If her future was to become wife and mother, how much more important would success be beforehand? After more than a hundred miles logged, she had yet to achieve a single goal. Would it all fade into the hazy blur of a wild but pointless youth with no achievement to anchor it?

“The future of the empire is in peril,” she replied then. “The Horn of Gylindora was the key to victory in the Great War, and it will be needed again. But not only is that key lost, most don’t know it ever existed. If I can find and return it to safekeeping for the day it will be needed, then . . .” She sighed wistfully. “Then perhaps my life will have been worth something.”

Farilane cast her gaze at each of them, studying their faces. Each was a mystery: one masked within layers of built-up dirt, the other clean, friendly, and comfortable, but wearing a mask nonetheless. Each had volunteered to join her on a trip before she knew she was going, proving there was more at play than the facts she had at hand. One or both might be plotting against her. But to what end? I am the princess, but I am also worthless. I will not inherit the throne. My children will not rule. I can’t even arrange to build a house for books to save what little legacy I have. And if they think to blackmail the empire with my life, they are in for an awful surprise.

Farilane had long suspected that the reason she’d been allowed to indulge in her wild adventures abroad was that her family cherished a secret hope that something would go wrong, and she would simply disappear.

This is my last chance—to succeed, or to provide the perfect birthday gift to my family.

Farilane loved a good mystery, and here she had three: the search for an ancient relic of immense power lost in the dusts of time; an awkward, ignorant carpenter who was also the chosen representative of a miracle-working cult leader; and the successor to her best—recently deceased—friend who had known her better than anyone. She could no more refuse this opportunity than a young bird could refuse to fly. And there was one more thing: an additional ethereal sensation that she couldn’t fully categorize or understand. This journey felt drenched in portent, each step she took carried an awkward weight, as if she bore more than her body.

“So tell me,” she said to Kile since she knew Sheldon had made his decision with full knowledge of the facts and needed no second chance to bow out, “do you still wish to come with me?”

Kile looked up and after a brief observation said, “The sky is blue.”

“Yes, it is,” she replied, unsure of what he was getting at.

“And look there.” He pointed. “See that beautiful white cloud? And listen to the birds. Isn’t their song beautiful?”