The wind over the cliffs blew. Genevieve stood at the edge, her cloak whipped behind her like a banner of defiance. Below stretched the shattered gorge known only in legend—the beginning of the Forbidden Lands.
She had never expected to come here. No one sane did.
But the path to Edric led nowhere else.
Behind her, the last rays of sunset glinted off steel. The general, stood with arms crossed, his face weathered and grim. Beside him, Alice Genevieve's maid adjusted her satchel, double-checking the vials strapped across her chest. And behind them trailed Garron, the former palace blacksmith, silent and massive as a mountain.
Just four of them.
It was all they had left.
The palace had descended into mourning and confusion after Edric's abduction. With no firm knowledge of where he'd been taken, and the Queen Dowager's vanishing act sparking rumors of sorcery and treason, many nobles fled. Others stayed behind to pick apart what power they had left.
