Kai checked over the horses while half listening to Sterling and Seraiah argue about something related to food. The two of them huddled around their small campfire. Their first since leaving the sand of the desert.
Even though the mages had fled, none of them wanted to remain around the Cave of Faces for long. They’d resupplied with what they could carry and headed back the way they’d come, pushing as hard as they’d dared. The journey had exhausted all of them, and offered little chance for him to get to know Sterling or discuss what had happened. Seraiah surely knew since the two sisters stuck together most of the time, but—
“Why are you standing there like a statue?” Kestrel asked.
Kai pulled his eyes away from the sisters and resumed running his hands over the horse, checking for sores and brushing away any lingering sand. He hadn’t heard Kestrel come up behind him.
“Care to share your thoughts?” Kestrel kept her voice low so she wouldn’t be overheard, not that Seraiah or Sterling were paying any attention to them.
“Nothing important,” he mumbled. “I was hoping now that we’re out of the desert, we can slow down and not spend every waking hour on the back of a horse. They surely need a break as much as we do.”
Kestrel nodded. “It doesn’t seem we’re being followed. Strange though.”
“Any other ideas?” Kai asked.
They’d discussed the battle once as they were preparing to leave, but neither of them could make sense of it. If Gavaran had Sterling this entire time, why had he let her slip away so easily?
“My guess is still the same. I don’t think he was willing to risk his life to keep her when he already has control of the kingdom.”
“But with Sterling being our well of power, sooner or later, she will be able to take it back from him. As long as she’s alive, he doesn’t stand a chance,” Kai said. “If he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep her, why didn’t he try to kill her and let the magic go to another?”
“Poor planning?” Kestrel offered. “We should take it as the gift it is and move quickly.”
Kai stepped back from the horse. “I thought you agreed with me that we could slow down.”
“Well, yes, but I meant we should move quickly to retake Nyrene. Even if—”
Kai cut her off. “We aren’t going back to Nyrene. Not yet.”
“What do you mean?” Even in the dim light of early evening, Kai could make out her startled expression.
“We need time. We need an army,” Kai said gently.
“Giving Gavaran time to solidify his power is the last thing we should do. We need to rip him out like the nasty little weed he is before he gets a chance to settle deep roots.”
Kai shook his head. “She isn’t ready. Perhaps that was Gavaran’s reason for letting us have her so easily. He assumed we’d take her right back to Nyrene for him. We’d be walking into his trap.”
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Kestrel bit her lip.
“I know you’re worried about Eryx, but we can’t go back now. If anything, we should stay here and work on training her magic.”
Someone cleared her throat. For the second time that night, someone had snuck up on Kai without his notice.
“We will be doing neither of those things,” Seraiah said.
Over her shoulder, Kai saw Sterling was poking at the fire with a stick.
She folded her arms over her chest. “Not that either of you bothered to ask, but we will be going home.”
“Home?” he echoed.
“Yes, you may do whatever you like, but Sterling and I will be returning to Ratha.”
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Sterling watched the flames lick up the length of her stick as she stabbed at the burning branches they’d collected.
“Well, that’s taken care of,” Seraiah said, coming back to the fire.
“What’s taken care of?” Sterling asked, dropping her stick and wiping her hands on her pants. They were rolled at the cuffs so they wouldn’t drag on the ground. Everything she wore was borrowed and made her almost miss the black robe the mages had given her. “Are we getting better food?”
“No, I informed them of our plans,” her sister said, staring at the flames. Them meaning the two elves. One of which she was related to. Sterling still hadn’t wrapped her head around it. It was one thing to be told she had another family, but it was another to meet them—or, well, one of them. They’d given her space since they’d rescued her, and Sterling had taken it. She was sure she hadn’t spoken more than five words to either of them.
But she would. One day. First, she needed to figure out what to say and how to ask for what she wanted.
“We have plans?” she asked Seraiah. “What plans?” No one had spoken of where they were headed, only that they were leaving the desert. Now that they’d accomplished that, Sterling supposed they needed a new goal.
“We will be returning to Ratha.” Seraiah didn’t look up from the fire as she said it.
“All of us? And since when? Who decided this?”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t think to ask me? What if I don’t want to go back there? It was miserable in Ratha, or did the snow disappear after I was kidnapped?”
“It might have,” Seraiah said, still not looking at her. “It’s been months since we were there. A lot could have changed in that time.”
“Or it could be exactly the same, but that’s what you want, right?” Sterling accused. “You want everything to go back to the way it was before. What if I can’t go back to pretending to be human?”
“You were perfectly happy before.”
“That was before I knew anything. Now I do.” Sterling shook her head. “I can’t pretend I belong there anymore when I know I don’t. I’m supposed to be the queen of a kingdom in this world. How do I go back to a normal human life, knowing that?”
Seraiah sighed. “This is why I didn’t say anything. Look, returning to Ratha will be for the best. I’ve told you what happened to Nyrene. It’s safer to go back home.”
“Yes, because Ratha wasn’t the place I was kidnapped from,” Sterling said dryly. She crossed her arms over her chest. “And what happens if I catch the blood fever? Can you protect me from that?”
Seraiah shot her an annoyed look, but kept quiet.
Now it was Sterling’s turn to sigh. “Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful for everything you went through to rescue me, but that doesn’t mean you get to control my life now. You can’t make decisions for me and you can’t protect me from everything. Besides, it’s not like that nightmare you had ever came true. The only thing it ever did was make you paranoid, and I don’t want to live like that.”
Seraiah’s annoyance seemed to melt away, and now her sister just looked tired. “What do you want to do then?”
Sterling thought for a moment. What did she want?
“I think—I think I want to understand who I am and where I come from. I want to know what it means to be a queen. Not that I’m sure I want the job,” she added.
“You can do that. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. We can return to Ratha and visit Papa, and you can learn as much as you want. Kai and Kestrel are more than willing to teach you whenever you’d like.”
Sterling looked to where her brother and the other elf were standing by the horses. They were pretending they weren’t listening, but Sterling was sure they’d heard every word.
“All right fine,” she said. “I’ll go back to Ratha, but I reserve the right to change my mind.”
Seraiah smiled. “As you wish, Your Highness.”