Free Forest Born by Shannon Hale

What did she want? To be all right with her own heart. To lose the dread and disquiet that gnawed at her chest. To go home to her ma and play with her nieces and nephews, and eat bread hot from the oven pit and roast pine nuts and just lie back and feel home again.
    But she could not go back where her mother still believed she was a good girl, where family barely noticed her, where Wilem hung his head. The city was so many walls and roofs and talking faces. The only place lately she had felt at home was with Isi. And now Isi was going where neither she nor even Razo or Finn were allowed to follow. Sitting on firm earth, Rin felt as if she were sinking.
    Through the trees, she spotted three girls. Their hair was hidden in Forest women’s headwraps, but Rin was certain that underneath the cloth, one had yellow hair, one black, and one orange. They were walking to the far edge of camp nearest the wood with Razo, Finn, Geric, and Tusken, making farewells. The fire sisters—that was how Rin had begun to think of them. Three girls who could speak the language of fire. She had no place with those girls, but she ached to. Rin stood, hesitated, tripped forward, and finally ran. Maybe Isi would let her come, if she asked. No, she could not ask, but if she followed . . . By the time Rin emerged from the trees, the girls were lost to the light of campfires, swallowed up by night.
    Rin dragged herself back to camp. Both sorrow and relief warred in her chest, and she slumped against a wagon, startling when she realized what was inside. A body covered by a blanket, one scorched boot peering out. Brynn. She remembered when he’d promised Isi to guard the king with his life, his aspect anxious and curious. His hair had been a paler shade of brown, his face long, his build . . .
    Something glittered on the edge of her memory, and she looked up into the stars as if for help recalling. Rin had seen him before the day of departure. In the stable yard. In the distance. The man arguing with Cilie. That had been Brynn.
    Rin backed away from the wagon, her fingers and toes tingling. Cilie had wanted to be near Tusken, but not because she loved him, as she claimed. She and Brynn had argued together. Over what? Now Cilie had disappeared and Brynn was dead. Were those events connected?
    Rin ran for her pack, her heart thudding in her chest, in her ears. She had to tell Isi . . . well, someone should tell Isi. But now Rin had an excuse to follow, and she seized it like the last hold on the edge of a cliff.
    The queen had brought her to watch Tusken, and she could not abandon him.
    But he’s with his father and an army of soldiers, she reasoned. And I’m not good to anybody half-crazy.
    Still, she cramped with guilt and worry at the thought of leaving the boy. So she would not leave him without a caretaker. Her pack on her shoulders, she ran toward the edge of camp where she’d last seen Razo, finding him ambling back alone, his hands in his pockets.
    “Whoa there, Rinna-girl, what’s your hurry?” His gaze roved over the pack in her hand, her boots, her hood. His eyes narrowed, an expression meant to convey wariness, but on Razo it looked comical. “What’re you up to? Something sneaky.”
    “I’m in a hurry, but I need—”
    “Uh-uh. Just you remember that I’m your big brother, even if you’re as tall as me, and . . . hold on, you’re as tall as me! I thought I’d outgrown you last year. How did that happen?” He checked her boots. “You’re not stuffing extra socks in there to boost you up? That would be sneaky.”
    “I need a favor. I need you to keep an eye on Tusken from now on, until Isi gets back.”
    “And does this mean that my baby sister is planning on leaving us?”
    Her eyes flicked again to the edge of camp.
    Razo caught her arm. “Why’re you being so mysterious? What’s cooking in that head of yours? Hey, is your hair puffed up higher than normal? Is that why you’re taller? I bet it’s your hair. That’d be