Now, tent raised and a merry campfire blazing in anticipation of the rain that would soon try its best to douse the flames, Zofi huddled next to the Talon she was starting to understand. Their thighs touched as they squeezed onto a makeshift bench built from rolled-up rucksacks.

She wondered what a passerby would say if they chanced upon the two. A Traveler and a Kolonyan riding through the desert together. A strange pairing, most would think.

Zofi longed for a world where that wouldn’t be strange. Where Travelers could ride with anyone they liked, aspire to any position they wished.

She could’ve started that. Been a Traveler queen like Claera, helped her people.

“Are you all right?” Vidal leaned across to thrust a spit of meat—a hare Zofi had shot earlier in the day—into the coals. “You’re uncharacteristically quiet.”

“I’m hungry, that’s all.” She lifted her hands to the fire. The warmth tickled her palms, yet did little to quell her surge of regret.

I failed my band. She would not be queen. She’d been forced out of Kolonya, sent home with her tail between her legs, and a Talon in tow, no less.

“Are you worried we won’t catch up to your band in time?” Vidal’s brows furrowed. “You said they’d be out west this time of year. We’re almost to the swamplands—”

“We should reach them by tomorrow morning.” Tomorrow, which would mark a week since her departure. If she’d had a horse all along, she could have made it to her band in two days, three at most. But since she’d had to walk for so long at the start…

She prayed she wasn’t too late.

“Then what’s bothering you?”

She hated how, in just the few short weeks they’d known each other, Vidal had learned to read her so well. “Just…” She gestured vaguely at their camp. Overhead, the rain clouds thundered. “This. My banishment. I’m on my way home to announce my failure.”

“What do you mean?” Vidal turned the hare over.

“My mother wanted me to play the Keep’s games. Elex wanted me to win the throne. Instead I got myself thrown out in disgrace.”

“Surely your band knew what you were up against.”

“That’s just it.” Her fists balled. She thought about all the judgment, all the prejudices and hatred she’d faced, simply for who she was. “I was supposed to—I wanted to change all that. I wanted to sit on the throne, not for me, but for them. I thought if I was crowned, maybe people would stop treating Travelers like we’re less than human.”