Kaylor Williams stares down at the maps spread before her, lit only by the faint glow of candlelight in the darkened room. These are her maps—she drew these. But the red and blue ink snaking over her carefully placed sketches and lines makes them into something new, something she isn’t sure she’s happy about helping to create. 
Prince Casteor, son of King Shirot Tybold of Sarenia, stands across from her on the other side of the table, frowning and looking at his nails. 
“What do you think?” he asks. 
“I—” Kaylor starts, and then stops, letting out the rest of her breath. “I think this is ridiculous, my lord. Why on earth would you be drawing up battle plans against your own cities?”
Casteor glares at her. Kaylor holds his gaze for a second before she relents, “What about the cities, my lord?” She doesn’t drop her eyes, even though she's supposed to. She lets them drill into his blue ones, because she wants him to seeher concern and resentment.
“Once upon a time,” the Prince starts, and Kaylor has to grit her teeth to stop her eyes from rolling, “A rebellion rose against my father. The castle was attacked by a group of nobles and their misinformed…lackeys, all sorcerers, who tried to take his crown from him. And now—”
“Now every sorcerer in Sarenia has to register and give a token, under pain of death or imprisonment, so he'll know if they're planning to betray him. I know. Kindly get to the point, my lord.” 
Prince Casteor frowns at her, but keeps going: “My father has…certain intelligence that another rebellion is rising.”
“So you’re going to attack all of your people just so you and your father can stay in power.” She remembers all those people: the boarded up shops and orphaned children, their parents dragged away by the town guards because they could do something King Shirot didn’t like. All of those people—and the Prince might ask her to kill them one day. Kaylor feels sick to her stomach. 
Casteor’s frown deepens. “No. Don’t be stupid, Lady Kaylor. These plans were made because the King thinks that one—or more—of the cities will fall to this…rebellion. And what happens then? It’s good to have these plans, just in case.” It sounds innocent enough, but Kaylor can’t be sure she’s not imagining the sort of hungry half-smile that’s lurking on Casteor’s face. Almost as if he wants it to come to that. She’s suddenly so full of disgust with the Prince—and with herself for everything she’s done for him—she can hardly bear it. She wants to leave, she wants to get out, and she wants nothing more to do with him and his harebrained ideas.
But she can't do that now. All she can do is argue. So she does. “Pardon me my lord, but honestly…the life’s gone out of the cities. I don’t see a way any one of them could be a threat: even if the people there are planning on rebelling, all of the cities--all of them, every single one—are half deserted! You’ve chased off or imprisoned so many of your subjects—many loyal subjects, I might add. You need those people, they’re farmers and craftsmen and merchants—what are you going to do when they’re gone?”
The Prince’s blue eyes glitter with disdain, his mouth set in a thin line. “Less than half of my people are sorcerers. Surely you noticed that on your travels? And sorcerers are allowed to live freely, as long as they do it legally. All they have to do is register with one of the lords in the cities, where they will be given a token.”
“So you can track all their movements and force them into your army if it tickles your fancy.”
“Why, yes. Many sorcerers have powers that can be used to keep Sarenia and its people safe. Why would they not want to fight for their country?”
Kaylor stares down at the maps, caught. It’s not right, she knows it’s not right, but she’s run out of steam and can’t think of a rebuke. “What are you planning, Casteor?” she asks quietly. 
Prince Casteor smirks back at her, for once not upset that she’s called him by his first name. The expression reminds Kaylor uncannily of…oh, never mind. She’s left that part of her life behind. “Do you understand now?” he asks. 
Kaylor swallows. “I don’t.”
“Good. You’re not meant to.”
She glares across the table, torn between picking up one of the candles and throwing it at the Prince’s face or ripping a chunk of her own hair out. “Well, whatever it is you’re planning, I don’t agree with it,” she snaps. The Prince raises an eyebrow at her, and Kaylor finally gives in to the urge to roll her eyes, “My lord.”
“It’s a pity,” he says, leaning across the table to stare right at her, “about that earring you had to give me, isn’t it?” He clucks his tongue, “Such a pity, that you can’t do whatever you want. Don’t forget, Kaylor, that if your actions start to stray,” he brings his fingers up and snaps them in front of her face, and Kaylor flinches despite herself, “it will burst into a thousand glittering pieces, and I will know that I have been betrayed. Now,” he stands back up, his eyes dropping to the maps, “you are dismissed.”

