“Aren’t you cold?”

Natasha looked up from her plodding drudgery, recognizing the voice just as her eyes focused on the rider next to her. Prince Dantell smiled back down at her. “You look amazing, but there is a little chill in the air today.”

Natasha looked down at her outfit and shrugged. It was the same thing she had worn out of the temple several days ago, a brown leather halter top and a long black skirt with generous slits on either side. She had also worn a heavy cloak over the top but had discarded that in the first fight with Quarton to aid in slinging fire, and she hadn’t replaced it.

She looked then at the sky. Clouds were rolling in from the northwest, undoubtedly carrying rain from the white sea. This valley saw plenty of storms during the spring months, and even if they avoided the shower, they likely wouldn’t see the sun all day. But the woman wasn’t cold despite her bare arms and exposed legs. The fire inside her was now consistently just below the surface, and even if they hiked through the windswept snowy mountains ahead, she felt she would be able to ward off any chill.

She looked back at the prince, wondering if he deserved an answer, but she didn’t have to give one. Flames danced in her eyes with the contemplation of her new power, and Dantell could detect a little steam rising from the woman’s skin. His smile broadened. “You are becoming powerful.”

“Not powerful enough,” she replied, raising her hands to gesture at the heavy iron shackles that bound her. “There is one here far more powerful than I.”

The prince’s smile only grew wider. “You are speaking of Jennifer.” He had already moved through the procession, talking with several important people, including the Tallashite woman.

Natasha didn’t reply, expecting more from the man than simple acknowledgment.

“Yes, this was all part of the plan. She is my informant. She helped us find the Elementals in the first place. She certainly has earned the right to bring her chosen Elemental back to the Supplanter.”

Natasha cocked her head quizzically at this. “You think she will just give the master her power? Do you actually want her to?”

The prince laughed. “She is a supplicant at heart, like you. She will do what she is told.”

Natasha had her doubts but didn’t push the topic further. “You were wrong about one thing.”

“Oh?”

“Men can harness the Elementals too. With proper training, I believe they can also wield the powers of the natural elements.”

“You speak of your lover, Ethan,” Dantell said, trying to get a rise out of Natasha but failing. “But does he have the power you do? Does he have the control?”

“He’s had the power for less than two weeks. I’ve been training for ten years. Hardly a fair comparison. The point is that the Supplanter has been training, and he will know how to use the Elementals. I’ve seen how powerful they can make someone. He won’t bow a knee to you.”

Natasha looked up at the prince as she said this, strolling alongside his horse. Dantell just stared ahead at the storm clouds and didn’t answer.

“Absolutely not!” Sir Keirick Hadley replied.

Terrance stood before the man, Persephone, Gerhold, and Celaina behind him. They were in the keep’s small audience chamber used both for worship and informational meetings. Keirick was the second-highest-ranking paladin in the Order, though, for all they knew, he was the new head of the Order, for they hadn’t seen Jenkins in over a week and hadn’t had the time or opportunity to ask Quarton about it. They all doubted Jenkins was still alive, but until they knew for sure, protocol dictated that Keirick was still just second in command. However, he was the highest-ranking knight they could find and the only one with authority to sanction a war party.

“We don’t have the knights, and even if we did . . .”

“We are talking about the Elementals,” Terrance argued. “It is our duty to protect them. We must get them back.”

“It was our duty to protect them, and we failed. If you still trust in the Divine Savior, we will have the opportunity to get them back, or do you think all this is happening outside his will?”

Terrance sighed, not wanting to get into a religious debate with a man twice his age and many times his experience. Predestination and divine sovereignty were tricky subjects no matter your faith. “But that is our duty, to see the will of our Savior done, not to sit back and hope he makes something good out of our failures.”

“I am not talking about fatalism,” Keirick replied. “We left the Temple of the Divine Savior because they were content to sit back and wait. We are not. But I am looking at reality right now. Our leader is missing and presumed dead. Our head sage, who knows the most about the prophecies and usually brings clarity to situations like this, is captured at best and a traitor at worst. Most of our knights are out on missions, many days from the keep with no way to reach them. I am left with a handful of knights, and you want me to send them halfway across the continent to do battle against at least 40 Supplanter warriors held up in a fortress in the mountains without knowing the location.”

The acting head of the Order looked over the shoulder of the tall knight in front of him to meet the eyes of Gerhold and Celaina. Either of them might have seen the scroll the failed assassins had possessed showing the location of the hidden temple, but neither returned his look or argued his point.

