They set off at a gallop across the field, leaving the manor to disappear around the bend of trees and down the dirt road. Victoria found herself once again disappointed that she couldn't enjoy the spectacular landscape, having to focus most of her attention on keeping a hold on the reins while trying not to bounce out of the saddle.

By the time they reached the forest's edge, she had found her rhythm and allowed herself to gaze upon the endless, rolling hills that spread out around and before them. The emerald grass spread like a magnificent carpet to blanket the beautiful landscape. The early morning sunlight turned the tiny droplets of dew into a spray of glistening diamonds. Birds, some unlike any she had ever seen, sang their sweet melodies as they dipped and dove through the air. A pair of white rabbits darted through the tall, swaying grass. Squinting, Victoria could just make out the pair of pale antlers that adorned the tops of the small creatures' heads between their large, flopping ears. They looked like the jackalopes of North American folklore, though these were a bit bigger, and their antlers resembled those of a white-tailed deer.

"Hart hares." Victoria said quietly, smiling to herself at remembering Soren's jest.

They kept their pace a short while longer until a tiny village came into view, from which they were separated by a small, sparkling river spanned by a stone bridge. As they approached the crossing, Jasper slowed the group to a walk, and Soren moved his horse up beside Victoria's.

"Hey, thanks for not squealing to my mother this morning. He'd have changed his mind about my coming along," He said, motioning to his father, "and she'd have worked me ragged."

"Oh, uh, I...just...didn't want you to get in trouble for a harmless prank. I do the same thing to my best friend back home all the time." Victoria replied. Her expression turned sad and her gaze became distant; she hadn't considered how Heather was handling her disappearance.

"So, where exactly is home? I think I can safely assume you're not from around here." Soren asked.

His voice brought her back to the present. "Huh? Oh, home. Um, I live in Rock Plains." She looked around at the village they now ambled through. "Where are we now?"

"Brevinton." He said haughtily, sweeping his arm. "Every Seeker is in charge of keeping order in his or her village. Brevinton is ours, so we keep the order." He puffed his chest proudly.

"We?" Astrid piped up from behind, cocking a brow at her brother. "You have not yet earned the privilege, dear brother. You're likely not to either, unless maturity finally sneaks up on you one morning. He's just trying to talk himself up in front of a pretty new lass." The last statement she directed to Victoria, but it was spoken directly at her brother.

"Oh stow it will you! I don't recall asking for your input!" Soren pouted as the color rose in his cheeks, rolling his eyes and glaring at his sister.

Victoria couldn't help but giggle out loud at the siblings' exchange, knowing there was love behind it. Being an only child, she never got to participate in banter and rivalry with a sibling, and felt a little like she had missed out.

Jasper gave an exasperated sigh as he turned in the saddle to face his children, rolling his own eyes. "Don't you two start in on each other. We're not so far from home that I can't turn the both of you back. I've no issue with making this trip alone." He gave them each a hard stare before turning back to the road ahead.

Not wanting to test the validity of their father's threat, Soren fell back in line and they both remained silent the rest of the way through the village, speaking only to the handful of villagers who spoke to them first. At the edge of the little settlement, Jasper led the group back to a gallop; clouds of dust rising in their wake as Brevinton disappeared behind them.

They continued this way for the extent of the day; walk, run, walk, rest, walk, run, walk, rest. Victoria anxiously anticipated those periods of rest when they would all stop to stretch their legs and relieve the horses of their weight. Her knees and hips were stiff, her rear end was numb, and her inner thighs felt raw; to her relief, they weren't, thanks to Jasper's gift of the chaps. By midday, Jasper scouted out a shaded area next to a creek for them to rest a little longer; allowing the horses' sweat-slickened coats air out.

While Soren tended to the horses, Jasper set about building a small fire and retrieved a cloth bundle and a small iron pot from one of his saddle packs. Astrid led Victoria through a dense patch of shrubs tucked in the trees. Victoria had had some experience with camping before, but there had always been a restroom, or at the very least a port-a-potty, so the first time they stopped to rest the horses, she wasn't entirely sure how to go about it. This made Astrid's unplanned first instruction on how to relieve oneself in the woods a bit awkward, to say the least; for both of them.

Back at the fire, Jasper had filled the pot with water from the creek and sat it on the burning pile to boil. From the cloth bundle he produced strips of smoked pork, hard biscuits, and more of the bright green apples, distributing their rations among them. From his own pack, Soren produced a bag of pistachios to pass around.

