One day slipped into the next as they made their way toward Baromund.

Kai kept to himself, only grunting responses when asked a question, and often slipping away into the trees when they stopped for the night.

And every night while Kai disappeared, Seraiah practiced trying to focus her visions using Sterling’s book. So far, nothing she tried had been successful. She couldn’t summon a vision when she was awake, nor did she dream once she fell asleep.

Maybe I should be grateful, she thought, setting the book aside for the night and pinching the bridge of her nose to relieve her headache. The nightmare hadn’t returned, and neither had any dreams about strange beasts. Maybe she should take it as a sign that Sterling wasn’t in immediate danger.

Seraiah didn’t feel reassured.

The next morning, they had only been traveling for about an hour when she noticed a change in the air. At first, she thought it was her imagination. Wishful thinking, maybe.

She no longer felt the need to pull her cloak close around her to ward off the cold. In fact, she almost felt too warm. When Kai unclasped his own cloak as they rode, and stuffed it into his saddlebag, she knew the rising temperature hadn’t been her imagination.

He noticed her watching. “We’re close to the edge of the forest now,” he said. “And then maybe two more days until we reach Baromund.”

Seraiah tried to picture Baromund on the maps she’d seen in Lady Zahara’s library, but kept coming up blank. The only city she remembered was the capital, far down to the south.

“Finally,” Kestrel spoke from in front of her. It was her turn to share her horse with Seraiah. “I need to see the sun again. I’m sick of being cold all the time.”

Seraiah couldn’t stop the snort that slipped out.

Kai raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m the one who should be sick of the cold. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live stuck in winter for five years?” She heard her voice rise with every word, but she didn’t care.

“The people we spoke to mentioned it had been a few years, but I assumed they meant two, maybe three at most. Not five,” Kestrel said.

“We try not to think about it, but it’s been five—almost six years now. Never able to shake the cold that’s seeped into your bones. Never seeing flowers bloom. The fresh food slowly disappeared until only the wealthy have access. Our once thriving market is now dead because of the snows blocking the mountain pass, and no one is daring enough to make the journey through the woods. Add in the fever and half the population of Ratha is dead. We have little hope left, and if you think about all those things too long, it makes it hard to go on.”

She felt the hot prick of tears behind her eyes. It took my step-mother, she thought, but didn’t say aloud. It didn’t matter that Jensira had lied about where she was from and who she really was. It didn’t matter that she could have helped Seraiah with her visions and explained what she was, but chose not to.

Jensira was the only mother Seraiah had ever known.

She took a deep breath and blinked the tears away. It wasn’t like her to rant about things out of her control. She was the level-headed one who didn’t complain about much and kept everything together, even in the face of her world falling apart. She was the one everyone relied on—especially when Mama passed—while Sterling was the one who was as quick to anger as she was to cry or laugh.

With all the events and new information overwhelming her, her emotions felt raw and close to the surface. Sometimes it felt like she was on the edge of a cliff and one push would send her tumbling down to a place Seraiah wasn’t sure she could pull herself out of—and she didn’t think she wanted to stop it either. It was only the thought of Sterling, scared and alone, that kept her moving.

After several minutes of silence passed, Kestrel spoke, “Do you think—”

“Yes, it has to be,” Kai said, before she could finish.

“But the timing seems off. Wouldn’t you expect—”

Kai cut her off again. “I’m not sure what to expect anymore. There is far more going on here than we know about, but I believe everything is connected.”

Seraiah was lost. “What are you talking about?”

“The weather,” he answered.

She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. When she glanced over at him, she caught the hint of a smile. He was teasing her, she realized.

She glared back at him. “I’m serious.”

“As am I.” The smile faded. “This endless winter, the Varanem, Sterling’s kidnapping, and her being in this world in the first place have to be connected. We need to figure out how and quickly. I think that’s going to be the key to getting Sterling back where she belongs.”

“Jensira must have known something,” Seraiah said.

“Most likely,” Kai said. “The problem, I’m finding, is that most of the people who knew something are dead, and it doesn’t seem they told anyone what they knew when they were living.”

“So, we’re stuck,” Kestrel declared. “Same as we’ve always been. What else is new?” She unclasped her own cloak, and Seraiah leaned back so she could pull it off.

Something about Kai’s comment struck a chord with Seraiah. “I think Jensira told my father something,” she blurted. As soon as the words were out, she realized how true they were.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What makes you say that?” Kai asked sharply. “Did he ever suggest he knew they were anything but human? Or mention he might be concerned for Sterling’s safety?”

“No, but he was acting strange when Sterling disappeared,” she told him. She fiddled with the clasp of her own cloak while she spoke, not quite ready to take it off.

“How so?”

“I told him I wanted to search for Sterling—to do something to get her back, and he forbid me.” She paused a moment, remembering the night of her sister’s disappearance. “He told me there was nothing we could do, and that I should go home.”

“So, you think he didn’t want you looking because he knew something?”

She nodded, slowly. It was making more sense to her now. Her father loved Sterling, and he would never have said what he had without a good reason. “I think Jensira must have told him what she knew, and maybe warned him about something like this. When I suggested it might be faeries who took her, he refused to look at me and told me it was nonsense, but he could have been trying to hide what he knew. Or my step-mother had him make a promise like she did with me.”

“What did she have you promise?” Kai asked.

Seraiah bit her lip, realizing she might have said too much. She hadn’t intended to tell anyone about the promise.

“We need every scrap of information we can get, no matter how unimportant it might seem,” Kai said. “If you know something, you need to tell us. We only want what’s best for Sterling.”

She stared at him. He appeared sincere. Despite their rocky introduction, she believed she could trust that he was telling the truth. Now, whether what they thought was best for Sterling was aligned was a different matter.

