A great void of blackness greeted Sander when he opened his eyes. He blinked in an attempt to clear his vision and his mind, unsure why he couldn’t see. A moment later he realized he was staring at the black pants covering his legs. Small details such as the weave of the material and the outline of a pocket grew more visible the longer he concentrated. The sharp pain in his neck suggested he’d been sitting in a hard chair, unconscious, head slumped forward. A suspicious sluggishness plagued his brain and his ability to manifest thought into action.

His body hurt. Back, shoulders, ribs.

He remembered the cabin.

The blast.

The attackers must have taken him prisoner.

He didn’t lift his head, but instead listened for sounds of movement or breathing. There was a faint ringing in his ears that he equated with the blast; beyond that, he heard nothing. No machines, no scraping chairs, no softly spoken words.

To the left and right of his legs was a rustic wooden floor covered in a layer of dirt. In the gloom, he picked out pieces of hay.

A barn. He must be in a barn. But where? On Latvalan land or elsewhere? Was he in Russia? Sander couldn’t tell if he’d been unconscious hours or days. It was dark outside; that was all he knew.

He tested the movement of his hands and feet. His hands were bound at the wrists with rope and his ankles secured to the chair legs.

After another minute of listening, he finally lifted his head. He ignored the lancing pain in his muscles as he took in his surroundings. A high loft filled with hay sat to his right and farm utensils sat to his left. Rake, shovel, wheelbarrow. The barn itself looked worse for wear, with a dusty floor and weathered wood for walls. One small lamp sat near a set of double doors, casting off just enough light to see by.

The longer he was awake, the more his vision adjusted to the minor illumination.

Sander wasn’t sure what it meant that Leander and Jeremiah weren’t in the barn with him. It was possible they had made it to the hidden tunnel before the explosion.

He hoped so.

He drew in a deep breath and considered his options.

There were weapons within reach if he could scoot the chair across the floor and free his hands. That might give him an advantage before his abductors came back.

He could throw himself sideways onto the floor, break the rickety chair, and at least have a little freedom of movement to find shears or a knife or something else to cut through the rope. Both choices would make a lot of unwanted noise. He had no doubt there was a guard or three waiting nearby; the men who had gone to such trouble to secure him wouldn’t leave him completely alone. But he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.

That amounted to suicide.

He tried to shift the chair. It took a whole body effort to move three inches and he paid for the effort in pain. He discovered the hard way that he probably had bruised ribs along with a slash on his head. Small drops of fresh blood dripped onto his lap with every new exertion. Pieces of shrapnel from the explosion had embedded into his back, some nothing more than splinters and some large enough to hurt when he flexed his muscles. As his self-awareness increased, so did the impact of each separate injury. None seemed life threatening, which was the only thing that mattered.

Scooting across the floor was out. He could deal with the extra pain he would inflict on his body with the effort, but the repetitive noise, all that scraping and thumping, would eventually bring the guards running.

Without more thought than that, he tipped himself hard to the right. The landing resulted in a loud crack of wood and a solid thump. He hoped the guards had been too far away to hear.

On his side, he struggled with the ropes and the now-shattered chair. It was easier to free his feet from the chair legs due to each ankle having been attached separately. His hands were another matter. He kept at it until the ropes on his wrists slid free of the broken spindle.

In minutes he was upright and moving across the barn to the tools he’d spotted earlier. He searched for hedge cutters or something similar when scissors or a knife weren’t to be found. Anything sharp would work. While he searched, he continued to work at the ropes on his wrists. Tugging, pulling, twisting.

To his surprise, he managed to loosen the rope enough to slide his hands free. Had that been too easy? He brought his hands to the front, ripped off the rest of the rope, and tossed the rope to the floor.

For a moment he stood still and listened.

Crickets chirruped somewhere in the recesses of the barn and, in the distance, the lone hoot of an owl broke the stillness of the night.

Wary of the ease with which he had escaped, Sander searched for a different exit. He didn’t want to simply stroll out the double front doors and straight into enemy hands. But he found nothing behind several stacks of hay or near the collection of farm tools. The double doors appeared to be the only way out.

He paused to eye the rickety ladder leading up to the hayloft above.

