Reika watched Khamsin’s indecision and sneered. “Suit yourself. I knew I should have gone myself instead of wasting precious time waiting for you.” Wheeling her mount around, Reika went galloping through the snowy forest towards the main valley road.

“Wyrn curse it,” Kham swore. If Wynter’s life was truly in danger, and she did nothing to warn him, she’d never forgive herself. “I just know I’m going to regret this,” she muttered. She grabbed the pony’s reins, led the mare over to a fallen tree, so she could reach the stirrups, and swung up into the saddle. A kick of her heels sent the pony leaping forward into a fast canter. “Reika! Reika, wait. I’m coming.”

The two of them rode throughout the day and well into the night. They slept in an abandoned hunter’s cabin, before heading out again before sunrise the next morning. Reika stopped regularly to call upon her clan animals, the ermine, to help them guide her to the Hunt. They doubled back more than once, going up and down the mountain, then circling back around. If not for the sun in the sky and Khamsin’s connection to it, Kham would have been completely turned around. But as it was, she knew they were no more than a day’s ride west of Gildenheim.

“This is ridiculous,” Kham complained when they stopped yet again, this time to water the horses while Reika consulted her animal guides yet again. “At this rate, we’ll never reach Wynter in time to warn him.”

Reika cast her a sharp look. “The Hunters are following the garm, and garm don’t exactly run in straight lines for your convenience, Your Grace. If tracking the hunters is too much trouble for you, feel free to go back to Gildenheim.”

Kham clamped her mouth shut. After a few more moments, Reika rose from her crouch, dusted the snow off her knees, and remounted her horse.

“They’re heading this direction.” She pointed up the mountain. “It shouldn’t be too much farther now.”

“What happens when we find them?” Kham asked. “If Galacia and her priestesses mean to kill the king, surely our presence will force their hands.”

“Not if we get to Valik and the White Guard first.” Reika dropped back to ride alongside Kham’s left flank. “You know, Elka and I used to ride in hills just like these when we were girls. She always dreamed of being a princess. Not me. I always dreamed of being queen.”

Kham bit her lip. “Reika . . .”

“Wait.” Reika held up a hand. “What’s that, over there?” She pointed to a spot off to Khamsin’s right.

“What?” Kham peered up the mountain. “I don’t see anything.”

“You will once the garm catch the scent of your blood.”

Every nerve in Khamsin’s body jangled with alarm. She turned back around in time to see Reika throw back her cloak and raise the weapon concealed at her side.

“Time to die, Summer witch.” Reika’s beautiful face twisted into ugly lines of hatred. With a scream of rage, she raised her right arm. Sunlight glinted off the weapon clenched in her fist, a long-handled weapon that ended in five splayed, clawlike spikes.

Khamsin jerked around in the saddle and kicked her heels into her mount’s sides just as Reika brought her strange blade slashing down. Fiery pain ripped down Kham’s back, but it was her mount who caught the worst of the blow as the clawed weapon raked deep furrows across her hindquarters. The mare screamed in pain and reared up on her hind legs, nearly unseating Khamsin. Kham’s thighs clenched tight around the mare’s ribs, heels digging in as she clung to the animal’s back. She grabbed instinctively for the pommel of the saddle with both hands and lost her grip on the reins.

Reika swung her weapon again.

Kham shrieked as pain ripped across her shoulder, arm, and rib cage. The mare’s forelegs slammed back to earth, and the horse shot forward in a wild gallop.

Branches whipped across Kham’s face, the icy needles slicing at her skin, rough bark scraping hot, painful furrows across cheek and brow. She ducked and leaned low over the mare’s neck, burying her face in her mount’s mane to protect herself from the worst of the slashing branches. Her back, shoulder, and side burned like fire, and she could feel the blood flowing from the wounds. She didn’t dare release the saddle to reach for the reins whipping like ribbons in the wind as the mare ran.

Don’t let go, Kham. Whatever you do, don’t let go!

The mare bounded over rocks and streams, leapt fallen trees. Jolt after jolt shook Khamsin to her bones, but she clung to the saddle with desperate strength. Her fingers had curved into bloodless talons around the pommel. The muscles in her hands had turned to steel and locked in place.

Then, abruptly, the horse wasn’t beneath her anymore. One moment, the mare was galloping wildly through the forest, the next the horse dropped like a stone and propelled Khamsin over her head.

Time stretched as Khamsin soared through the air, spiraling as she went. She caught sight of the overcast sky shining silvery gray overhead and huge drifts of snow gathered at the base of the cliffs directly in front of her. The cliff’s ragged black rock rose sharply upwards, its rough surface coated with a thin layer of ice that made the stone gleam with an obsidian sheen.

The next instant, gravity reclaimed her. She landed with a bone-jolting slam atop an unyielding sheet of ice.

Time accelerated in a sudden rush as she spun, spread-eagled, across the surface of a frozen pond. Her feet smacked into the cascade of silvery white icicles that had formed over the waterfall that fed the pond. The ice shattered, and the impact reversed the rotation of her spin and sent her careening, feetfirst into a snowdrift. Great white plumes of snow shot skyward as she came to a jarring halt, then drifted lazily back to earth, dusting her hair and eyelashes with crystalline flakes.