The path to Lambshold was all but obscured by the snow, but Aralorn could have followed it blindfolded even though she hadn’t been here in ten years.

As Sheen crested the final rise, Aralorn sat back in the saddle. Responsively, the stallion tucked his convex nose and slid to a halt. The roan gelding threw up his head indignantly as his lead line pulled him to an equally abrupt stop.

From the top of the keep, the yellow banner emblazoned with her father’s red lion, which signaled the presence of the lord at the keep, flew at half mast, with a smaller, red flag above.

Aralorn swallowed and patted Sheen’s thick gray neck. “You’re getting old, love. Maybe I should leave you here for breeding and see if I can talk someone out of a replacement.”

Sheen’s ear swiveled back to listen to her, and she smiled absently.

“There’s the tree I found you tied to down there, near the wall.”

She’d thought she was so clever, sneaking out in the dead of night when no one would stop her. She’d just made it safely over the wall—no mean feat—and there was Sheen, her father’s pride and joy, tied to a tree. She still had the note she’d found in the saddlebags with travel rations and some coins. In her father’s narrow handwriting the short note had informed her that a decent mount was sometimes useful, and that if she didn’t find what she was looking for, she would always be welcome in her father’s home.

The dark evergreen trees blurred in her sight as Aralorn thought about the last night she’d lived at Lambshold. She swallowed, the grief she’d suppressed through the journey home making itself felt.