The Queen's Choice. Cayla Kluver

the truth sooner, but she hadn’t done so until he was fifteen, at which point chaos had ensued, and her son’s reckless abandon had steered him to brave a Crossing of his own accord. When he’d gone missing, the entire Realm had been searched; it was ultimately assumed he’d gone into human lands when not a trace of him was found, even on or near the Bloody Road. No news of him had since reached the Queen or my father’s ambassadors in the Warckum Territory.

      Would Zabriel have tried to find his father’s family? It would have been an easy task considering their prominence, another fact I had not shared with Shea. She didn’t need to know of my cousin’s connection to the man she viewed as responsible for her family’s strife. I ultimately rejected the idea that Zabriel would have sought out the Governor—when he’d abandoned his claim to the throne, he’d been tired of expectations and being defined by the blood in his veins. He had no memories of his father, a fact he never hesitated to share with anyone who happened to ripple the surface of his deep-rooted bitterness toward the human for siring him. I couldn’t picture Zabriel pursuing a history and a legacy he did not want.

      Where, then, would he have gone? A place where he would blend in, where he would be difficult to track. A large city. The capital? Tairmor was busy, but it was also the seat of the Governor’s power, and offered little excitement once one adapted to its curiosities and pace. Sheness, however, brimmed with foreigners, trade, new technologies, and adventure, or so I’d heard, and the port city was as far from the Balsam Forest as the continent allowed. It was more likely Zabriel would have traveled there. After all, he saw himself as an abomination, neither human nor Fae, and one was likely to find many abominations in Sheness.

      A shudder passed through me at this thought. Was I now an abomination, too? Shaking off the notion, I forced myself to concentrate only on Zabriel, settling on Sheness for my destination. Two years had passed since his disappearance, and I had to start somewhere.

      I waited until evening to tell Shea of my decision to depart, when we were together in her room. A significant part of me wanted to just steal away, avoid goodbyes and potential trouble with Thatcher, but Shea and I had become friends, and I owed her an explanation. She would be lonely without me, and the resulting guilt I felt was more intense than I had anticipated. I was prepared, however, to deal with her disappointment. To my consternation, when I finally forced the confession past my lips, I encountered resolve rather than disappointment, and I realized how well Thatcher understood his daughter.

      “I’m going with you,” she proclaimed, a stubborn set to her chin.

      I shook my head, but Shea wasn’t put off.

      “What are you going to do, Anya? You have to find a way to live among the humans now. Do you think that’s going to be easy? Maybe in your Realm people respect teenage girls, but they don’t here. We’re bothersome and in the way, too young to be taken seriously and too old to be innocent. The world doesn’t want us, and if we don’t have each other, we have nothing. I need to leave this place, and you’re going to want a friend out there in the Territory. You might even need one.”

      I rubbed my temple, my feelings aligning with hers—I didn’t want to be alone. But how could I say yes when I’d promised Thatcher that I’d turn her down?

      “What about your family?”

      “They’ll be fine without me. I haven’t been here in my heart in a long time.”

      “Your father doesn’t want you to leave.”

      Shea slowly blinked her chocolate-brown eyes, pondering the meaning of my statement.

      “Did my father talk to you?” She read the answer in my expression, and her eyes narrowed. “He has no right to forbid you from taking me with you. This isn’t his decision, it’s mine.”