CHAPTER 12
THE ROAD TO THE SEA
From our hands, the harvest. From soil, the strength.
– The Creed of House Sorrel
The next morning brought a cold frost with it – Kara’s breath curled in front of her as she walked. In early autumn. Wrong. Wrong enough to make her wonder if it was another effect of the stolen Shard. Her mind raced despite exhaustion. She hadn’t slept at all.
Just before she reached the City stables, a voice sounded from the alleyway behind her. “Kara, wait.”
She turned, surprised. “Sienna?”
“I heard about the Shard – about Sebastian. Messenger hawks were coming and going all night.” Sienna searched her face. “Where are you going?”
Kara hesitated. “They want me to bring him back.”
“What? Why you? That’s Thorne duty,” Sienna said, shocked.
“His father won’t send his soldiers after him.”
Kara made to walk past but Sienna grabbed her arm. “You can’t go.”
Kara looked her directly in the eye. “They’ve given me an order. I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Sienna responded hotly, her grip tightening. “I know your feelings for him. This is too much to ask of you.”
“He stole a Shard. That’s treason,” she cried, wiping tears from her cheeks. “You know the law... it’s absolute.”
Sienna looked at her for a long moment, saying nothing.
“I wish I knew why. Why did he do this? What was he thinking?” Kara asked desperately.
Sienna stepped closer. “I don’t know, Kara.” She was quiet for a moment. “He’s not going to come quietly. Even for you. He’ll fight.”
“I can get close enough,” Kara said, though her voice faltered. “They only want me to put him to sleep.”
Sienna’s voice dropped low. “Kara, can you bring him back? For trial? Maybe even execution?”
The words tore open the thought she’d buried in the Council chamber. It clawed its way back, sharp and merciless. Hearing it aloud made her flinch. Her thoughts flooded with visions of Sebastian dragged to the pyre, or hanging from the noose.
Kara took a breath. “I–I can’t let him take the other Shards.”
“That’s not what I asked. And you know it.” Sienna hesitated. “What if you let Sebastian go?”
Kara stared at her. She couldn’t have heard that right. Her fury ignited. “Do you really think I’d put him before Vallenna?”
Sienna didn’t back down. “No. But I feel your confusion–”
“Stop.” Kara stepped back, shaking. “Stop using your magic on me.”
Sienna looked stunned.
“My feelings are private, Sienna,” Kara snapped. The words came out harsher than she intended, but it felt like betrayal – dragging her secret into the light and weaponising it like that.
Guilt flashed across Sienna’s face, but she masked it quickly. “He might not have a good reason for this, Kara. There might be something darker in him we didn’t see.”
“Do you believe that?”
Sienna hesitated. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
Kara lifted her chin. “If he is doing this to hurt Vallenna, then he deserves his punishment.” Her voice broke slightly – but the conviction behind the words was real. “I’ll find out the truth of it myself.”
She turned on her heel. “Goodbye, Sienna,” she said, stalking off – fear and fury burning in equal measure.
Sienna didn’t call after her this time. Kara was glad of it. She didn’t want to fight. She wanted answers.
Answers that only Sebastian Thorne could give her.
Kara’s hands were still shaking by the time she reached the stables. Henry was already waiting with Whisper and a grey valmare she didn’t recognise – but it looked strong and well-rested. Wordlessly, she took the reins and mounted, pulling her thick travelling cloak tighter against the cold.
“Ready?” he asked.
“It’s three days’ ride to the Water Shard,” Kara said once she was settled in the saddle. “We need to make it in two.”
“We should talk about it,” Henry said as he mounted with careful precision, clearly less practised than her but determined not to show it, sitting straighter and steadier than she expected. When she said nothing he continued, “What we’re going to do when we find him.”
“We can discuss it later, when we make camp,” she replied curtly.
“It wouldn’t hurt to have a plan,” Henry insisted.
“Well, you plan. I’ll ride.”
“Kara–”
But she cut over him. “It’s quicker through Sorrel territory. We need to ride hard.”
“I’m with you,” he assured her.
Don’t slow me down.
She bit the thought back but he caught her expression, and smiled slightly. “What? I can keep up.”
“You’d better,” she said. Without another word, she urged Whisper forward through the gates of Vallenna City.
The fields beyond were still green even with the brittle edge of frost, the changing leaves crisping at their tips, though autumn had only just begun.
The icy air stung her cheeks as the city walls fell away.
Somewhere ahead lay Sorrel’s borderlands, and beyond them, the road to Lyra – and the Water Shard. If Sebastian reached it first...
She didn’t know how the land would react to the Water Shard being taken but if the Durent and Sorrel reports were anything to go by, the consequences would be dire. She couldn’t let that happen. So she kept riding. Towards Sebastian.
By late afternoon, they crossed into Sorrel territory. Kara had thought they might make camp here – the Providers’ lands were usually rich, easy to source food from.
Not anymore.
Merrick hadn’t exaggerated. Some of the fields were healthy enough, but others stood in ruin – stalks blackened, leaves curling in on themselves, as though a disease had swept through in the night.
And it was spreading. Creeping towards the edges of the healthy fields.
The people were wary. The smell of wood smoke carried from farmsteads, but their shutters stayed closed.
Those working in the fields stared as they approached with narrow, suspicious glances.
More than once she spotted people gathering up the healthy crops and hurrying them away in baskets under cloaks, avoiding strangers’ eyes.
That kind of hoarding didn’t happen in Vallenna.
And never amongst the Providers. The people were afraid.
As they passed through a village square, she caught muttered fragments from worried townspeople.
“First the fields, next it’ll be our magic,” an old woman said, clutching her pail.
“They say the ground shook in Durent,” a younger woman added. “Whole buildings fell.”
“That Thorne did this,” a man muttered, sharper than the rest. “We should string our bows and hunt him ourselves.”