…

Kaylor straightens her uniform as she steps down the hallway towards her quarters, boots clicking against the hard stone. Emblazoned on the front of her shirt is a red roc on a purple sky, the insignia of the King’s—of Prince Casteor’s--family. It suddenly seems revolting, that she’s parading around in this. Like it doesn’t belong on her anymore. All those stupid things he’d told her, reeling her in with tales of battle and glory when it all still seemed so abstract. They’d go after Husifi, to kill the dragons that had murdered his aunt and young cousins, he’d said. And then Telegarath, a land of ice and snow across the sea, from where his ancestors fled, a place they’d liberate from an emperor who still believes in slavery. And on from there. Kaylor thought she could make a difference in the lives of these people, that she was needed here to help the Prince, and that maybe she’d been pulled out of her world and on to the next for that very reason. 
That was before she found out what the King had done to the sorcerers. Before she’d taken her tour of Sarenia to draw the maps, before she’d met the people, seen the beggars and the empty streets. Before she knew what she was, and what the Prince was. Now, Kaylor just wants to go home. 
She reaches her door and opens it. Her room isn’t much: a small bed is tucked into the far corner, next to a nightstand with a water skin and a small stack of coins sitting on top of it. A table and two chairs, covered in papers, sit next to a tiny window set deep into the stone. A small dresser takes up most of the opposite wall. The floor is bare rock but for the scruffy orange rug next to the bed. Kaylor slumps down into one of the chairs, running her hands through her tangle of frizzy blond hair. 
This room has been her official quarters since the day she arrived in Valliseg and participated in the tournament, which was last summer. She’s been here for more than a year. A year.
When she'd first started living here at Shaltac Castle, she'd been thrilled that the Prince himself wanted to work with her. It was the first time she'd ever been in a real castle, and it was full of knights and nobles and royalty, and the Prince had so many wonderful ideas.
Kaylor picks a pen up and watches the ink drip down the end and back into the ink pot. Most of the papers on her desk are maps, but some of them are reports. She's supposed to write up everything she does when she goes out on missions for the Prince. And she does—mostly. She should work on them now, but…she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to do anything that might help the Prince.
She glances over at the earring sitting on her end table. Its mate is wherever Prince Casteor keeps the tokens faithful sorcerers give him. She had to give it up just after her first fight, when her powers had shown themselves for the very first time. She’d watched as one of Prince Casteor’s men, a Cursemaker, had woven a spell into the tiny orange teardrop earring that would keep it whole unless it’s owner acted against the will of the crown. 
Prince Casteor will know if she betrays him, and Kaylor will have to flee, or suffer King Shirot's punishment for sorcerers who break their oaths or refuse to take them: prison, or death.
Kaylor leans her elbows on the table and buries her face in her hands. Why is shethe one being saddled with all this? Not for the first time, she wonders why Prince Casteor even asked her to help him. She’s not a noble, not really a commoner even, though she hasn’t told anyone that. She’s an outsider, she’s not from Sarenia, and she’s sure people have noticed at least that much. How can the Prince possibly think he can trust her? 
She rubs at the corners of her eyes, and that’s when she sees the envelope. It’s sitting on top of the papers piled on her desk, her name written in looping cursive on its front. Kaylor picks it up, flipping it over to look at the back. There’s nothing on the outside except for her name. She sticks a fingernail through the upper edge and rips it open, then pulls the letter out to read it. 

Hello Kaylor,

I know why you're here. Not why you're at the castle, and not in the city—I know where you're really from, and why you're not there anymore. I know where your friends are—yes, Anna and Sarah are here too.

Kaylor’s breath catches in her throat. She hasn’t told anyone about Sarah and Anna—granted, one or two of the guards in Morento might guess about Anna, but Sarah…who sent her this letter?

One of them is going to ask something of you, and I know you're going to want to go to her. But there's something I need to inform you of first.
There's someone waiting for you. He should be at the Chatty Sphinx, or somewhere in the forest surrounding it. You know what's in that forest and why it's so dangerous, but he doesn't. It is imperative that you find him, and that you tell no one else that he's here.

