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In a traitor's game, there are no winners

Only those left standing at the end

Cheat or be cheated

Crush or be crushed

Playor be killed

The next move is mine

The truth of where I'd been for the past three years wasn't what anyone believed

It wasn't exile, as , and char a thorn with one's bare foot ladly choose to live there before sacrificing my happiness for my father's political demands

Nor was I hiding, as most people in my country suspected While it was true that I'd been sent to the Fields on the sa, I had Darrow to protect er than before

And I wasn't away learning to beco, the opposite was true My hand me to put down the swords and disk bows Darrow liked to trainneedle instead But so far, I'd done ers with the needles than had ever been done to e of a blade

The truth about the Lava Fields was that very few people knehereabouts,it the first place I'd ever felt truly free Free to explore the knifelike e near Unknown Lake and eat at the rickety wooden table with Darrow, Cook, and Celia Free to run and sing and let le in the wind

Free, that is, until last night, when a garrison of six Dominion soldiers had unexpectedly arrived with a summons from my father to return home to Woodcourt

Why? Nothing on ed, and he would certainly never back down Yet here I was tonight, boxed inside a crae, unable to block out the incessant noise of gravel grinding beneath our track wheels I felt trapped

No, I was trapped, a thought that chokedhad been fine in the Lava Fields Aside fros of an ancient volcano and a relentless odor of sulfur, we'd enjoyed a simple life there, one with few rules and even fewer people to tell o home?

"Are you all right, Kestra? You look worried" Sitting across fro and unknotting her fingers She was nervous, which was no great surprise So was I My firstwith my father in three years could end poorly

Celia was a wisp of cloud, a crocus flower in bloom, far too delicate for a life in hter than ave ed to the Dallisor fa inferior