Cozette nodded her head, knowing what her friend didn't completely understand. Only one heart beat now. It was hers. Her daughter's heart was stone.

Sophie King's Montagne, Gemmes She knew it was dumb, but as the King's Legion seized them for questioning, Sophie looked longingly at all those wasted caramels lying in the dirt.

"Really, do you have to do this? Since when did the King's Legion stop random citizens on the road and interrogate them?" Tristan implored.

He was understandably upset. Purposefully, he had always kept himself away from the king, and anyone who might threaten to take his gems.

"Identify yourselves!" the man who was in charge ordered, from under the awning of a carriage. Sophie gathered the king himself wasn't in this group. However, it was clear these soldiers were a portion of his Legion, over a dozen soldiers and their guardsmen and servants. The large party rode through the hills, toward them. Sophie and Tristan were quite focused on one another to not hear this sizable group before they were on top of them.

"We're citizens, okay? Seriously, do you have to detain us like escapees?" Sophie rolled her eyes, seemingly undeterred by the soldier's grip on her arm.

"What are your names and ages?"

Tristan looked at Sophie, imploring her to keep her mouth shut.

Sophie huffed, irritated.

"Why are you doing this?" Tristan asked.

"Orders from the king," he said wearily, eyes rimmed in red from lack of sleep.

The soldiers rifled through the bags. Their heavy eyes and need for a bath confirmed these men were tired, and had travelled a long time by. Her bag held nothing of interest in her bag, some dirty clothes and a pouch of jasper.

She was relieved in her choice to give Tristan the diamond, and his choice to take it to Madame Josephine's. Any doubt in that decision, in her lack of loyalty to Henri, disappeared knowing the King's Legion would have confiscated it if they'd found it.

"Your names, now, or we will hold you as prisoners." The longer Sophie and Tristan withheld answering, the angrier the soldiers became.

The man who'd gone through Tristan's bag spoke excitedly as he held up the Book of Lore. "Looky-here, Sam, a book that might be of importance." He flipped open the cover revealing a name, broadly in red ink.

Tristan De'Cheval.

"Seriously, Tristan?" Sophie rolled her eyes, annoyed that he would be so obvious.

"Ahhh, so we've stumbled upon the infamous Gem Tracker. The man everyone speaks of." Sam leered at Tristan's face. Sophie noticed a line of sweat on Tristan's brow; he was nervous.

Sam kicked the bag to the side. Sophie winced.

"It's good; we hoped to find you. Now, let's see, anything special in this pretty little thing's bag? Clues that might give away who she is?"

Sophie wasn't sentimental; she didn't keep trinkets from her past, and certainly didn't pack any with her when she left home.

"What do you want with him?" she asked boldly.

"It doesn't matter; just stay quiet. I don't want anything to happen to you." Tristan grabbed her hand, as if he hoped to reassure her. His hand did nothing for her except feel contained.

"Oh, Tristan. Seriously. You are so melodramatic." She turned to Sam, and held his gaze, wanting to understand why she mattered to him. "Look, if you were looking for the tracker, you found him. You knew who he was, why do I matter to you?"

Sophie's approach was direct, and it seemed to work. Sam dropped her bag and looked at her, the creases on his face deep, doing the king's work looked exhausting, and he seemed to relax in her confidence.

"We're looking for a girl, your age. An orphan. A girl who doesn't know her parents. Orders from the king. That's all we know. We scoured each village looking for her."

"No luck?" Sophie asked, a sharp pain splitting through her chest, like it had the night she had the stone reading. The aching feeling inside her that she had felt back at Miora's, crept awake once again. It felt ominous. Like Miora meant for her to be here, now.

"We thought we were close. We were in the Vallee de Provence last, and everyone there kept mentioning a girl who had recently run away. We found a woman, Francesca, who claimed to be her mother, but upon further questioning, we determined her a liar. Are you the girl who ran away?" He matched her direct question with one of his own.

Sophie was many things, but a liar wasn't one of them. She wasn't, however, ready to lay her stones on the table without knowing more.

"The woman ... what happened to her?"

"She was executed. Treason to the king. She purposely withheld information. She wasn't the girl's mother."

"You killed her?" Sophie asked her mouth coiling on the side in icy hatred for these men. The men who had shook out their possessions on the dirt road carelessly, the men who pawned through their belongings without regard.

Sophie clenched her jaw, not understanding why the crevice inside her split open, wider still. It hurt. Like she was dying. She grabbed her chest, rubbing the moonstone, now aflame, over the spot that hurt.

Sam scoffed and laughed, jabbing the side of the man next to him.

"Do you know the king? Have you heard of the Majesty?" he asked, his voice saturated in mockery. "He is a man without mercy. That why he is The Ruler. No one has the right to betray him with words or deeds."