In moments he’d made it to the ladder and began the climb up. Ascending proved more of a challenge than it should have. His hand and leg coordination were wildly out of sync, leading him to wonder if he’d been drugged. That would explain the semidrunk feeling he couldn’t shake, and perhaps the lack of guards within the barn itself. The abductors might not have expected him to come around for another hour or two at least.

The scent of hay was stronger in the loft, as was the pungent rot of decaying wood. He spotted a pulley system through an opening in the wall to his left; workers used the pulley to haul up bales from the ground—an efficient, less taxing method than throwing bales by hand.

He didn’t think twice. Sander launched himself into the air, caught the rope hanging from the pulley, and slid to the ground. The minor rope burn on his palms was just another wound to put at the back of his mind.

Once his boots hit the dirt, he darted for the nearest stand of trees. He gauged the distance to be somewhere around forty yards, give or take a few feet.

Every muscle in his body protested the aggressive motion, but he didn’t slow down or give in to the pain. He pushed harder, running for all he was worth, expecting to be shot or taken down from behind any second.

The escape was too easy, and things like this were never easy. Not unless there was merit to the drug theory as well as a whole lot of luck.

Halfway there. The open clearing between the barn and surrounding forest was in plain sight of anyone who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

No shots.

No takedown.

He plunged into the woods and kept going, knocking leaves and other forest flora out of his path. Thirty yards deep into the tree line, he heard the first bray of hunting dogs. Two, three, five. A vivid curse spilled from his lips. He wasn’t going to be able to outrun the hounds in his condition. Not for miles and miles through harsh terrain with blood dripping in his wake.

The trackers wouldn’t even need dogs if they were skilled at their task. Broken branches, disturbed pine needles, blood spatters—all of it would lead them right to him.

He looked up at the trees as he ran, searching for the right setup of limbs and overlapping branches. Finally, as the night filled with howls that grew ever closer, Sander spotted a somewhat low branch ahead. He followed it with his gaze to a thick trunk, and from there to a tangle of limbs between one tree and the next. A highway of sorts that he intended to use to throw the dogs off his trail.

He could make it work.

He had to.

Thirty feet beyond the low-hanging branch, Sander jogged in broad, sweeping circles. He made sure to widen the circumference and crisscross paths, just to make it more confusing. From there he backtracked along the same steps he’d already used, and paused beneath the low branch. If he hadn’t been several inches above six feet, the branch would have been out of reach.

He crouched and jumped.

His hands caught the rough bark and held—but barely. Using nothing more than sheer stubborn determination, he pulled himself up until he straddled the limb. The shrapnel in his back seemed to dig its way deeper, like angry burrs, and his ribs protested the jump by sending a sharp ache through his torso.

Regardless, he pulled himself onto the branch and navigated the system of limbs until he’d traversed no less than three separate trees. He went as fast as he dared, scraping his palms and forearms and even his brow. At the third tree, he lowered himself from a branch to a set of boulders nestled against the trunk, and from there slid to the ground. The diversion wouldn’t put the dogs off for long, but if it gave him even an extra half hour lead, he’d take it.

He bolted through the forest, winded but driven to find someplace to hide.

At dusk, just as the day succumbed to the shadows of evening, Leander and Jeremiah entered Sander’s office. Elias snapped a look toward the doorway from a couch he’d claimed an hour before. He stood and assessed the men’s condition: Leander was a little paler than usual, probably due to the hit he’d taken, but Jeremiah appeared unharmed.

Sander was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Sander?” Chey asked, as if reading his mind.

“I don’t know. It seems he’s been taken,” Leander said. His clothes were dirty, as were Jeremiah’s. “We got lost in the tunnels and again in the damned dungeon. We only just arrived a half hour ago. I’ve spent the time since then behind closed doors with the military liaison that sent the team to the cabin after Sander. Your team also arrived after the first as backup. But Sander was already gone. They used explosives on the cabin door. There’s no way it would hold up to that.”

“Explosives? What?” Alarm crossed Chey’s face.

“Yes. A good portion of the front of the cabin has been damaged. The team found a little blood, too, but they don’t know whose it is. I had them send it for testing,” Leander said. Despite his obvious exhaustion, Leander could not stand still. He paced the office while Jeremiah slouched against a desk.