While tending the horses, Soren had arranged their saddles in a circular formation, where they all now sat eating quietly, content with their own thoughts for the moment. After a while, Jasper was the first to break the silence.

"So, Miss Victoria, how is it that you came to find yourself in Elyrium?"

"Elyrium?" Victoria repeated the name. "Is that where I am?"

"Aye, in the central province of Naraveth. You truly aren't from here, are you?" Jasper asked.

"No. I'm from Rock Plains, Missouri. I'm a senior at Rock Plains High, and yesterday morning my life made sense." Victoria could feel the unspent emotions like a stone in her chest. "One minute I'm cleaning an office that everyone forgot about for the last century, then everything's dark and burning and a freaking dragon tells me that I have to 'set him free,' then I wake up in a literal fairytale, and here we are!" She threw her arms out. The speed and volume of her words increased as she spoke them, ending in a crescendo that left her out of breath.

Jasper regarded her with the same uncomprehending stare that Astrid and Soren exchanged with one another.

"A dragon? Spoke to you?" He asked, in a way that made Victoria feel that she had done something no one was supposed to do.

"I'm still not sure if I believe it either, and I was there. I think I was anyway."

"Victoria." This time Astrid spoke. "I don't know what you know about dragons, but that is the last creature that would want to strike up a conversation, let alone with something that would be little more than a snack to it. They're vile, nasty beasts that would sooner suck you down their gullets than look at you. No man's been able to sail within twenty miles of the coast of that cursed isle they call home."

The stone in Victoria's chest dropped into her stomach and she swallowed hard at the thought that, at any moment, that giant reptile could've slurped her down like an oyster without a second thought.

"Do you remember what it said to you?" Soren asked with genuine, child-like curiosity twinkling in his green eyes.

"Um." Victoria thought back to the isolated plateau and shivered. "Something about the stone being a prison and it can't free itself. Whatever the 'first magic' is, supposedly that's the only way to do it and apparently I have to take it...wherever that is." She threw her hands up in exasperation and looked to Jasper helplessly, having no other helpful information to pass on.

He stared in silent contemplation for a few moments, looking just beyond Victoria, considering her story.

"Well, the simple truth is," Jasper said as he rose to stand, "we know no more why the king seeks that stone or what he intends with it than you do. But I am interested to see if what you've said will change anything he's planned with it." He looked over at the horses, who were all snoozing with heads lowered and legs cocked. "We'd best get back on the road. We've got a ways to go still before we reach the foothills, and the little nasties like to come out once the sun goes down out here."

Taking that as their cue to move out, Soren went to retrieve the horses while Jasper and Astrid broke camp and began filling the water skins with the cooled boiled water. Soren had explained that it made sure the water was safe to drink. While it wasn't something they normally had to be concerned with, their parents fostered the habit out of caution, regardless. Having been given no further instruction, Victoria stood there shuffling her feet like a nervous child, unsure of what she should be doing, if anything.

"Come give me a hand with these will you?" Soren smiled at her, gesturing for her to assist with the horses.

On his own horse, he walked her through the parts of the saddle and how to properly secure it to the horse's back, before talking her through saddling her own horse. By then Jasper and Astrid had joined them; Jasper watched Victoria's progress and nodded approvingly.

"You may have no head for horsemanship, but you catch on quick." Jasper said with a kind smile. "Soren, help her up, we've idled long enough."

Just as his father had done the day before, Soren laced his fingers and leaned down to boost Victoria into the saddle; though not as forcefully as his father had. Astrid and Soren were right behind, and the band of travelers were off along the road once more.

The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully and in relative silence; broken only when Soren would move up to explain an animal or plant that Victoria had never seen. The former, she was coming to find, were plentiful the more she took in everything around them. A small ground bird that looked like a tiny, squat version of a phoenix bobbed and shuffled through the tall grass, respectably named the phoenix quail; according to Soren, the meat of these particular birds was naturally spicy. A dark-pinkish, echidna-like creature, called a targle, scurried into a burrow beneath a tree. The most stunning, giant silver butterfly with long, trailing tails accented with rich purple spots wafted gracefully on the breeze, these he said were Royal Silver Swifttails. The never-ending beauty of this world around her was a welcome distraction from the aches that made themselves known in Victoria's every joint and muscle every time they stopped to rest the horses.

The hours and miles passed, and before long the sky morphed from clear blue to pink and orange and purple, and their shadows stretched long behind them. The terrain had changed too; gently rolling plains seamlessly giving way to rough, wooded hillsides that undulated like earthen waves into the distance.

