“Tell me what you see.” Anouk’s energy seemed to perk up. It must be tense deceiving the most powerful man in Winterune. A man with two Banes and a quest for control. A man she’d married.

Bastiaan set his pack against a stone and left them at a jog. Despite the physical exhaustion from a hard day’s ride, moving his limbs felt good. It got his blood flowing, filled his lungs with icy air. He pushed through the crunch of old snow and ducked under the brittle evergreen branches. If King Mattias’s army had already reached the Well, they’d be camped at the beginning of the Trials. There wasn’t enough room at the actual Well for them all to fit through the ravine.

But maybe the army left a gap in their camp that he, Runt, and Anouk would be able to weave through to reach the Well first.

Bastiaan broke through the trees at the top of the hill and navigated to the edge of the rock cropping. The sun had nearly set but the alpenglow left a pink hue over the valley below. He stopped, chest heaving, and focused on the land between him and the mountain that housed the Well.

He peered at the base of the mountain—where the Trials began. Nothing more than a wall of mist marked the start of the first Trial.

No people. No army. King Mattias had not arrived. Neither had Sven.

How could that be? Had he passed them without knowing it?

To the right of the valley a long line of forest housed the still-frozen canals. That was likely where Sven and his followers were. He wouldn’t travel in the open plains like King Mattias. Could Mattias have made it through the Trials already and to the Well?

For all Bastiaan could see, the valley and the Trials were as untouched as when he took in this view from the Stillness. Where was everyone?

He stepped farther out on the rock cropping to get a wider view—and spotted a dark mass of humans far to the northwest, like an ink drop on a lumpy, unfurled map.

King Mattias’s army was not at the Well—they weren’t even on the path to the Well.

Their camp lay far to the left, beyond the Well mountain completely.

And that’s when Bastiaan understood. This quest of the king’s had never been about the Well of Talents.

King Mattias had taken his army to the Nightwell.

Chapter 37
Bastiaan

“This is our chance,” Anouk said when Bastiaan gave a report. “The path to the Well of Talents is ours to take.”

“King Mattias is planning something sinister at the Nightwell.”

“What you call sinister some might call strategic.” Her calm response coiled his muscles further. Could she not see the seriousness of this revelation? Would she really defend her husband in a situation like this?