“When Sir Tallowin Perrince started our Order 200 years ago, he had access to most of the ancient scrolls. He had a host of monks who were dissatisfied with the current faith. He had all the resources required to begin the search for the Elementals. And through the years, we have always had willing knights to join our Order and then, upon retirement, guard the weapons into which we had infused the powers. We always had what we needed to do our Savior’s will. If he desired us to pursue your course of action, I would expect to have no less than 20 knights here, trained and ready to go. Our leader would be able to lead the charge, and all of our best minds would be standing ready to offer advice. We have none of those things. If I needed to surmise the Savior’s will in this situation, which apparently, I am now charged to do, I would say this is not the time for action.”

“But you cannot stop us from going?” Terrance dared to reply, a question mark barely hinted at.

The senior knight scowled at him. “I have no authority over the three behind you, but you still report to me. However, I can see that you will not heed my advice. Go find out what happened to Sir Jenkins and Dame Emoyen and report back. Do not foolishly throw your life away.”

With that, the head paladin turned and stalked out of the audience chamber and back to his quarters to meditate.

“Were you expecting anything different?” Persephone asked when the echoes of Keirick’s boots died away. She knew little of the paladin’s ways, and after that reception, she had no desire to learn.

Terrance didn’t honestly know and turned to look at Celaina and Gerhold. “Should I have?”

They both shook their heads. “He is a good man,” Celaina said, “and he is likely overwhelmed by the situation he finds himself in. But he is also right; the keep is in no position to act at this moment. Having faith that the Supplanter will fail is a valid course of action.”

“And what of Emoyen, Ethan, and Sera?” he asked.

“Leaving them to die is not acceptable,” Gerhold said, an unmistakable growl in his voice.

“So, it is a rescue mission, then,” Persephone said, also not content to sit by and let another of her sisters die.

“We don’t know the way,” Celaina said. “Sir Keirick was not wrong about that.”

“Following 40 men should not be that hard,” Terrance argued.

“Across grassland or snow or a forest clearing, perhaps, but once they get to the foothills, they won’t leave footprints in the rock no matter how many there are. And if it rains between their passing and our arrival, which it almost certainly will, we will be lost. They have almost 24 hours on us.”

After the four of them had escaped the horrors of the ruined temple, they had taken considerable time to rest and recover. The three who had been trapped under the rubble needed a healer and food. Persephone had slept for six hours. Now they felt as good as they had in a while, but that recovery had cost them time.

Terrance smiled. “I know someone who can help us.”

Yori was just finishing his dinner of boiled potatoes and ground venison. It wasn’t as good as the tropical delicacies of his homeland, but it was better than what he expected prisoners in a typical dungeon received. He heard the troupe coming down the stairs and expected another grilling about what the Supplanter had planned. When he had first been brought in over a day ago, he had already told them everything he knew, which was nothing.

Then, after the incident last night, they had come down to grill him again about the Supplanter’s presence in the city and how many other spies he might have. Yori had only laughed when he found out that some in their own order had betrayed them.

He was surprised to see Terrance leading a diverse group into the jail. He recognized Gerhold and Celaina from the fight in the street, though he had not paid too much attention to them. When his eyes met Persephone, his jaw hung open. She carried herself like a proud Sister of the Blade, though without any weapon he could discern, and was more exotic than any of his countrywomen he had ever seen before. She had cultivated her appearance and presence to such an extent that it defied description. Most of the northerners Persephone interacted with had spent little time with other islanders and didn’t know how unique the woman was. Yori did, and he tried to promise himself not to be distracted by her during this interrogation but didn’t have high hopes.

“You came here from the Supplanter’s temple,” Terrance started, more making a statement than asking a question.

“I did.”

“You can find your way back?”

Yori looked at the group with a puzzled expression. “If you release me with a message, I will not deliver it. I do not expect a warm welcome from them. They owe me money, and I have a feeling they won’t be paying.”

Gerhold spoke up. “We want you to lead us there.”

Yori looked even more confused. “The four of you? An adolescent, two grandparents, and an unarmed woman?” They were exaggerations but not too far off the mark.

Of all of them, Persephone seemed the most insulted. “Spoken like a mercenary who never fought for anything other than money,” she spat back.

“Sister,” he said, trying to keep the infatuation out of his eyes. “I don’t know what role you play in this, but that temple is filled with over a hundred people who have all sworn to protect the Supplanter. I heard that you lost the Elementals, and I’m guessing they are on their way back to the temple. Who knows how many other mercenaries he will hire to protect them.”

He expected an argument from the four in front of him, but they already knew all of this and knew of the 40 warriors in transit to the temple right now, which Yori did not. It didn’t phase them. They were still going.

“If I lead you there, I get to go free?”

Persephone scowled at his selfishness. “If I choose not to kill you first, yes.”

Yori popped off his cot. And walked toward the bars of his cell. “Well then, Sister, it sounds like we are going on a trip.” He gave her his best grin, but she only turned around and walked out.