Summerfall Read Free Page A

been changing along with the rest of them, and Rinka had been too blind with love to notice until now.
    “Garen and the others will go to Erstadt,” she said, her voice low, “and they will do great things. They’ll represent our people with honor, and when they return with King Alban’s blessing, you’ll feel foolish that you ever let yourself be convinced of these things, and you’ll regret not having sent me along with them, for I would have made you proud.” Rinka left him there, sitting straight and cold in his chair, but turned at the door. “For ninety years you’ve kept me underground,” she said, “claiming it was to keep me safe, yet you allow your prejudiced friends to turn the wheels of war and breed more prejudice in the minds of good men like Garen. He is hardly older than me. Too young to be what you’re making him into—a soldier with a craving for violence.”
    Kaspar began to speak, but Rinka cut him off.
    “You disappoint me, Father,” she whispered. “If war ever does come, the blood of our dead will not be on King Alban’s hands. It will be on yours.”
    Rinka left, and each step she took away from her father left her feeling more unhinged. When she reached her chambers, she was a mess of hot rage and sadness, and a need for defiance.
    It was not the best state of mind in which to hatch a plan, but Rinka did it anyway.
    In the dead of night, as the chosen seven left Geschtohl in their feathered robes, with their attendants at their sides, their horses heavy-eyed and tired, Rinka snuck aboveground. She wore dark trousers, tunic, and boots, a fur-lined cloak, and her dark iron pendant, which Garen had given her, tied at her throat. It will help you use your magic more effectively , he had said. You won’t believe the progress we’ve been making at training, Rinka. You won’t believe the new pendants I’ve been designing. Pendants, and more. It focuses your magic. Sharpens it.
    Rinka had never made time for much practice with her pendant.It unsettled her, the heaviness of it around her neck, how it seemed to buzz against her skin, eager for her to use it. But she hoped seeing her wear it would soften Garen’s anger.
    Notes and maps shoved into her bag, her heart pounding with the thrill of escape, she crept out into the dew-glittering forest and followed the retinue north.
    *    *    *
    Garen was the first to discover her.
    They had been traveling north for a fortnight, and had passed out of the faery lands. It seemed to Rinka that the air here was different. It smelled of humans and their rich, red blood, and of palaces stretching to the skies. She could no longer smell the sea. Though her body ached from the hard travel and she lived in constant fear of her father’s guards catching up to her and dragging her back to Geschtohl, she could not stop grinning.
    Human country. Her thoughts went to the maps rolled up in her bag, which she studied every night by the light of the moon. The faery lands were vast, but human country was even more so, and she itched to know every mile of it.
    She laid out her bedroll close enough to spy on the others’ camp. They would rest for a few hours and begin again at dawn, and Rinka would follow. This was how she had proceeded since leaving Geschtohl, and this was how she would proceed until they reached Erstadt. What would happen then . . . well, she hadn’t quite planned that out yet.
    Then Garen found her.
    She had been trying to disguise her presence as best she could, but apparently not well enough. As she withdrew her maps from her bag, she heard a twig snap, felt a shift in the air near her.
    She whipped around and saw Garen, half-hidden in the shadows, his expression stern.
    “Rinka,” he said, and then came a weary sigh. He approached her in the gloom. “I was hoping it wasn’t you. Surely she wouldn’t dare to sneak out after us , I thought. What were you thinking? Kaspar will be furious. He probably is furious.” He shot a