Tristan's hand tightened around hers, and Sophie realized it was a motion she recognized. He wasn't holding onto her for her. It was for him. He needed her. An image of Henri flashed through her mind again.

It wasn't the time to be sentimental, if that's what you'd call this.

This man, Sam, was telling her he had killed the woman who raised her. She didn't want to react. If she did, he would know who she was. He wouldn't let her go.

A stirring inside caused her to wonder why the king looked for her at all. Or at least wanted a girl like her.

"This woman ... did she say anything about the girl? I mean we might have seen her. We've travelled for a bit," Tristan explained.

"Oh, that woman wouldn't speak. A young thing in town, who went to school with the girl spilled the jewels. They were rewarded. The old woman, she still hangs in the village square."

Sophie felt sick. He had confirmed the truth. Her not-mother was dead. It was too much. She felt Tristan's hand squeeze hers, understanding. She was the girl they wanted. Tristan remained still as did she.

"So what are you planning to do with me? Kill the tracker if he doesn't speak?"

Sam laughed again. The Legion hung on every word she spoke, as they crowded closer. She didn't feel safe. It wasn't a sensation she usually experienced, but here she was, in the King's Forest, with a few dozen soldiers, a handsome young man who was freakishly obsessed with her, and the knowledge that Francesca was dead.

"We aren't killing the man who holds the Tresor de L'espoir in his back pocket, you fool. We are delivering you both to the Palace. The king can decide if you are the girl we were told to find. You may be the wench the old woman was willing to die for. How would we know?"

Sam's men led them to a carriage, and told them to take a seat, that they were moving again, toward eclat. Tristan and Sophie moved silently, as commanded. A soldier set their packs in their carriage, shutting the door.

Tristan leaned out the window, talking to Sam. "You're letting us sit in here, in a Royal Carriage? Aren't we prisoners or something?" Tristan's voice hinted at disbelief.

The carriage was lined in golden velvet, encrusted with giant quartz the size of her hand. Sophie had never seen anything so remarkable. She looked at her dingy black frock and Tristan's tattered pants, realizing how disheveled the pair of them were. How everyone was, in comparison to Royalty.

Sam held their gaze for a beat too long before answering, with a twinge of jealousy in his tone, "The king insisted if we find either the Gem Tracker or the girl, we are to treat them like we would his own children."

He walked away, and the carriage started to move, as did the entire processional of the Legion.

Tristan reached for Sophie's hand, looking at her as if trying to reach inside. Her chest burned. She rubbed her hand across the ache, trying to massage out the pain, but it did nothing. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to hear Tristan's voice.

"Sophie," he started, "your mother ... she's dead then?"

Of course the woman who raised her was dead. The soldier informed them of this.

When Sophie didn't answer, Tristan continued, "I'm so sorry. I know how it feels. I lost both my parents."

She looked at him coolly, thinking he didn't know the first thing about her. How there was an emptiness inside her every day. How no matter what thrilling or scandalous thing she did, nothing filled the cavernous places in her chest. How nothing filled her with the passion he described, the kind of love Henri portrayed. He didn't understand that even though she knew she should be in a mess of violent sobs now, instead she felt void. She wasn't on the verge of tears.

She knew it wasn't normal.

She knew she should feel sorrow. She should feel pain, but she didn't feel any of that. She didn't know how.

All she felt was curiosity. She wanted to know why the king might want her, a nobody orphan.

She used her free hand to feel the smooth velveteen seat, ignoring Tristan altogether. She didn't have the energy to kiss him or placate him with words that weren't her truth.

She pushed aside the tapestry of the curtained window, watching as the dense forest passed by. The vast woods, the miner's camps set up along the way, she watched as villagers they passed paused from their day's labor to watch the King's Legion go by.

In time the throbbing pain inside her dulled, and she let herself imagine a life that wasn't empty. A life where she didn't chase adventure in hopes of filling herself up.

A life where she felt something other than nothing.

A life where she felt alive.

Henri En Route to find Sophie, Gemmes Henri had never ridden in a gypsy wagon. Obviously. He was a baker's apprentice and had never wandered farther than his own little valley. No reason had ever presented itself.

Until now.

His love for Sophie pushed him beyond his comfort zone, pushed him to ask Emel for a ride in her new wagon, and forced him to take the literal reigns of his life. It was harder than he thought it would be.

"So," Emel began, "we seem to be a bit off track...." She smiled at him nervously.

She smiled a lot, Henri realized, smiling back at her. Emel's smile made him think of Sophie's scowl. Fearing Emel might get the wrong idea, Henri stopped looking at her smile altogether. Looking ahead, he tried to remember when exactly they lost their way.

"I'm not trying to be rude," Henri began.

