Byrne drove them on like a man possessed—Raisa suspected that he’d have ordered them to ride all night if the horses could have stood it. As it was, they rose before light and rode long past dark—even though the days were growing longer as the fields greened around them and the lower slopes of the northern mountains lost their snowy cloaks.

Byrne had chosen to travel east, through northern Arden, and not directly north, as Raisa had thought to do. His reasoning was simple: “If Lord Bayar knows you were in Fetters Ford, he’ll expect you to enter the queendom via the West Wall. We need to do the unexpected.”

Arden’s forces had been drawn south, to fortify the border between Arden and Tamron, as Gerard’s sole surviving brother, King Geoff, awaited the results of the siege of Tamron Court. The countryside lay eerily quiet, as if the entire realm were holding its breath.

They couldn’t ride through the rough in the dark, so they chanced the Delphi Road through northern Arden, skirting the mountains, meaning to cross the lower Spirits via Marisa Pines Pass.

Raisa understood that speed was of the essence. There was no point in undertaking a long, arduous, dangerous journey through Arden and Tamron only to arrive home and find that her sister Mellony had been named princess heir in her place.

Besides, Captain Byrne wouldn’t want to spend any more time with an angry, moody, downhearted princess than he had to. And he was no doubt worried about Raisa’s mother, Marianna, the queen he was blood-sworn to serve and protect.

Raisa worried about her mother, too. Worry squeezed her insides like a too-tight corset.

Long days on horseback allowed far too much time for thinking. Raisa’s mind traveled faster than the horses—all the way to Fellsmarch, to the fairy castle on an island in the Dyrnnewater, to her mother’s privy chamber, where plans were no doubt being laid to take away Raisa’s throne.

An image of her mother and Lord Bayar came to her—their heads together over some critical document, Marianna’s hair like pale, beaten gold of the purest kind, the High Wizard’s silver and black as wood ashes.

When Raisa was at court, she and her mother had been like fire and ice, each intent on changing the form and nature of the other. Now Raisa hoped they could complement each other, each draw on the other’s strengths, become an alloy of steel, if only her mother would give her the chance.

Mellony couldn’t do it: she was only thirteen, and Mellony and Marianna were too much alike.

“Mother, please,” Raisa whispered. “Please wait for me.”