“I hate having to guess so boldly,” Alusair told the first clear hoof print she’d found in three days, “But these snortsnouts aren’t giving me much time to do it the proper way.”

Something dark moved on the crest of the ridge behind her. Alusair snarled an oath and trotted into the nearest copse of trees. Two days at least, now, the orcs had been following her. It had been two nights that she’d dared not sleep. She was talking to herself more to keep awake than to measure her weary thoughts.

Her bold guess as to which valley Rowen had chosen had been right again, but gods blast this, it was sloppy tracking. Rowen had ridden Cadimus here, or someone had. The marks of the hooves where the warhorse crossed soft mud were deep enough to tell the Steel Princess that Cadimus had willingly carried a rider, heading as straight north as the land allowed.

Three days had passed since Alusair had left her sister Tanalasta and the sage Alaphondar and set off to rescue-or learn the fate of-her scout Rowen. The scout-a Purple Dragon ranger-was an outlawed Cormaeril, but the father of Tanalasta’s unborn child. Cormaeril or not, the wedding was lawful. The babe, if it lived, would be the rightful heir to the throne of Cormyr.

“Gods above and below, but father will be furious,” she murmured, ducking her way through a stand of young shadowtops. “I don’t know which I’d rather not be-Tana or Rowen!”

A wry smile plucked at the corners of her mouth, then vanished in an instant as her eyes fell on the moss ahead.

There was a break in the trees, and Cadimus had passed through it. Tracks led up a mossy slope and away from the open valley floor, where in wet weather a creek meandered and the rest of the time open turf made for swift and easy mounted travel. Why leave that open ground? To camp?