Dawn had broken long ago, though one could not tell from the sky, the clouds dark, angry, hanging low, thick, and heavy, gray, lashing rain and hail and snow, barely an improvement over the night. They had ridden through the Wood of Thorns all through the long and harrowing night, trying to get as far as they could from the Pandesians. Kyra had kept expecting them to be followed—and it drove her on without rest. Perhaps because the dark, the rain, or just having all those boys on their hands, they never tried to follow.

Hour passed hour and Kyra, freezing, scratched by branches, sleep-deprived, felt hollowed out. She felt as if she had been riding for years. She looked over and saw Dierdre equally miserable, and saw Leo whining, none of them having eaten since Volis. The irony of that whole encounter, Kyra realized, was that they had endangered their lives for food but had not managed to salvage any—and now they were even hungrier.

Kyra tried to focus on the quest ahead of her, on Ur, on the importance of her mission—but at this moment, sleep deprived, her eyes closing, all she wanted was a place to lie down and sleep, a warm fire, and a good meal. She was not even halfway across Escalon, and she wondered how she would ever possibly complete this quest; Ur felt like a million miles away.

Kyra studied her surroundings, peering through the rain, but found no sign of shelter, no boulders or caves or hollow tree trunks—nothing but this endless, mangled wood.

They rode and rode, mustering the strength to go on, Kyra and Dierdre too exhausted to speak to each other. Kyra did not know how much time had passed when she thought she began to hear, somewhere in the distance, a sound she had only heard a few times in her life: the crashing of waves.

Kyra looked up and blinked into the rain, blinded by it, wiping it from her eyes and face, and she wondered. Was it possible?

She listened closely, stopping, and Dierdre stopped beside her, each exchanging a curious glance.

“I hear ocean,” Kyra said, listening, confused by the sound of gushing water. “Yet it also sounds like…a river.”

She rode faster, encouraged, and as she neared heard what sounded like, perhaps, a waterfall. Her curiosity heightened.