction.”

The prince stopped in his fury and took a couple of steps away from his beta alpha. Rana narrowed his eyes in curiosity, “What’s wrong?”

“The scent, Rana... It’s gone. The trail went cold moments ago... As if it had never existed,” the prince admitted. Cirrus shifted back into his human form and sat on the ground, massaging his temples in frustration. They were officially...

Lost...

“We’re lost, Rana.”

The starry wolf was stunned by the sudden confession. The prince was not one to admit to something like that... but then again, he wasn’t one to hunt for an amber-eyed woman either. Their very presence in the forest at the moment was a miracle in and of itself.

“Might I make a suggestion then?”

“What would running in any one direction do for us, Rana?” the man groaned.

“It can help us get closer to any form of civilisation. Sitting here won’t do us any good at all...” Rana explained his plan to the prince once more. This time, the prince was paying attention to what he had to say, having calmed down.

“If we keep running in one direction, Rana, we would get exhausted and...”

“We can hunt, my Lord. That’s the easiest part to deal with,” the beta alpha replied.

“Feeding on meat alone for days. Is that your plan to beat hunger and starvation in a wilderness that’s against us?” the prince asked humourlessly.

“Yes, my Lord and our main priorities are to find a village or town to give us directions or the Great Sirius River. Water would be nice as well. We know one thing is for sure. Whichever direction we take will either lead us back to the capital, to an unknown town, the Great River or to the Origin. We run with an open mind, knowing that any of these destinations is better than sitting here and waiting for the Lord of Death to claim our lives,” Rana offered.

The prince thought through the man’s words for a moment before replying solemnly, “Have we really given up then?”

The question bore a distant tone that suggested it was rhetorical. The prince was the only one capable of tracking the woman’s scent, so asking this was more of a question directed at himself. If Cirrus couldn’t track her down, then there was nothing Rana could do either.

They had indeed given up.

Without warning, an ethereal voice broke the unnatural silence of the reorganised forest, “As you should...”