Seraiah blinked slowly, not entirely trusting her eyes. Perhaps it was her mind playing tricks on her after not getting enough sleep. But no, when she looked again, it was the same.

The stranger who stood before her looked so much like Sterling. He had the same silvery gray hair, eye shape, and those pointed ears.

The dark-haired girl had the same ones.

Sterling had always assumed they were a birth defect passed down from Mama. Both Mama and Sterling had kept them hidden beneath their hair, so others wouldn’t notice them and comment on their odd shape.

The longer Seraiah stared, the more similarities she picked out, down to the way he held his head with a slight tilt to the right, chin jutted out.

Confident. Proud. A little defiant.

She wasn’t close enough to make out the color of his eyes, but she would bet they were the same stormy gray. He wasn’t Sterling’s twin exactly, but the resemblance was uncanny.

“Who are you?” Seraiah whispered, more to herself than to him. Her step-mother had never mentioned anything about having a son, but the man who stood before her could only be Sterling’s older brother.

The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “I’m not sure you would believe me if I told you, but I will answer to Kai. Kestrel is right; we need to be moving. There is a lot of ground to cover.”

He lifted his hood again, shrouding his face in shadow, and moved off into the trees after the other girl.

Seraiah hesitated. Did she trust these strangers who still hadn’t explained the reason they were so willing to help her?

She thought about Sterling, alone and afraid somewhere far from home. It was enough to get her moving, propelling her forward after the others.

It didn’t matter if she trusted them. Right now, they were her—and Sterling’s—only option.

The underbrush kept grabbing at her skirt.

Seraiah cursed under her breath as she untangled her hem from yet another thorny bush. Kai and Kestrel were a short distance ahead of her, able to move much more quickly than she was. After some not-so-gentle tugging, the bush released her hem, but not before leaving a long red scratch on her hand for Seraiah to remember it by.

Now free, she hurried to catch up, nearly tripping over a rock buried in the snow. It was hard to see in the gloom with the trees pressing in around her. Their boughs, heavy with snow, blocked a majority of the early morning sunlight.

“Can you at least try to be quiet?” Sterling’s look-alike snapped. “We don’t need every living thing in the area to know our location.”

Seraiah responded with a glare. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t as used to traipsing through forests as he apparently was. He also had the advantage of not wearing a wool dress that caught on everything.

“Kai. Be nice,” Kestrel said, warning in her tone, as she suddenly appeared at Seraiah’s elbow. “Feel free to ignore him,” she said to Seraiah. “His Royal Highness is not a morning person. The Grumbling Bear Inn, where we were staying, could have been named after him.”

“I heard that,” Kai said, over his shoulder.

Kestrel grinned at her, and Seraiah couldn’t help but smile back. Under different circumstances, maybe they would have been friends.

“It’s not much farther to where we left our horses,” she told Seraiah. “Then you won’t have to worry about keeping up.”

She’d likely meant it to be reassuring, but Seraiah swallowed nervously. With no experience, she wouldn’t be much better at riding than stumbling along on foot, but she didn’t say so. They would find out soon enough.

Kai took the lead, leaving Kestrel and Seraiah to bring up the rear. The other girl stayed by her side whenever the trees allowed, and when they didn’t, she dropped back, letting Seraiah go ahead.

They went along like this in silence until Seraiah worked up the nerve to ask Kestrel a question.

“Were you teasing Kai when you called him His Royal Highness earlier?” She kept her voice low, hoping he wouldn’t hear her.

“Not exactly,” Kestrel answered. She lobbed a question of her own before Seraiah could ask what she meant by that. “Did Jensira ever tell you about her life before she arrived in Ratha?”

Seraiah’s guard instantly went up at the familiar use of Mama’s name. “Did you know her?” she asked instead of answering the question.

Mama had made her promise to protect Sterling and not let them take her. What if Mama’s warning hadn’t been about whoever Sterling was with now, but someone else? Until she knew more about her traveling companions, perhaps she should be careful how much she shared with them.

Kestrel shook her head. “Never met her, but Kai did many years ago. She was your step-mother? Your friend told us you lost her to the blood fever.”

“Yes,” she said, but didn’t elaborate any further as she focused on climbing over a fallen log. She didn’t understand why they’d left their horses so far away.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Seraiah mumbled. “To answer your first question, no, she never spoke about her previous life. Whenever I asked, she would always say she would tell me one day when I was older, but that day never came.”

“I see.” Kestrel sounded disappointed.

“Is Kai related to Sterling and Jensira?”

