“I saw where they were holding Sterling.”

Kai sat back on his heels as the words sank in. The mere two hours of sleep he’d managed had not been nearly enough, and his thoughts felt fuzzy around the edges.

“What is it?” Kestrel asked, coming over to join them. “What’s happened? Did you have a vision?”

Instead of answering, Seraiah asked a question of her own. “Have you ever heard of a seer being able to interact with their visions?”

Kai scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to think through the fog. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean by interact?” Kestrel asked.

“Like touch things or talk to someone and have them see and hear you,” Seraiah said, tilting her head to look up at Kestrel.

His eyes went to the cut on her throat. It was scabbed over now and barely visible in the moonlight. He might not have noticed it if he hadn’t already known it was there. “You spoke with Sterling?”

“Hold on. What? Can one of you tell me what’s going on?” Kestrel crossed her arms over her chest.

“I saw Sterling. I saw where they were holding her,” Seraiah paused and looked down at her hands twisted together in her lap, “and I think she might have seen me.”

She fell silent again, and he waited for her to continue when she was ready.

Kestrel had no such patience.

“And then what happened?” she demanded, dropping down next to them on the bedrolls.

“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping watch?” he asked.

She waved him off. “This is more important. Now tell us what happened from the beginning,” she said to Seraiah.

Seraiah looked at him, and he nodded his encouragement.

“I dreamed I was in a small room. It looked like a prison cell,” she said.

He listened intently as she explained how she’d seen Sterling wearing metal manacles and how she touched her hand.

She described the two men who came to collect her.

“Do you remember their exact wording?” he asked. Whatever they’d said might be a clue to who they were or who they were working with. He still suspected it was mages.

Seraiah pressed her lips together while she thought. “No. It was something about taking her to the meeting room. It sounded like they were handing her off to someone.”

“What can you remember about the room she was being held in?” Kestrel asked. “Give me every detail.”

“I think it was underground. It was cold and musty like a cellar might be. Everything was stone except for the door—that was wood, and I think there was a window. It was up really high, though, and barred.”

“Anything else?” Kestrel tapped her fingers against her leg, a nervous habit she’d had since childhood.

“Um, there was some straw in the corner and maybe a bucket? I didn’t look closely. I was focused on my sister.”

“You said you watched them take Sterling out of the room. Did you see anything beyond the door?” he asked.

He already had a suspicion he knew the place Seraiah was describing.

“No, it was too dark. Do you think it was some place in Baromund? If they were hiding her underground, then that could be why no one saw her. We could go back.” She looked so hopeful as she suggested it, he almost didn’t want to tell her she was wrong.

“There is no going back,” Kai said.

“But—”

“There would be no point,” Kestrel interrupted, “because that place isn’t in Baromund.”

Kai exchanged a look with her. He could tell she’d come to the same conclusion he had.

“Then you know where it is? Is it close? We have to go there.”

This time Kestrel was quiet, leaving him to explain their theory.

“The place you described sounds like an old prison. It hasn’t been used in years. Not since the early days of my mother’s reign. Maybe even before that. Not many would remember it, which would make it the perfect place for a trade. It also has portal access.”

“That could be a problem,” Kestrel added.

“I don’t understand,” Seraiah said, looking back and forth between the two of them. “What do you mean by portal access?”

“Portals are how we get from our world to yours and vice versa,” Kestrel explained. “We are heading for one now to get back to Nyrene. The prison happens to be closer than the one we were going to use.”

Kai knew what Seraiah’s next question would be before she asked it.

“Then why aren’t we going there?”

“The portal in the prison should be sealed, and while mages shouldn’t be able to unseal it, it doesn’t mean they haven’t,” he said, thinking of the Varanem. If the mages had found a way to alter the portals, they could have been the ones to let the beast in.

“Then Sterling might still be there. We have to go.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Kestrel shook her head. “It’s too dangerous, and if they did get access to the portal, they would be long gone by the time we arrived.”

“If they’re already gone, then how would it be dangerous?” Seraiah leaned forward.

“I mean, Sterling would already be long gone, but other mages could still be there. These are the people who tried to grab you in Baromund. If they got their hands on you, they would make you a slave to their whims. By going there, you would be running straight to them. Is that what you want?” Kestrel asked.

“What I want is my sister back,” Seraiah said, her hands clenching into fists.

Kestrel sighed. “You talk some sense into her,” she said to him.

Kai studied Seraiah’s face, his eyes dropping to the cut on her neck again. Ending the search for Sterling and rushing Seraiah to Nyrene had been a decision made in panic. He wanted to keep her out of danger, but it wasn’t his choice to make.

“Oh. Oh no,” Kestrel said, having seen the look on his face. “You can’t be serious.”

“She deserves a say in the matter. If we make her choices for her, then we are no better than them,” he said.

“You’ll let me go?” Seraiah asked.

“Not alone.”

Kestrel threw her hands up and climbed to her feet.

“And now where are you going?” he asked.

“To prepare the horses, and for the record, I think this is a very bad idea,” she said over her shoulder.

“Noted,” he said dryly. “You can tell us I told you so later.”

“Oh, I will, but it won’t be as satisfying if your corpse can’t hear it.”

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

The sun rose partway through their journey, and the green landscape gradually gave way to rock and dirt. Large boulders appeared here and there as though sprinkled about by a giant. This time Seraiah rode with Kestrel, who had been quiet since her declaration about this being a bad idea.

She’d been surprised it was Kai who had agreed to the idea of going to the prison. He had been so adamant about giving up the search for her safety, she’d expected him to argue against chasing her vision. She wasn’t sure what had changed his mind, but she was happy about it all the same.

