To read the Fates is to invite temptation.

  To change the future is to dishonor Fate.

  Let life unfold as scroll: one line at a time.

  –Brikhvarnni Proverb

  Despite all Gale’s anger and her effort, she and Krid had lost.

  “Fates deemed it!” Krid kicked up leaves where he stomped. Clearly, what he said was some kind of curse.

  Thinking of their humiliation made Gale want to shrink into her sleeves–but she was reminded again that she had torn them off at the shoulder, leaving her arms bare. Her fingers were hot from exertion where they gripped her elbows. Fenn had outsmarted her. He had somehow seen her, despite her invisibility and the magical darkness, and he had defeated her.

  Worse, the vision that the crystal had shown her–the same preview of a battle between Syrdin and Krid–had already been fulfilled over Fenn’s shoulder. She had wanted to duel to prevent that fight, only to cause it. At least the others didn’t know.

  But her deepest humiliation was still to come. As winners, Syrdin and Fenn could ask for whatever retribution they desired. She shivered to think of it.

  “Well, what is it? Make your demands,” Krid growled.

  Syrdin answered first. “All I want is to follow along where you guys go for as long as I want without anyone asking a bunch of stupid questions,” zheir eyes shifted to Gale, “or making petty comments.”

  Gale huffed, but her fingers tightened around her elbows. Syrdin was dangerous. Zhe was the enemy. She still believed that. The prophecies–maybe they hadn’t shown her Syrdin’s betrayal, but it would come.

  “Fenn?” Syrdin turned to him.

  Gale copied zhem. He was watching Syrdin quizzically, head tilted in that puzzle-I-can’t-solve expression. A protective jealousy began to rise in her, but then he set his gaze on her, and she remembered what else she’d seen in the visions. The kiss. If the battle between Krid and Syrdin had come true…

  Her cheeks heated and she hid them toward her stomach, rubbing the wrist he had grabbed to disarm her there. And oh how disarming it had been.

  She heard boots crunch over the leaves, approaching her. “Did I hurt you?” Fenn asked softly.

  She shook her head, clenching her hands, one around the wrist.

  “Let me see.”

  She waved her wrist in front of his face, not giving it to him. “Nothing wrong with it, see? Not hurt.”

  “Let me see.” He caught her hand in his left–the one he wrote and fought with–and peered at it for the briefest moment before she yanked it away, holding her hands protectively against herself.

  “Even if you did, I could just heal it.” Dummy. He worried about all the wrong things.

  “Stupid way to handle things,” he muttered as he sighed out in apparent relief.

  Her cheeks burned hotter. “Just make your demands so we can move on.” She dreaded to hear it. Open skies, I might even have to bow out an apology to Syrdin! Bile built in her throat at the thought.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “I only want you to listen,” he was quiet as he spoke, “and to stop antagonizing Syrdin. Zhe hasn’t done anything to you that you haven't–or wouldn’t have–done to zhem. In fact, you’d be dead without zhem.”

  “Mists’ trick,” Gale muttered. There was no way Syrdin had ever meant to save her.

  “Gale,” Fenn sharpened. “Zhe is the only reason you aren’t asleep in the poppy glade right now. You’re being unfair.”

  “This entire situation is unfair. I’ve had zheir knife at my neck!”

  “Zheir dagger, yes, and that was not acceptable, but I think we both know it isn’t zheir intention truly to kill you.”

  “No, Fenn, we don’t!”

  “Then perhaps I should reword my demand to heed in place of listen. Zhe doesn’t want to kill any of us. It was a heat of the moment incident. Much like just now.”

  Her face flamed again, but this time it was pure anger. “OH and should I just go ahead and grovel an apology to zhem while I’m at it. Sorry I assumed that you’re a killer. Ah wait, I forgot that you are, just not one assigned to kill us right now. My mistake!”

  Fenn’s jaw tightened, his cheeks hollowing into shadows. “No, Gale. No one wants your ingenuine apology. Just stop. Don’t you realize that if it weren’t for you, nobody would’ve started fighting at all?” He took a deep breath. “If you have a problem, speak it directly. If everyone disagrees with you, then defer to the people with some life experience behind their words. Do you understand me?”

  Her skin boiled, her heart hammered, but her lip quivered traitorously. The fighting was her fault? No. Syrdin was the enemy. Krid was the one who had encouraged her to solve this with violence. She was just standing for what was right.

  And life experience? Beauty’s sake did her two hundred twenty-six years of life count for nothing? She was older than Krid and Mell combined. She was older than Fenn, technically! And Syrdin’s life didn’t count as living. It counted as robbing of life. Zhe had the upper hand on a career soldier after all. Zhe wasn’t any different than the elves who’d killed her parents.

  “Gale, do you understand?” Fenn prompted again, voice gentler.

  She chewed her lip. She understood what he wanted. And she understood that if she didn’t comply, he’d always believe she was the problem, not Syrdin. “Yes,” she said.

  “Doesn’t matter if she understands, Fenn,” Krid growled. “Her honor demands she does as you say.”

  “It matters to me.” Fenn’s cool slate eyes bored into her as he spoke, and he sounded pained. Then he turned, putting hands in the pockets of strange dark trousers, and sulked his way toward Mell.

  Gale gaped after him. Something in her stirred, a dissonance with what she felt. Understand? Stop being difficult. Life experience. Heed him. She huffed and stomped away. I can’t understand what you won’t tell me, Fenn.

  The ground here was unforgiving under the blows of her feet. She found herself heading for the poppy glenn. Of course she didn’t walk into it. Instead, she picked a tree facing it and slid down the bark. Her chin nestled in her knees, and she watched her boots’ ends wiggle as she curled her toes. The tawny brown had been stained ruddy by Ferngal’s forest. Her clothes bore the rips and stains of the journey. And her hair. She dug her fingers into the impossible tangles at her temples.

  But that was nothing compared to the tearing at her heart. Everything had gone completely, utterly, and irrevocably wrong.

  As she watched the poppies sway, heaviness settled over her, more severe than the weariness from when they’d arrived in the Yellow Wood. There was no home to go to. No Fenn to talk to. No, he was busy with his Night Elf buddy and human woman-friend. Her lids closed. Far away, she could hear hoofbeats. She opened her eyes. There was something running in the distance, galloping. It was no sudfied. She squinted.

  “Galendria,” a man’s voice, deep and resonant, called to her. That was not Fenn.

  A face, tan, angular, and handsome, flashed across her vision. Horses’ hooves beat the ground. Centaur? She’d seen one of those in the crystal.

  “Gale?” a face, dark, round, and familiar was next to hers. Mell. The Centaur was gone.