Yet she also felt that sometimes, it was the detours on a journey that ended up mattering most. She felt as if she were being tested. How many times had her father told her that the ultimate quest in life was to leave no man behind? No matter how far you went, how high you climbed, how far your renown spread, at the end of the day, all that mattered, he had said, all that man could be judged by, was not how far he had went, but how much he had looked back. How many he had taken with him.

She was beginning to understand. Here was her test: an open road to freedom, to safety. Or a road of peril, behind her, across that clearing, to free boys she did not even know. It was, she felt, the right thing to do. And was justice not what mattered most?

She felt it burning in her veins. She had to risk her life, whatever the danger. If she were to turn her back on them, who would she be?

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Dierdre asked, sounding incredulous.

Kyra nodded.

“It is a long ride across the clearing,” she said, a plan formulating in her mind. “But our horses are fast.”

“And then what?” Dierdre asked in disbelief. “That is an army out there. We cannot outrun them. And we cannot defeat them. It will mean our deaths.”

Kyra shook her head.

“We will make for the carriages. We will sever the chains, free those boys, and when they are on the loose, the Pandesians will have bigger problems to deal with.”

Dierdre smiled wide.

“You are wild and reckless,” she said. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

The two exchanged a smile, and without another word, they mounted their horses and took off, galloping into the clearing, throwing all caution to the wind.

The group burst across the clearing, Kyra’s heart slamming in her chest as she crossed the snow in the moonlight, hundreds of Pandesian soldiers gathered at the other end, none seeing her yet. She knew that if they detected her before they got close enough, they would never make it.

As they rode, Kyra clutching the sword she had snatched from a fallen soldier, none took notice. These men, apparently, were too distracted by their fires, their feasting, and their drink to be on the lookout for a small group charging in the middle of the night.

Kyra tore across the clearing, her adrenaline coursing so wildly that she could barely see straight. And as she neared the end of the clearing, the carriages looming closer, she saw the faces of the boys in finer detail, looking out desperately, and she watched as some of them began to spot her, to understand. Their faces, so desperate a moment before, suddenly filled with hope.

“Over here!” one boy yelled out, shattering the night’s silence.