Much to my regret, the brief surge of bravery doesn't last forever. It's as if the ground itself is sucking the calm out of me. In its place, reality is pumping anxiety into my limbs. This is real. I crossed the Wall.

I'm in the Outlands.

I tamp down the intense out-of-place vibe that washes over me and focus on the task at hand. It's easy enough to formulate a plan, but as today shows, even the best laid plans often go awry. Things like pride and fear hinder progress, and I try desperately to clear my mind.

Step one was to cross into the Outlands. Step two is to find Markee. Step three? Hopefully make it back to Herald with her, safe and sound. What happens between each of those steps is where it gets unclear. But the end goal is always the same: get Markee and get out.

The forest in front of me looks undisturbed. The Outlander has left no sign of which direction he took Markee. I close my eyes and try to listen for footsteps. Brushwood moving. Anything that will help me find my friend, but the only sounds that reach my ears are the crescendoing footsteps from the hundreds of Outlanders headed my way. I've delayed too long.

Like feeding oxygen to a fire, the sound flares up the anxiety surging tumultuously through me. It courses from the tips of my fingers to the top of my spine, and down my legs until the soles of my feet tingle with tension. I feel like if I don't move soon, my muscles will turn to stone like rigor mortis upon death. If I don't get out of here, that might actually be a possibility. I need to find the right path that Markee's captor took before the horde has caught up to me. If they find me too, who knows what they'll do to me. Take me as a second prisoner? Kill me on the spot? Will they grind up my bones and eat me for dinner tonight, like the children's stories say?

The closer they get, the more restless I become. I don't know which direction to go except forward so that's just what I do. I put one foot in front of the other until I'm one step away from the thicket. Once under the canopy, it's like a spring is released, and all the tension previously petrifying my limbs now fuels me to run, to try and catch up with Markee. My feet eat up the ground as I dash through the forest, my eyes scanning the woods for any human life. Luckily, there isn't much underbrush to slow me down like the thick woods of Herald. This part of the forest is young, and gives me a clear view as I zip around tree trunks.

I run until the sun is slanting through the trees at a different angle. I run until the stitch in my side is unbearable. I run until I don't pick my foot high enough over a tree root and stumble, my shoulder catching me as I crash into the ground.

I lay there, my chest heaving, and want to cry from the pain. Why did I think I could do this? There is no way I could accomplish a rescue attempt like this. It's a job labeled for someone like Markee, for her strength and her courage. For her unbridled energy. For her fearlessness. Why did I ever think I could save Markee when, all my life, she's been the one saving me?

I picture her as she was last week when she visited me at Vera's. It was her shoulder I cried on. Then I remember her in school, always standing up for me when the other kids thought it was okay to keep picking on me just because I was too shy to tell them to stop. When Rhett was taken, she didn't leave my house for a week. I remember the pajamas with bright yellow polka-dots she wore when she slept over that first night. We were both nestled under the covers, exhausted from crying, but she held my hand fiercely. She was always keeping me grounded, when I just wanted to float away from it all. From the blame, my parent's grief, myself.

Maybe that's why we were inseparable. I needed Markee to counteract my own timid personality and the situations it got me in.

And now Markee needs me.

I can't blow my chance to be there for her after all the times she was there for me, supported me, lifted me. As impossible as this audacious mission may seem, I know Markee would have been able to do it. But she's the one who was taken, and the only person who has the slightest chance of bringing her home is laying in the dirt with tears stinging her eyes.

Markee, I'm sorry you're stuck with me.

I'm out of options. I'm lost. Markee is nowhere to be found. The only bright side is that I'm not at risk of being discovered by the horde of retreating Outlanders anymore. Their footfalls faded a long time ago, no longer headed my way.

I'm truly alone.

That fact is both a blessing and a curse. I'm not being pursued, so I have time to think and plan my next move. But being alone in a place I've never been—a place I never imagined I would see—is overwhelming. Tall pine trees soar overhead, their spindly leaves in clusters like green fans. The rough bark is a pretty russet color that makes me swallow the lump in my throat.

I sit up and rub my shoulder, wincing. That'll be sore tomorrow.

The forest around me is quiet and I feel a slight relief at the calmness of the surrounding woods. There's not much I can do about being lost, and I don't have the energy to panic at the moment. The sun casts a yellowish light through the coppice around me and my watch tells me it's after five-o'clock.

If this were any normal day, I would soon be helping Vera pack up the produce we didn't sell. When the sun sets, we would lock up and I would meet Markee or Miles and we'd grab dinner somewhere. Or maybe my parents would cook and we'd eat as a family, like we do every once in a while.

Thinking of food reminds me that I skipped lunch to investigate the sirens. In this brief stillness, I can feel the hunger pangs the adrenaline had covered up all day. This brings a new worry to the front of my mind.

What if I can't find my way to Markee before nightfall? Or back to Herald? I don't know how to hunt—Rhett hadn't been Placed long enough to teach me what he'd learned. The thought of starving out here, alone, unsettles me. Thanks to Vera, I know a variety of fruits and vegetables by sight. Mushrooms grow in the summertime, right? Maybe there will be some nuts or berries I'll recognize in the Outlands. I frown at another thought. What other creatures would be looking for something to eat around this time of day? Are bears nocturnal? Hopefully I'll come across Markee before I have to resort to foraging for my meals.