The younger woman looked stricken. “But the Council will catch–”
“If it were up to me–” The man cut across her, dragging a thumb across his throat in a wordless, vicious gesture, earning a few grim nods.
Kara’s fingers squeezed around the reins and she shot Henry a dark look.
Both pulled their hoods lower, spurring their valmares to a quicker pace.
Their orders weren’t public – and the last thing they needed was to explain themselves in Evelyn Sorrel’s lands, or worse, let word reach Sebastian.
As the light failed, they found a sheltered hollow surrounded by trees at a field’s edge, and made camp.
The evening grew bitter as Henry gathered firewood and Kara tended the valmares.
By the time the fire was lit, the silence between them had grown heavy.
She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the flames.
Her thoughts were loud, full of questions she couldn’t voice.
When she found Sebastian – if she found him – he wouldn’t simply tell her the truth.
He’d lie. Deflect. Maybe even fight her.
But what if she could find out the truth without needing him to speak it?
“Henry... I want you to teach me your magic.”
He frowned. “My magic?”
“Mind-reading. Or at least the basics.” She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug she didn’t feel. “We’re going to be married, aren’t we? I should know how it works. You can read me easily enough–”
He cut her off, his face serious. “I wouldn’t read you without permission.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t,” she said quickly. He didn’t pry – he hadn’t once asked how she felt about bringing an Arcalon teammate back to his death. How would she even answer? “Can someone protect their mind from it?”
He raised a brow. “Planning to keep secrets from me already?”
“Maybe I’d just like a fair fight.” She tried to make it teasing, light.
He considered her before he answered. “Some people naturally have minds like open doors. Others... you have to break against their barriers to get in. But yes, mental shielding can be taught.”
“I’d like to learn – if only to be able to return the favour,” she smiled at him.
Henry leaned back on one hand, studying her over the firelight. “It’s dangerous,” he said eventually. “Not reading fleeting thoughts, that’s generally harmless. But if you go too deep, you can injure someone’s mind, even your own.” He paused. “Permanent damage that emerald can’t heal.”
She looked away. “If you don’t think it’s a good idea, you don’t have to.”
He tilted his head. “Hmm... but I thought you wanted to know what I’m thinking about you.”
When she looked up, he was smiling at her. A blush rose up her cheeks and she forced a laugh to cover how uncomfortable it made her. “So, will you teach me or not?”
“Okay,” he said. “The basics. Though we’re not really encouraged to dabble outside our own gifts. Most are told to master one path, not chase another.”
Kara knew that, her father had told her that her whole life.
“Still you’re Hale,” Henry said. “Air-born like me. It should come easier.”
He shifted closer to sit directly opposite her. The fire threw light across his face, catching the faint dimple in his cheek.
“Let’s do it,” he said once he was comfortable.
She blinked. “You mean right now–”
“I’ll keep my thoughts simple. Think of it like listening for a voice in another room. You’re just leaning closer.”
She hesitated, curling her hands in her lap. “And if I hear something I don’t want to?”
“Then you stop.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
Kara swallowed, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She opened her palms and called for her magic, feeling its familiar warmth inside her. Only this time, instead of reaching towards flesh and muscle, to heal, she reached for thought.
It was disorientating. Like trying to read a blurred scroll by candlelight. At first, she could only hear the sounds of their breath. She couldn’t pick anything out, never mind a specific thought.
“You can do this, Kara,” Henry said encouragingly.
She urged her magic deeper and at the edge of her consciousness, only faint, there was a whisper that wasn’t hers.
“Good,” Henry said. “Don’t chase it. Let it come to you.”
The whisper sharpened, and a fragment of thought broke through.
She’s better at this than she thinks.
She gasped. It wasn’t her voice. The shock snapped her eyes open – only for her to find her usual emerald light gone, replaced by a pale, silvery mint that hovered at Henry’s temples. The sight tugged her fully back into herself.
Henry smiled. “See? The basics.”
“I heard you,” she said, half-breathless.
“Yes. First time as well,” he said approvingly.
“My magic... it’s changed colour,” she said wonderingly. It reminded her of Sebastian... the russet flowing through her emerald. The memory hit hard. She shoved it away.
“It’s pretty,” Henry said, nodding towards the pale tendrils now drifting back to her palms. “But loud. If you’re walking into a mind, you want to be quiet.”
Kara looked up from her now empty hands. “I thought you didn’t read without permission.”
His gaze hardened. “I said I wouldn’t read you without permission. Sometimes it’s necessary,” he said bluntly.
“But others?”
“People I don’t trust? People who might be threats?” He shrugged. “Yes. Surface thoughts, mostly; enough to know if someone’s lying. It’s practical.”
A prickle of unease crawled over her skin but she said nothing. She needed his help; it wasn’t the time for a morality lesson.
“We can practise keeping your magic inward, if you want,” he offered.
She nodded. It was, in principle, similar to her Lyran abilities.
Violet had never bloomed from her palms, but she had some ability to sense emotions.
It had its limits, though. She couldn’t command feeling the way her mother could, or Sienna.
And she’d never hidden her emerald. Had no reason to.
They continued for another hour, and on her final attempt, she caught one of his thoughts without a single strand of magic spilling from her palms.
“You’re a natural,” Henry observed.
“Thank you,” she said as she lay down on her bedroll, the fire’s warmth fading now.
Henry’s mind had been open, willing. But Kara knew Sebastian’s would be nothing like that.
It would be locked, guarded, braced against her.
He was far stronger. It may well be impossible.
Regardless, she’d have to try, even if it violated the trust Henry had shown her.
It sat uncomfortably on her conscience. But not enough to not do it.
She had to know the truth.
Even if it meant becoming the kind of person who broke into another person’s mind.