the gift at my door, but they had no idea how they worked. Tor, however, hasn’t seen me with this before, and is watching with interest. Gently pulling it from its wrappings, I place it into the center of my palm and examine the beautifully carved symbols, wishing I knew what they meant. The little dial instantly starts to spin, circling the device a couple of times.
“That’s the most unusual compass I’ve ever seen,” Tor remarks, breaking my stare. Glancing up, I see he’s looking at the wayfinder with a raised eyebrow and a quirked lip.
“Compass?” I ask, the word sounding familiar, but I can’t think where I’ve heard it before.
Nodding, Tor reaches into his pelt and pulls out a small metal disk. When he opens it, I see it has a dial that admittedly does look similar to the wayfinder, just much less embellished and it doesn’t move or spin like mine does. “It’s a device that helps tell which direction you’re going in,” he explains before putting it away. “May I see that?”
“Of course.” Leaning over, I gently pass him the device, smiling at how small it looks in his huge hands as he cradles it. As before when Naril looked at it, the dial instantly stops spinning as soon as it leaves my hands. “It was a gift from the sea elves. They call it a wayfinder,” I inform him, watching as he raises it up to examine it further, one of his fingers tracing over the engravings. “Apparently, it’s spelled with magic and will only work for the person it’s keyed to, except I have no idea how it works.”
Tor looks up at me, surprise etched onto his face. “The sea elves gave this to you?” he asks, and as I nod, I can’t work out why he’s so surprised. He carefully hands it back to me. “Can I see how it works?”
I place it in the palm of my hand, the dial spinning as soon as I touch it. Making a steady, anticlockwise circuit around the face of the wayfinder, it bounces twice against a symbol that looks like a heart with a dagger through it, before reversing and making several clockwise circuits.
A strange feeling washes over me, telling me that whatever the wayfinder is trying to show me is important. Could all this be related? I theorise, remembering my earlier feeling that something big is going to happen soon. I look at the symbol the needle stopped on, and a jolt of fear runs through me. A bleeding heart rests in a palm with a gleaming dagger pierced through it. That can’t be good, right?
Tor is humming beside me, still watching the wayfinder, the needle of which is now moving around erratically. It’s pointing behind me, jumping around, not pausing on any one symbol, and then it jumps and seems to be pointing between two symbols. I look up and see it’s exactly where Vaeril is riding ahead of me. I open my mouth to say something, but the needle spins away, this time seemingly pointing at Tor. Glancing up, I see Tor frowning down at the wayfinder, his eyes meeting mine as the needle spins away again, bouncing behind me. I turn to look behind me, but there’s nothing there. Shuddering, I wrap the wayfinder up and put it away, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden, especially with the way Tor’s looking at me right now.
“So, the queen seemed to like you.” My bitterness is obvious, and I wince internally, but it’s too late to take it back now. I needed to change the topic and make Tor think of something else other than the wayfinder, but I don’t know why I picked that topic.
Tor groans and tilts his head back to look up at the tree canopy. “Do we really have to talk about this?” he queries, still looking up at the leaves.
Something twists inside me, something I’m not used to feeling—jealousy. Why doesn’t he want to talk about it? my inner voice asks, spinning ridiculous scenarios. I know Tor wouldn’t do these things, but it doesn’t matter. Now that the doubt is there, it’s like a disease, infecting me with its tight grip. “Why not? Do you have something to hide?” My anger rises to the surface like a volcano, erupting out of nowhere. Naril and Vaeril stop their horses and turn around to see what’s happening, their supernatural hearing picking up my outburst.
“No!” Tor exclaims, his expression twisting into one