I've wasted enough time, so I stand and start walking. I need to try a different method, or I'll never make it out of here with my friend. I'm drained and my muscles are weak, but I have to keep going. If I don't find Markee before it gets dark...

I don't want to visualize what a night alone in the Outlands would be like.

"MARKEE!" I shout. This might be a bad idea, but I'm willing to risk it. I need to find direction if I have any hope of getting to her. Raising my voice could attract unwanted attention, but if anything, I should be closer to the man who abducted Markee than the crowd of Outlanders. If she's conscious, surely she would yell back at me, or at the very least try and make some noise.

If she can hear me, I want her to know that she's not doomed. I'm coming for her.

"MARKEE!" I shout again. I'm walking briskly, keeping my ears peeled for any distant cry of distress. It goes on like this for a while, walking and yelling until my voice is hoarse. I hope each step I take brings me within Markee's hearing range. My mouth feels like a desert, and I can't remember the last time I drank water.

Clearing my throat, I worry about how much longer I can keep this up. I have been shouting so much my lungs burn and I feel lightheaded and I'm sure the fact that I have an empty stomach isn't helping. I take a deep breath to scream her name once more.

"MARKEE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?" My voice cracks toward the end, and I fear that I won't have the energy to keep going before the sun goes down. I suck in another big breath.

"MAR—" I begin, but a large, callused hand clamps over my mouth, preventing me from shouting any more than a syllable. Panic surges up my throat. I twist and squirm about, gripping the hand over my mouth to remove it from my face, but to no avail. My assailant's grip is like iron. My feet kick out, but it only manages to knock both of us down onto the forest floor and I am horrified when I land on top of a hard body.

"Are you crazy?!" a deep voice whispers roughly.

The man puts his tense, muscular arms around me, binding my arms so taut against me that wiggling to escape is hopeless. My shrieks are muffled. I consider biting his fingers that are cupped around my mouth, but decide better of it. If he hasn't killed me on sight, like they say some savages do, then I won't do anything to provoke him to.

I knew there was a possibility that an Outlander could find me, but I honestly thought I had lost the horde a long time ago. Unless there were more Outlanders out here in the woods, not a part of the attack at all...

Stars, I'm stupid. Of course there are other Outlanders around! My shortsightedness has put me in this disastrous predicament, and when the edges of my vision begin to darken, I stop flailing.

I go still and try to take a deep breath, but his large hand is covering my nose too. I think he realizes this, but hesitates to loosen his grip on me.

"If I let you go, you must not make a sound. Understand?" I hesitate, the chance to get help slipping away. "I won't hurt you unless you make me."

I finally nod and he removes his hand from my mouth very slowly.

I drink in as much air as I possibly can, filling my deprived lungs. I sit motionless except for my heaving chest and wait for him to release me from his other arm. He doesn't. Instead, we sit in the dirt. He's got his back against a tree, and my back is against him. He's obviously listening for something.

Finally, after a few minutes, he lets me slip out of his grasp. I hop away from him and spin, watching him warily as he gets up and brushes the dirt from his pants.

"You're lucky I found you before they did. You could have attracted a whole horde of them with that incessant yelling. Then we'd both be dead."

Not deigning to reply, I finally get a good look at him. He looks to be about my age, tall and lithe, his chin a good six inches above the top of my head. His eyes are a striking shade of green, and intense as they bore into me, but I can tell some of his ire from earlier has dissipated.

But his words confuse me. How could he possibly know I was trying to avoid the horde of Outlanders earlier?

I want to say as much, but the dryness in my mouth keeps me from speaking up. I try and conjure up some moisture so my tongue can form words.

"What horde?" I test. I don't trust this guy. Not only is he an Outlander, who just tackles people out of nowhere?

"Very funny," he says coldly, piercing me with a scathing look that makes me feel stupid. Okay, so I guess it would be obvious what he's talking about. I'm sure he heard the hundreds of stampeding Outlanders from miles away. Even if I hadn't almost been run over by a swarm of savages, can't he see that I don't belong out here?

When he turns to walk away, I notice the compound bow strung across his back. The pulleys and cables gleam like bows the hunters in Herald use. Where did he find something like that out here?

"Wait, where are you going?" His sudden departure throws me off-balance. Don't Outlanders throw people out of their land? Or execute those Heraldites who go outside the Wall? This guy doesn't seem to care about my presence in the Outlands in the slightest.

He pauses and turns over his shoulder, giving me an annoyed look. "I'm hunting. Go back to your castle, Princess." He lazily gestures east and begins walking again. "But be careful. Too much noise and you'll be a goner before sunrise."

I have the sudden urge to thank him. But I suppose, "Thanks for not killing me!" isn't quite appropriate to tell an Outlander you just met. He may be snarky, but it doesn't seem like he wants to hurt me. Which is the second surprise of the day.

The first is that the history lessons taught in Herald are not all that accurate.