Heart was frowning.

She was so disappointed.

She had been hoping to read something about her family, about the unicorns—but so far Lord Dunraven’s book was all about his castle. It talked about building the stone walls, the huge glass windows in the upstairs ballrooms, the towers…

She looked up.

Moonsilver was grazing. 

His white coat shone in the early sunlight.

She had taken off his armor. 

It was safe here. 

Behind her, to the east, the rocky wastelands stretched out for three days journey—and beyond them were the steep slopes of Lord Levin’s forests.

Heart squinted in the early sunlight, staring out over the open land. That was the way they had come.

There were no roads in the wastelands.

The ground was criss-crossed with deep ravines. The rocks were as jagged as wolves’ teeth.

No one ever traveled that way.

But Moonsilver had galloped over the broken ground for three days and nights.

He had leaped the gullies and the rocks.

By the time he had finally stopped, Heart had been stiff and sore. 

Moonsilver hadn’t seemed tired.

She had been exhausted.

She yawned, set the book aside and stood up to stretch.

Before her, the ridge cast a deep shadow westward. 

Beyond it, the early sun streaked the sloping land. It leveled out in the distance, along the Blue River.

She could see Ruth Oakes’s house from where she stood.

It looked so small. River Road was visible.  Crooked Lane wasn’t, but Ruth’s house stood on the corner and Heart knew exactly where the weed-lined little track ran.

Simon’s shack was a long ways down it, close to the Blue River. She couldn’t see it, but she could picture it perfectly.

The thatched roof sagged, the leaning walls were the color of dirt. Inside, it was dark and dusty. 

Heart blinked back tears, then traced The River Road with her eyes. 

“Your mother and I walked that road almost every day,” she told Moonsilver.  “Before you were born.”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She missed Avamir.  And Kip.

Both of them were with the Gypsies, a week or more ahead of them, traveling their usual route toward Derrytown, then beyond. 

At least she knew they were perfectly safe.

Binney loved them both.

Heart took a deep breath. She didn’t have to worry as much now.  Moonsilver wasn’t a spindly colt any longer.

He was tall and strong.

He could outdistance any lord’s guardsmen and live happily grazing in meadows and drinking from creeks.

Heart would do her best to protect him, but it went both ways now. He would try to keep her safe, too.

Heart sat back down.

She opened the book again and turned pages without reading them.

There were drawings of the high outer walls. 

She studied a drawing of one of the towers.  It had thin slits cut into the stone, but no windows.

There were drawings of the parapets, where the guards would stand, keeping watch.

The next few pages looked like a jumble of squares and rectangles at first, then Heart read the tiny print that labeled each room. 

The guards’ quarters were on the lowest floor, in the center of the castle. 

The floors above had guestrooms and ballrooms and huge banquet halls.

Heart turned the pages until she spotted the design of the two rearing unicorns.

The same design was on her baby blanket—the one Simon had sold—the one Lord Dunraven was keeping in a trunk in his castle. 

For the thousandth time, Heart wondered where her parents were and why they had left her beside the Blue River.

Maybe they were among the people of Castle Avamir.

It seemed likely from all she had learned.

But where had they gone? 

Heart stared at the book without seeing the page.  Lord Dunraven was a powerful and terrible man.  She would have to find a way to talk with the old man, to ask him where the people had gone.    

Heart’s eyes focused on the print below the drawing. 

Zim had once tried to sound out the letters for her.

Now she could read the words herself. 

“Beyond these iron gates, at the end of the Old Road, lie The Mountains of the Moon,” Heart read aloud, clearly and carefully.  “Ancient tales say unicorns once lived there. This is quite true.” 

She took a quick breath, surprised.

The road to the Mountains of the Moon was near Dunraven’s Castle? 

Was it the Old Road Binney had talked about?

Heart looked up from the book, remembering.  Binney had said no one could travel that way now, that Lord Dunraven had closed it. With the Sunset Gates?  Were they the iron gates Joseph Lequire’s ancestor had had made? 

Moonsilver lifted his head from the fresh grass.

“Do you know where The Mountains of the Moon are?” she asked him.

He struck at the ground with a forehoof.

He shook his mane.

Heart wished, as always, that she could just talk to him.

“Are there other unicorns? Is that where they are?” Heart whispered.

Moonsilver pawed at the ground again, flinging tufts of grass backward. Her family, the disappearance of the unicorns, Lord Dunraven’s destroying old storybooks and forbidding common folks to learn to read…

These things were all tied together somehow, she was sure.

She had to figure out how.

Heart felt the silver bracelet on her wrist tighten.

She pushed up her sleeve.

The bracelet looked like fancy silver lace, with a tiny silver flower in the center.

Heart touched it. 

The gardener at Castle Avamir had given her a real flower.  What magic had changed it into this tiny metal one?

Moonsilver whuffled out a long breath.

He switched his tail and tossed his head, turning to face River Road.

Heart heard the distant hoofbeats a moment later.

There they were, riding at a gallop.

Lord Dunraven rode a little ways ahead of his men.

His white hair had escaped his hood.

His dark cloak fanned out behind him. 

One of the horses still labored under the weight of two men.  The old man from Castle Avamir rode awkwardly, slumped against the guardsman’s back.

Heart frowned.

The gardener had seemed very old.

He had to be exhausted.

Lord Dunraven had said something about a queen wanting to see the old man. Was there a Queen among in Castle Avamir’s people? 

There were kings and queens in the storybook Lord Irmaedith had given her. 

Maybe somewhere there was a king’s castle.

     Heart smiled. The idea delighted her.

     Then she frowned again. 

     Would a real King be wise and kind like the one in the storybook—or would he be like Lord Dunraven, but even more powerful?

Heart wished she had asked the young Lord Irmaedith for a more storybooks. He had lots of them, she was sure. He had anything he wanted.

He was the newly named Lord Irmaedith, ruler of lands even wider than Lord Dunraven’s.

Heart wondered if she would ever see him again.  He had told her his real name. “Seth.” She said it aloud, hoping he was well.

Heart turned to Moonsilver.

“Eat your fill,” she told him. “We’ll follow them later tonight.”

Heart played her flute for a time, quietly, letting the notes blend into the evening breeze.

While there was still a little light, she practiced writing. Her letters were getting neater.

She read until sunset.  She slept lightly for a few hours, then rose and packed her carry-sack by starlight.

She was careful with Lord Dunraven’s book.

She was no thief. 

She would return the book to him very soon—one way or another.