"We're nearly there." Jasper said, turning in the saddle to address Victoria. "Drumlin Brae is just over the next hill. We'll stay at the inn tonight and cross the foothills in the morning. You'll feel better after a hot meal and a night's rest."

Victoria could only imagine she looked as run-down as she felt. A single pony ride during childhood does not qualify a person for a cross-country trip on horseback, and the thought of two more days of this made her bones ache. But continue she would, and without complaint. With any luck, two days from now she'd be back home and all of this would be over. It occurred to her that she hadn't thought about how she was going to explain her temporary absence. Neither to how she disappeared, nor where she had been.

Who's going to believe me? Who in their right mind would believe a single word of any of this? They'll all think I've been drugged and hallucinating for days. I'll end up in a mental ward!

She sighed and added the issue to the pile of things she'd deal with when she woke up from this nightmare, or dream, or whatever this was. She didn't want to dwell on her thoughts for too long and wind up falling asleep again and toppling to the ground.

The sunset deepened as they reached the crest of the hill, the last light of day stretching upward from the horizon. The lowering sun gave way to the rising shadows that crept into the timbered hillsides around them. For all its beauty during the day, this place in the growing darkness made Victoria uneasy. At the bottom of the hill and across an empty expanse of grass, lay the village of Drumlin Brae; enough light was left in the sky to see villagers bustling about as torches were lit.

A twig snapped and something scurried closer somewhere behind them, and any sense of relief Victoria felt at reaching the village was shattered as the hairs on her neck and arms stood on end. The others must have felt something too; Jasper and Soren had silently drawn their swords, and Astrid had an arrow nocked, ready to shoot. More rustling in the undergrowth. The horses' ears pricked forward and back, and they stepped nervously, sensing something amiss.

A shriek rang out as a dark shadow darted in front of Victoria's horse, causing the mare to spook and nearly toss her, and the other three to squeal and stomp fearfully. Soren reacted instantly by bringing his horse alongside hers and grasping her reigns to keep the animal from bolting.

"Imps!" Astrid shouted disgustedly. "Get to the village!"

Jasper heeled his horse, leading the others at a full sprint across the open plain. The shrieking, echoed now by several others, and scurrying continued behind them. Victoria spotted a pair of small, glowing red eyes running beside her in the dark grass, just as the imp shrieked again and lunged itself at her left leg. She drew the breath to scream just as an arrow whizzed from behind, pinning the creature to the ground with a sharp cry as they raced to the village.

It wasn't fully dark yet when they bore down on the little settlement, so there were a handful of residents who had to scramble out of the way; Jasper shouted at their approach and apologies as they passed. Jasper halted the group in front of a plain, two-story building that was twice as deep as it was wide, and marked by a hanging wooden sign that read "Iron Hart Inn." He dismounted quickly and slipped through the heavy wooden door. The others also dismounted but remained outside, and Astrid and Soren scouted the surroundings for any sign that the creatures had followed them into town.

A few moments later, Jasper reappeared from inside. "I've got us two rooms and hot food to be brought up. Victoria, you'll bunk with Astrid."

With that, they set to untying their packs from the saddles; Soren stepped over to help Victoria with hers before fetching his own. Victoria found herself wondering if his parents pushed him to be so helpful to her, or if it was just another part of his charming personality; she was grateful either way. She did take notice that neither he nor his sister or father were attempting to speak as they gathered their packs; to each other or anyone else. Deciding that there was probably good reason, Victoria kept her head down and her mouth closed.

Two stable hands had come around to take the horses away to be tended, while the foursome filed into the inn, and a pudgy, middle-aged woman showed them upstairs to their rooms. Not long after, a young girl of fourteen or fifteen, with coppery hair and blue-grey eyes, came bearing trays of hot food. Victoria inhaled deeply of the stuffed quail, not the spicy kind, and roasted vegetables, savoring the delicious aroma as her mouth watered.

Even now, cloistered in their separate rooms, Astrid made no attempt to make conversation. Since it seemed there was nothing for it anyway, Victoria focused on her own meal, being careful to pick around the tiny bones.

With bellies full, the travelers made themselves comfortable in their rented beds. Tomorrow they would cross the foothills, and they would need to be on their way early if they were to make the trip before nightfall. After this evening's encounter with the imps, Victoria didn't like the idea of being caught out after dark. She was sore and exhausted, and more than ready to slip into oblivion as soon as her eyes closed.

* * *