Kestrel was silent for so long that Seraiah thought she wasn’t going to answer. She snuck a glance over to see the other woman biting her lip, like she was debating what or how much to say.

Finally, Kestrel spoke, “I think it will be better to let Kai tell you about that, but for the record, I was teasing Kai when I called him His Royal Highness, though it’s technically his title.”

Seraiah frowned. Her brain turned over this new bit of information, trying to fit the pieces of what she knew together. “Are you royal?” she asked, before belatedly realizing it might be a rude question.

Kestrel snorted as if the idea was ridiculous. “No, I am the Prince’s Commander.”

“Oh, I thought maybe with the way you speak to each other . . .” Seraiah trailed off, embarrassed.

Kestrel smirked. “We’re friends—we grew up together, so Kai puts up with my impertinence. Oh, and here we are,” she said, putting an end to Seraiah’s questioning.

She looked up to see two horses, saddled and waiting. They’d looped their reins over a low-hanging branch so the animals wouldn’t wander off.

She eyed the beasts. Were horses always so tall? Maybe she should ask to walk instead, since there were only two of them.

Kestrel took the reins of the smaller horse while Kai took the other. Seraiah watched him swing easily into the saddle, her eyes catching on the sword strapped over a pack behind him. When she checked, she saw Kestrel’s horse had a similar weapon.

It seemed they were more prepared than she’d thought. When she’d initially seen them waiting for her outside the forest, she’d been concerned to note they weren’t carrying anything in the way of supplies.

“I’ll take that,” Kestrel said, holding out a hand for Seraiah’s satchel. “You can ride with me for now, but you’ll have to switch off to give the horses a break.”

Seraiah tried not to let the relief show on her face. While she didn’t know either of them very well, she felt much more comfortable around the friendly woman than the grumpy prince.

“Do you need help to mount?” Kestrel asked, after she’d secured the satchel with her other things.

“Well, you see . . . I’ve never ridden a horse before,” Seraiah confessed.

“Nothing to worry about,” Kestrel reassured her.

She instructed Seraiah how to stand and where to hold on. “I’ll give you a boost, and all you have to do is swing your leg over the horse’s back. Your skirt will bunch up, but you’ll be more secure than attempting to ride side-saddle.”

It sounded easy enough in theory, but in practice—it was another matter.

“On three,” Kestrel counted to three and then boosted Seraiah into the air.

Unfortunately, Seraiah didn’t get quite high enough, and promptly belly-flopped onto the horse’s side. The horse snorted, taking a few steps forward, and Seraiah lost her grip, sliding off and landing hard on the frozen ground.

“Whoa.” Kestrel grabbed the horse’s bridle before he could get far.

“Everything all right over there?” Kai called.

Seraiah’s face heated as she stood and brushed off her tender backside.

“Yes, we’re fine,” Kestrel answered him. Turning back to Seraiah, she said, “Try again.”

It took two more tries before Seraiah successfully made it on the horse and only one for Kestrel to mount in front of her.

“You might want to hold on, at least until you get used to it,” Kestrel warned her, picking up the reins and clicking to the horse to get him moving.

Seraiah swallowed her fear as the animal shifted beneath her. She could do this. She would do this—for Sterling.

They were moving much too slow for his taste. Kai had tried to rein in his impatience, but every moment they wasted was another chance for his missing sister to get further away. The short walk through the woods to their mounts had taken twice as much time as it should have, and then even more time was wasted while Kestrel taught the human girl how to get on a horse.

Seer or not, she seemed more of a hindrance to his search than a resource.

He’d listened in on the conversation between her and Kestrel about Jensira and learned nothing. Seraiah had admitted to not knowing anything about Jensira or where she had come from or why.

It wasn’t too late to send her back to the city. They were still close enough that she could find her way back on her own.

When he glanced back, Seraiah’s eyes looked like they were closed tight, but Kestrel was looking right at him. She raised a brow in question. He shook his head and turned around.

Kai knew if he suggested leaving her, Kestrel would have his head. When Kestrel had a feeling, those feelings were more often than not right. If she thought this girl would help their search, then he would have to suffer.

He guided his horse carefully between the trees. Based on what they’d learned from Seraiah’s friend, it had been roughly a day and a half since his sister had gone missing. More than likely, she’d been kidnapped and taken out of the city. The only way to leave was the way they had come in: through the woods. He knew from their initial journey that even if her captors were riding at the fastest speed they could, they’d still be somewhere in these trees. It had snowed since, but with no other travel in or out of Ratha, there still might be signs of them.