“You made it into the tunnels but Sander did not?” Elias wasn’t making the right connections. He needed a more linear timetable of events.

“He sent us ahead and said he was coming behind after bracing the door. None of us could have foreseen the use of explosives, though. The attackers had been using a battering ram before that and were making decent progress. The door would have given way eventually. Anyway, Jeremiah and I made it to the tunnel just as the explosion ripped through the cabin. I knew it was better to keep going than to go back. Jeremiah and I weren’t armed to fight off an army, and I decided then that we needed much more backup if we had any chance of saving Sander. What we didn’t expect was to get lost in the tunnels.” Leander muttered under his breath and made an impatient, flippant gesture with his hand.

“I heard the first strike with the battering ram,” Elias said. “I got through the tunnels as fast as I could, but I guess it wasn’t fast enough to get the team there to save Sander.”

Elias’s disappointment ran deep. If Sander died, or was already dead, the guilt would be impossible to ignore. He picked at the edge of the cast on his arm, thinking furiously about the turn of events and what it all meant.

“You made better time than we did. It took hours. Half the time I thought some of the attackers might be in the tunnel with us, which made the going slower when we had to turn back and find another route,” Leander said.

“The blue arrows. Sander told me to follow the blue arrows,” Elias added.

“We didn’t know what to look for.” Leander cursed and thrust a hand through his hair.

“I want to know who has him. And I want to know who the traitor is that gave the information away. Someone close to the family, who knew the intimate details of the trip, had to have been working for someone else.” Chey paced the room in obvious agitation.

“Mattias is working on that,” Leander said. “The liaison told me that Mattias is here but he’s closed up with a team of his own making. I’d guess they are men Mattias trusts. If they can figure out who the traitor is, they might be able to get him to talk.”

“Erick is at Kallaster with Eliana, asking questions. They’re probably getting intel from Mattias and working in tandem together,” Jeremiah added.

Elias studied both men. He could see the similarities between them now that they stood side by side. Although he guessed Leander to be around the same age as Sander, he moved with the grace and skill of a seasoned warrior. Age had not slowed him down. Elias had to consider whether his knowledge of Leander’s skill had come from seeing him in action or whether it was a vague recollection from times past. He also couldn’t help but wonder what adventures he and Jeremiah had been on before the accident and how close they had been. Best friends was not an adequate gauge to judge by.

“Good. Erick and Eliana are a force to be reckoned with when they want something. Speaking of my children, I want all of them put under extra protection, no matter if they like it or not,” Chey said.

“Mattias has already seen to that. It was one of the first things I asked the liaison when I got here,” Leander replied.

“I think someone should warn Somero and Imatra. Contact the kings directly so the news of Sander’s situation remains as contained as it can be,” Chey said. “You just never know what the ultimate plan is, and if we can prevent an attack on someone else by forewarning them, I think we should.”

“I’m of two minds on that,” Leander said. “If we do that, there’s a very good chance the media will find out. Technology has so many holes these days it’s almost impossible to pass ‘secure’ information anywhere. On the other hand, if we do nothing and Russia launches a full scale but covert attack on the entire coastline, Latvala will fall along with the rest. This has been the concern for years, but especially so in the past five or six. Tensions have never been higher. I see the wisdom in both options, but also the repercussions of each.”

“I’d rather the media find out than have the entire Baltic coastline under siege.” Chey paced in front of the fireplace, arms crossed over her chest.

Elias absorbed all the elements of the conversation. The semantics of warfare made little sense to him at this juncture, although he suspected he would have been in the thick of it as his former self.

A muffled chime interrupted the discussion. Leander dug into a pocket and pulled out his phone. “Yes?”

Chey and Jeremiah were instantly alert, as if they hoped Sander was on the line.

Elias opted for optimism. If it wasn’t Sander himself, perhaps it would be good news from the liaison.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Well, that’s not going to happen. Keep me informed,” Leander said. He slid the phone into his pocket and looked straight at Chey.

Even Elias could read the bad news in Leander’s expression. To his surprise, Chey didn’t collapse into a heap of tears or trembling hands.

“What is it?” she asked Leander in a steady voice.

“The attackers have called in a demand. They want Elias to be delivered to a specific location in three hours, or Sander dies.”