Then again, wasn’t this entire quest foolish in its own way? Being forbidden to tell, for whatever reason he could not hope to guess. And what if he managed to recover his mother?

Nonsense! Absurd! Utterly, completely.

And so began the war in Johnis’s soul as his horse wandered into the forest, stopping at patches of grass to feed on the sweet Wiklis flowers. Johnis hardly noticed. With each passing minute his mind sank deeper into the details of a plan he knew was as wrong as it was right.

In the end it was his mother’s voice that won him over.

Johnisss . . . bring me back.

He’d heard that, right? He’d heard her precious voice crying to be heard in the desert. The Dark One hadn’t plotted for him to hear the voice as a lure; no, that wasn’t it. No, the Dark One had tried to smother her cry! But Johnis had heard the order from his mother.

And now he would go do it.

As suddenly as the thought had first presented itself to him, it now became one with him. He was meant to execute this plan or die trying. He was chosen for this day as much as he was chosen to recover the missing Books of History.

Johnis lifted his head, saw that he was deep in the forest, jerked the horse around, and spurred it into a gallop.

The trees gave way to the outskirts of the village ten minutes later. The Forest Dwellers numbered over a hundred thousand among all seven forests, and of those, twenty thousand lived here in Middle Forest. But the houses were woven through trees except at the center, giving the city a village feel, which was why they still called it a village.

Johnis bore down on the wide road that split the village in two, and galloped through the main gate. He ignored the few calls from well-wishers crying out to their newly appointed hero and thundered past. Time was running low, so very low now—the Horde was retreating deeper into the desert with each passing hour!

The barracks, please let her be in the barracks, he prayed.

He slid from his horse while he was still moving, landed in a run, and barged into the barracks Silvie was holed up in, one of twenty similar buildings on the edge of the village.

The barracks were constructed of wood planks, ten simple rooms per barracks, with five bunks in each room. One blanket per bed. Most of the Guard lived in their own homes, which provided more comfort, but the temporary accommodations were all a fighter who’d come from another forest needed.

Johnis had rehearsed the role he would play from this point forward, and he adopted the correct attitude as he banged through the barracks door. The smell of sweat filled his nostrils.