Her Graceful War Song novel Chapter 1260

Violet saw how much weight Carissa had lost—she couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.

Heart aching, she pulled Carissa into an embrace, pressing Carissa's head onto her shoulder. "Lean on me. If crying makes you feel better, then let it out."

But Carissa suddenly shoved her away, scrambling to her feet and jumping over the stream. She ran a few steps forward, stopping at a tree.

Carved into the trunk of the tree was a clear and detailed orchid.

Carissa ran her fingers over the smooth lines of the flower, but her heart didn't lift. While the blossom was complete, the condition of the tree and the carving itself suggested that this was the mark Travis and Kyle had found.

It was a discovery, but it was also like finding nothing at all.

After a moment of quiet contemplation, she spoke. "Vivi, why don't you all head back down the mountain first? I'll stay here and keep looking. Since there's a mark here, there must be more further ahead."

Violet gave her a light tap on the head. "What are you thinking? We're in this together. If we leave, we leave together. If we stay, we stay together."

"But our provisions are running out," Carissa said.

"Well, we'll catch fish and forage for wild fruit," Violet reassured her. "I'm sure His Highness and Dylan have been getting by the same way."

One of Carissa's biggest worries was that, after so long in the mountains, they would run out of provisions. But there weren't many wild fruits around, so survival now meant hunting rabbits and mountain chickens. And along the way, they had already seen quite a few animals.

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On the western slope of the mountain, two men with scruffy beards sat in a small cave, gnawing on freshly roasted wild rabbit. Their clothes were covered in dirt and grease, and their hair was disheveled. They had just washed their beards in a nearby mountain spring, making them look a little less wild.

They hadn't done it for their appearance. With their beards so long, the constant consumption of meat would cause bits of food to get caught in the hair. At night, when they took turns sleeping, ants would crawl onto their faces, nibbling at the scraps. Generally, the ants weren't too bad, but when they came across a nest of poisonous ones, their faces would swell up with red, painful welts.

Right now, their faces and bodies were dotted with those red, swollen bumps. Luckily, they had brought along some of Sebastian's antidote pills. Otherwise, those two men would have been killed by the ants.