"Which is what people say before they say the rude thing," Emel pointed out.

"Right, but I mean, aren't you a diseuse de bonne aventure, someone able to see the future, a fortune teller? I thought you could take us where we need to go?"

"Ughh." Emel whined. She was like Sophie in that regard, at least. "I'm still an apprentice. Miora wasn't supposed to die so soon. It would be like the Head Baker requesting you to make, ummmm ... what's a fancy baking thing?"

"Macaroons."

"Right. Me knowing everything about stone reading and divination would be like you making macaroons. It doesn't work that way. I'm learning, but I have a lot more to discover." Emel frowned, and then rubbed her eyes. "You must think I am absolutely ridiculous."

"Not ridiculous, perhaps a tad misleading. When we left in the wagon, you seemed quite sure of where we were headed. Perhaps we should have asked Beznik to come along."

Henri would never forget the giant fight between Emel and her parents when she told them her plans to give Henri a ride in her wagon. They reacted as if she suggested going off with a marauder, carrying a miner's pickaxe. Brutal. Henri tried to stay in the fray, not get in their argument, but Emel dragged him in it.

Awkward to say the least.

Henri convinced them that he wasn't a corsier or a fiend or even a madman by giving them the croissants he had in his bag. Croissants. Once fed, Emel told them the stones told her she had to take him. They didn't argue with that. Although, for the record, her parents and Beznik didn't actually know that part was a lie.

Now the pair found themselves lost in the King's Montagne.

"Why don't we take a break? I'm tired. Let's have some food, and maybe some notion will come to you," Henri said tightly. He wasn't angry, exactly. Henri never was downright angry. But irritated? Yes. He was definitely irritated.

Henri jumped off the wagon, to cool off, petting the horse that had done the hard work. He kind of wanted to yell at Emel. She practically told him she was a psychic, now she couldn't get them out of the woods.

"Could you start a fire? I'll go in the wagon and get the food for us." Clearly she felt the tension between them. Before she turned to the wagon she continued. "And, Henri? I'm sorry for getting us lost. I didn't mean to get huffy with you and the macaroons. I feel quite stupid, really. I wanted to impress you. I know how silly that was."

Henri couldn't believe it. Emel apologized, he couldn't remember Sophie ever owning anything she did or said. Henri grinned in relief; it felt good knowing exactly how someone felt. He hated to compare, but Sophie would never tell him how she felt she was the epitome of ice queen.

"It's alright, Emel. Maybe you'll have inspiration when you go inside. I'll look for some wood, okay?"

Emel nodded at him, her shoulders relaxed, and a sigh of happiness audibly escaped from her lips.

"Alright, I will go look in my crystal ball, deal?"

Henri knew she liked him, and though he had eyes for another girl, he saw in her a tenderness. He wanted to keep her safe.

Henri walked into the forest as the day turned to night and his stomach rumbled. They needed to scrounge together the makings of a meal. Tall trees fifty feet high loomed above him, needles and dead leaves littered the floor of the woodlands. Leaves rustled as little critters skittered.

He bent over to get some kindling from broken branches in the quiet, save for the brittle wood snapping in two with his hands.

The summer sun shone across the dirt road where they rode all day, but a few yards off the beaten path, he found shade from the heat. He breathed in deeply, wondering why he had never left the Valley before. Sophie always asked him to, but he always shook his head, said no to her request, determined that there was enough adventure in their village.

Now, seeing trees stretching past forever and the enormous breadth of the Montagne ... he changed his mind. If he spent all the days of his life trying there would still never be enough time to soak this all in. The idea of returning to the bakery Sophie-less made him shake his head. Sophie wanted to go, and rightly so. He wished he'd gone with her and avoided all this mess.

Holding an armful of sticks, plenty for a campfire, Henri turned to go. In the corner of his eye he saw a thin trail of smoke from between the trees. Squinting he tried to see through the branches, and it was as he thought, a small cottage nestled in the middle of the deep forest.

He walked toward it, his shirt catching on branches as he moved, but he didn't notice. He felt pulled toward this little home. Perhaps the owners could help them find the path toward the North Montagne, where Beznik took Sophie.

After making his way to the wooden door, he lifted his hand to knock. As his hand connected to the grain, a scream came from the wagon.

Emel.

He turned, confused to see her running toward him, shouting at him to stop, just as the door swung open wide.

A harmless looking woman, with long braided hair and a wiry frame, spoke gently, "We've been waiting for you."

Henri motioned toward Emel to come forward, but the fortuneteller drew back, shaking her head no.

Tamsin Provence de Frontiere, Gemmes She had told Remy that someone would be coming.

She felt it in her bones, in the air. The shift she felt when she gave Tristan another clue closer to his Tresor de L'espoir, was the same feeling she had now.