“I’m here, I’m here!” she tried to soothe.

“You see, Apprentice”—the governor-advisor nodded at the boy—“what we are asking.”

Alba looked again at Rae. Hand still resting on the wolf, the girl shuddered as she stared at the children. To reveal the heir to the king… Alba shook her head, unable even to bring herself to think it. How could she choose? How could she weigh one life against another? Even many others?

Seeing Alba’s gaze, the heir’s eyes grew wide and pleading. “A-A-Apprentice? A-Alba?” She hesitated over what to call her. “Tell them. I’m the one they search for. Please.” Voice cracking, she gestured at the children. “I never thought… so many… I cannot…”

“You don’t know”—Alba whispered—“what they’ll do. Why they’ve searched so. It’s my fault… the prophecy I gave the king—he’s tried for years to stop… he’s been so desperate… he abandoned you, your twin, in the mountains…” The words tumbled out of her in a rush; she saw at once she should not have said so much.

The girl, blenching, seemed suddenly emptied of air. “Twin?” she managed at last. The question was quiet and sad.

Alba swallowed. “A… a brother,” she murmured, throat tight. “I think a brother. I don’t… I don’t know what happened. I searched but… never saw. I’m so sorry.”

The girl’s arm tightened about the wolf. “I was found alone.” She spoke so quietly Alba was not sure she was even meant to hear.

“Alba, Alba,” cried the little boy across the room, still floundering in the advisor’s grasp.

The heir raised her eyes to Alba’s. “Tell them,” she said.

Alba took in Rae’s twig-lashed skin, her earth-dusted feet, her sleep-drained eyes. Something must have propelled her across unfamiliar land, she thought; something must have set her running. Not fear. Not only fear. For an instant, Alba saw Rae as she’d been that day at the market, standing in the cart, ready to sprint to her father’s side, ready to risk her life to help him rise from the mud. The girl wore the same determined expression now.

“My prophecy.” Alba cleared her throat, but the words she managed to speak were strained, hardly more than a whisper. “You must not harm her—”

“So it is true! She is the heir,” the governor-advisor crowed. “Go on, go on”—he flapped a pale sleeve, setting the guards into a flurry of motion, herding the children away—“bring this one back below!”

“Heir?” Rae murmured, confused. “Why am I the heir?”

Air, Alba understood at once. She was asking Why am I the air? She did not know the word heir; she did not understand what she had admitted to being.

“The king is your… brother,” she said quickly, regretting every word. The girl’s eyes filled with dim panic; her lips fell into a horrified O. “You are next in line for his cro—wait!” she cried, as a guard grabbed her. “You must… MY PROPHECY—” she tried to shout in her oracle-voice, but a hand clapped over her mouth, and the advisor waggled his finger for her to hush.