Sincerely,
A friend

 Someone knocks at her door.
Kaylor folds the note up, shoves it under some papers, and gets to her feet to go answer it. Her heart pounds in her throat. If she’s right, the letter is implying that there’s someone else from…America, Colorado, home--along with her and Anna and Sarah, here now, lost in the forest. The knock comes again, and Kaylor realizes that she’s frozen, her hand hovering just over the door handle. She gives herself a mental shake and pulls it open. 
She immediately schools her expression into one of snooty haughtiness. “Sir Redbrak,” she says, “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“My dearest, most gentle Lady Kaylor,” the knight bows so low Kaylor has to step back a couple of times to stay out of his way, “Sir Martic wishes to see you.”
Kaylor snorts and raises an eyebrow, dropping her act, “Does he now?”
“Shocking, I know,” says the knight, straightening up to his full height, which is well above Kaylor’s, and grinning, “It must be a very grave matter indeed.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Does he ever?”
“Good point.” Kaylor brushes past him out into the hallway. She isn’t surprised when he follows her. 
“Any idea what he might want?” Redbrak asks, shaking his arm and straightening out the blue band of fabric tied just below his shoulder. Kaylor has one of these too—it means they’re new knights with limited training, that they haven’t seen real combat or done anything of note yet.
“None. He knows I’m working for the Prince at the moment, right? He doesn’t want to assign me anything new, does he?”
Redbrak makes a face. "I should hope not. The festival's in two days, the turning of the seasons. He can't want to start us on some new assignment now."
It’s a long walk down to Sir Martic’s office. The crown has accepted so many new knights in the past year that all the tiny rooms in this wing of the castle are full. 
When Kaylor asked one of the older knights about it, he told her that most of these rooms are meant to be used for storage, or servants, which is why they're much smaller than the senior knights’ quarters. There are more knights living in Shaltac Castle now than ever before, and that doesn't even count the officers and senior knights who live outside, throughout the city. 
Redbrak stops at the end of the hallway. “Don’t let him eat you alive.”
Kaylor smirks back at him, “He won’t. He’s still scared of me, remember?”
That gets a laugh out of Redbrak. "Then at least try not to threaten him again. Your friends—and the goddess Larosri herself of course—require your presence at the festival."
Kaylor rolls her eyes. Redbrak grins and backs away, sending her a mock-salute. Kaylor, sad to see him go, waves as he rounds the corner down another hallway. But she has to get this over with. 
She stops in front of a large oak door, sighs, raises her fist, and knocks.
Nothing. 
She waits for a few minutes before she knocks again. Still nothing. She purses her lips and grips the handle, swinging the door open, stepping inside and closing it behind her. 
A severe looking man with longish gray hair and a scruffy, thinning beard sits behind a desk cluttered with papers. A bright red strip of fabric tied around his upper left arm signifies his rank as a superior officer. He looks up as Kaylor walks in, and she dips her head to him. He doesn’t return the gesture, instead going back to writing on one of the papers on his desk. He does this every time he calls one of the newer knights in, and it drives Kaylor crazy. She clears her throat. When that doesn’t work, she shuffles her feet across the floor, making as much noise as she can fidgeting. He still won’t look up. 
“Sir Martic?” she snaps, “You requested my presence? As soon as possible?”
Sir Martic glances at her again before waving at one of the servants flanking his desk. The servant bows and moves to a door at the back of the office. Kaylor has always assumed that it leads to a closet, or the cellar, or a private room with some nasty hidden thing of Sir Martic’s in it, but what’s really there is a small sitting room. A boy around Kaylor’s age perches on the edge of one of the plush, dark green chairs. Sir Martic’s servant whispers something to him and he nods, getting up to follow the servant. His copper-colored skin and dark hair are a little rougher than she’d expect from someone in the castle, but his clothes are new and clean. He has a sharp Denadian nose, large eyes, and a full mouth. A golden hoop earring dangles from one of his ears, and something around his neck catches the light as he bows to Kaylor. 
A small cross—pure silver—attached to a sterling silver chain, with tiny letters etched across the charm: Anna Thomas. Kaylor would know that necklace anywhere.