The Lost Queen (Book 1 of The Lost Queen Series)

Chapter Five

Seraiah's hands fell from Nissa's shoulders, and she stumbled back as the girl started sobbing again.

This was all her fault.

Grabbing her cloak off the hook, Seraiah dashed out the front door, leaving Nissa with her tears. The girl's words echoed over and over in Seraiah's head as she sprinted down the road toward the market.

She is missing. She is missing. She is missing.

The dark eyes from her dreams the night before came back to haunt her, taunting. She should have known. Hadn't her dreams come true before? Why would this nightmare be any different?

There must have been something—some clue that she had missed—to stop this from happening. Seraiah tried to recall what she and Sterling had spoken about that morning as she rushed to get ready. Her sister had helped to braid her hair and asked what Seraiah wanted for her upcoming birthday. Sterling had mentioned baking a cake, and Seraiah had teased her about her kitchen skills. They'd danced around the topic of her dreams—Sterling chose to ignore them and believe they had no meaning.

Nothing had been out of the ordinary.

Seraiah's lungs burned as she pushed herself to go faster. The temperature had plummeted, and the air had taken on that telltale smell.

It would snow again soon.

Finally, the market stalls came into sight. The shadows cast by the sun's fading rays gave them an eerie air that wasn't there during the day.

Seraiah paused just inside her father's stall, trying to catch her breath.

Looking around, she didn't see her father anywhere. Their old mule, Daisy, was still tied to the post at the back, and none of the furniture had been loaded into the wagon for the night.

"Seraiah, honey, over here," Nissa's mother, Freya, called out, waving to Seraiah from her own stall. It looked like Freya had packed up all of her wares for the night already.

Seraiah picked her way through her father's stall over to Freya, still trying to catch her breath from her mad-dash.

"I waited to make sure Nissa delivered her message. I'm terribly sorry." Freya clasped Seraiah's arm in what was probably supposed to be a comforting manner.

"Where is my father?" Seraiah scanned the market again, but still didn't see him.

"He said he was going to do another sweep of the area to see if he could find anything." Freya leaned in closer. "I don't think he will. Faeries are such sneaky creatures."

Seraiah's eyes snapped back to Freya. "Excuse me?"

"You know. Faeries? Changelings? Surely you have heard of them?"

She had, but she'd assumed it was nothing more than a children's story. She hadn't realized people believed they existed.

"The faeries steal children away and sometimes replace them with one of their own."

"My sister is fifteen. She isn't a child."

"I've heard stories of full-grown adults being taken before. They vanish without a trace, just like your sister. It can't be a coincidence those strangers arrived and now this happened."

Seraiah shook her head, her brain struggling to follow the conversation.

She is missing. She is missing. She is missing.

The words wouldn't stop repeating.

"Seraiah?" Freya gave her arm a little shake, and Seraiah focused back on the woman.