Suddenly, Kestrel reined in their horse and dismounted. “Wait here,” she said, passing the reins to Seraiah.

She hoped the horse understood Kestrel’s words because she wasn’t sure what to do to stop it. “Where are you going?” she asked as Kai brought his horse up next to her.

Kestrel didn’t answer. She bent to study something in the dirt.

From on top of the horse, the only thing Seraiah could make out were hoof prints. There were more of them in the powdery dirt than their horses alone could create.

Kestrel looked up after a moment. “It’s blood.”

Kai dismounted, dropping into the dirt next to Kestrel. He studied the spot grimly. “Looks like a body was laying here. Someone small.”

Seraiah’s stomach twisted. She’d seen dried blood on Sterling in her vision, but this could be from whatever happened after she’d woken.

The horse shifted beneath her, and Seraiah decided she’d rather face Kestrel’s wrath than be on the beast any longer. “Are we close to the prison?” she asked, when she was safely on the ground again.

Kai surveyed the area. “It shouldn’t be too much further. If we didn’t know where it was, I imagine all we would have to do was follow those footprints.” He pointed to two sets of prints leading away from them.

Neither of them looked Sterling sized.

“We can leave our horses here,” Kai indicated a large boulder that would conceal their mounts, “and continue on foot.”

Kestrel stood. “I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

“If she isn’t here, we can carry on with the original plan,” Seraiah offered.

Kestrel gave her a pointed look, as if to say that wasn’t the problem, and Seraiah knew it.

She pretended not to see and turned away to follow the footprints.

It didn’t take long for Kai and Kestrel to catch up with her. They’d only walked for maybe five minutes before the footsteps disappeared.

Seraiah stared at the spot where the last one was. “Now what?”

“There should be a trap door around here somewhere. It was rarely used, but necessary in the case of emergency.” Kai scuffed his boots in the loose dirt, sending clouds of it into the air.

Seraiah coughed and covered her nose and mouth with her tunic as she watched Kai search.

“Here it is,” Kestrel said from a few feet away. She pulled on a metal ring, and the wooden door lifted with a groan.

Seraiah and Kai gathered around her to stare down at the rough stairs carved into the earth.

“Who wants to go first?” Kestrel asked.

Seraiah stayed quiet, her earlier bravado having faded as she stared down into the dark.

“No volunteers?” Kestrel said. “I’m shocked. I’ll have to pick someone then. Kai, why don’t you go?”

Seraiah looked up in time to catch the face he made at Kestrel. “Isn’t it your job to protect me?”

She would have thought he was serious if it weren’t for the smirk he was wearing.

“Even I can’t protect you from all of your stupid decisions,” Kestrel retorted.

“Then the least you could do is light the way for us, fire girl,” he shot back. “None of the present company can see in the dark.”

Fire girl?

“Fine,” Kestrel huffed. She cupped her hands together, staring at them intently. After a few moments, a glowing ball took form in her palms. It looked like little dancing flames. When Kestrel seemed satisfied with it, she took a step down into the tunnel.

Seraiah watched Kestrel transfer the orb to her left hand to allow her right to dangle next to her sword. Then she turned to Kai, one eyebrow raised. “Fire and water? I didn’t think those two elements worked well together.”

“They don’t,” he said, gesturing for Seraiah to step into the tunnel ahead of him.

Kestrel’s little sphere of light did a surprisingly good job of lighting up the dark. As they descended into the earth, the air grew colder and took on the musty smell Seraiah remembered from her dream.

The stairway ended at a narrow passage, only wide enough for them to walk single file. The dust was thick on the ground, but Kestrel’s light revealed it had been recently disturbed.

They followed the passage for a short distance before it branched off in two different directions.

“Which way?” Kestrel whispered.

The footsteps led in both directions.

“I don’t know,” Seraiah said. She hadn’t seen any of this in her dream.

Kai leaned in close to get a look. He was so close that she could feel the heat coming off of his body.

“Right,” he decided. “If we don’t find anything, we can always go back the other way.”

They hadn’t progressed far down the corridor before the doors appeared.

Seraiah stopped in her tracks, forcing Kai to stop with her as she stared at the first one.

“What is it?” Kestrel asked, doubling back, and holding her light up to the door.

“This is the place.” Seraiah brushed the rough wood with her fingertips. “This is just like the door I dreamed about.”

Kestrel held up the light, illuminating more of the hallway. There were at least a dozen identical doors stretching out on either side. “If we keep following the footprints, they should take us right to the cell.”

As they moved further, the doors began to have heavy metal bars across them. It was in front of one of these doors that the footprints stopped.

Seraiah and Kestrel moved aside to allow Kai to lift the heavy bar and open the door.

Seraiah followed him inside.

It was exactly the way she remembered it, and it was empty. No Sterling. She tried not to think about what that meant. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d known it would be this way, but it was still disheartening.

Kai bent down to retrieve something from the floor.

“What is it?” Seraiah asked.

He held it up for her to see. The light from Kestrel’s ball of flames danced off its tarnished surface. “A cup.” He touched his fingers to the inside. “And it’s still wet. She may not be here now, but she hasn’t been gone long.” He dropped the cup back to the floor with a clatter. “We might not be too late.”

For a moment, Seraiah’s heart lifted with hope before she quickly tamped it down.

They followed the footsteps back in the other direction, which led them to a short flight of stairs. At the top was another corridor. This one was short, dead-ending at a set of double doors.

“The portal should be this way,” Kai whispered. He drew his sword.

“Here, take this.” Kestrel passed Seraiah the ball of light. She was surprised to find it was cool against her palm.

“Ready?” Kai asked, as Kestrel drew her own sword and got into position next to him.

“Ready,” Kestrel answered.

Together, they pushed open the double doors.