“On her deathbed, my step-mother made me promise to protect Sterling,” Seraiah said.

“Did she say from what?” Kestrel asked.

“She told me I couldn’t let them take her, but nothing more.”

Understanding dawned on Kai’s face. “You thought she might mean us.”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Seraiah admitted.

“And now?”

“I still don’t, though the more time I spend in your company, I’m less sure she was referring to you.”

“We will never know the truth because Jensira is no longer here to explain it to us,” Kestrel said. “It will be up to you to decide on your own. There is a reason she chose your family—chose you—to protect Sterling. Trust your instincts.”

“If I had to guess,” Kai said, “I would think Jensira was referring to whoever grabbed Sterling from Ratha. She is the queen of Nyrene, and anyone looking to hurt or weaken us would need to take Sterling off the board.”

“Off the board—as in kill her?” Seraiah didn’t care for that implication.

“No, I think that would be a last resort. If they were to kill her, the magic would pass to someone else.”

“Like you?”

“Kai wishes,” Kestrel teased.

“Hardly,” he said dryly. “But no, the magic, or rather control of the magic, only goes to females. Since there are no more females in my line, it would have to choose another.”

“So, you wouldn’t be a prince anymore then?” Seraiah asked.

He shrugged. “I suppose I wouldn’t be, and as much as I might like that idea, I don’t think that is their aim. If whoever took Sterling were to kill her, they would lose their advantage over us. The magic would move on, and the elves, thinking she was already dead, would be none the wiser. It would serve no purpose. That’s why I don’t think the faeries would take her. They would have to keep her alive and hidden, which would be more trouble to them than it’s worth. It’s someone else who wants to take power for themselves.”

The image of dark eyes from her nightmare flashed through Seraiah’s mind as Kai spoke. It was starting, just as she had feared. Seraiah knew what was going to happen to Sterling if they didn’t get her back.

And they weren’t planning to kill her.

“I think there is something else you should know,” she said. She told them about the nightmare as best she could, while the horses picked their way through the trees. “I don’t know how else to explain it other than Sterling looked like her usual self, but her eyes were different. It was like something inside of her had changed and now someone else was looking back at me from her eyes.”

“Mages,” Kai murmured when she finished. “Mages might have the means to twist her magic.”

“What are mages?”

“They’re humans. Like you, some of them are born with magical abilities, but most of them aren’t. They use other ways to get the magic they so desire,” he explained.

“Other ways like what?” She was almost afraid to know.

“Sacrifice. Rituals. Spells. If anyone had a reason to take an Elven queen as a grab of power, it would be them. When was the last time you had this dream, and did you tell anyone else about it?”

“Sterling was the only one I ever told, and she thought it was silly. It had been recurring for years, so I didn’t think anything of it when I had it again the night before Sterling went missing. The next time I dreamed, it was about the beast.”

“It might not be mages, Kai,” Kestrel said. “There could be others.”

He grunted in response. “We’ll see. But if it is, I understand why your father was trying to protect you, Seraiah. A seer is a valuable thing to possess—”

“I’m not a possession,” she said forcefully, cutting him off.

“I know you’re not, but I’m sure they would see it differently. Your father obviously wanted to stop you from coming into contact with them, which means—” he broke off, looking lost in thought.

“Which means,” Kestrel said, picking up where he had left off, “that it wasn’t mages who took Sterling from Ratha. They would have sensed Seraiah and taken her as well. Even I was able to sense something about her when she was halfway up the street.”

Seraiah recalled the strange feeling she’d had the first time she’d seen the two of them. “I wasn’t in the market when Sterling was taken. I was either still in the castle or on my way home.”

Kestrel shrugged, looking back over her shoulder. “I don’t think it would have mattered if they were close or not. They have spells and other things that make them much more attuned to that sort of thing than I am. If they caught wind of a seer—trained or not—they would have been after you in a heartbeat. If Kai is right, and it was the mages that wanted Sterling, then they sent someone else to do their dirty work.”

Seraiah fiddled with the clasp of her cloak again. She was now uncomfortably warm and had started to sweat. “Does any of this change our plan to go to Baromund?” she asked, as she carefully pulled her cloak off, laying it in between her and Kestrel. “Do you think we should go back and talk to my father? See what he knows? Maybe he could be in danger, too.”

“No,” Kai answered, guiding his horse around a fallen tree ahead of them. “We can’t go back now. If we did, we’d have no hope of picking up the trail. Your father should be perfectly safe. They got what they wanted already. However, we will need to be careful if Baromund is the intended drop-off place. The last thing we need is mages sending someone after us—or more specifically, you.”

----------------------------------------

It was mid-afternoon by the time they left the shelter of the trees. Seraiah squinted at the sudden brightness of the sun. She’d become accustomed to the semi-darkness of the woods.

When her eyes had adjusted, she gasped at the sight in front of her. She blinked once, twice—not trusting what her eyes were showing her.

Before them lay a lush green valley with rolling hills. Every way she looked was green and dotted with flowers.

Not a single pile of snow in sight.

The air smelled the way she remembered springtime smelling, fresh and new. She slid off Kestrel’s horse into the soft green grass. Taking two steps forward, she stumbled and fell to her knees, reaching out to grab one of the flowers.

She stared at its bright open face. Its center was a warm yellow, like the sun on a spring afternoon. Bright white petals circled that sun. Seraiah ran her finger over one of those petals, feeling its silky softness as the tears that had threatened earlier came bubbling back up and spilled down her cheeks.

“What are you doing?” Kai called out to her.

She hastened to wipe the tears from her cheeks before looking back. Kai and Kestrel were still mounted on their horses, watching her. She held up the flower for them to see.

“It’s a daisy.”