Chapter Seventeen

The five of them hiked through the trees and straight as they could across the ridgeline. The last of the morning fog had lifted by the time they stepped back out of the trees and the great hills of the south became visible. They called them the Dividing Mountains; an enormous, rugged mountain range that stretched east to west for many miles, separating the northern territories of Ravenna from the south. It was not often that Lyda and Adea came this far south to get a good view of the mountains, at least not on their own, and Adea was soaking it all in.

The sun was nearing midday as they made their way into a clearing atop the southern ridge, following a large, running creek that flowed out of the trees and cut down into the rocky clearing before splitting off toward opposite ends of the ridgeline. Adea found it to be a stunning sight with the mountains in the distance, and they decided this was the perfec