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C HRISTIANA STOOD BY the well, a soft wind blowing through her hair, an overwhelming relief filling her heart.

“Thank you,” she whispered, choking back her emotion to lift her voice. “My thanks to each of you for allowing me to escape to your world.”

None of the three figures sitting under the great tree so much as glanced in her direction.

“You cannot remain here. We are not meant as your refuge. Drink the water and be about your business.”

She touched the cold, crisp liquid to her lips and lifted immediately from her feet to float above the land. This time her focus was homed solely on what was yet to be.

Below her, the Mysts thickened at the edge of Now and she dipped lower, batting at the puffy dis-colored clouds to dislodge them that she might see what they hid.

So many paths, but only one held interest for her now.

The one leading to the Sinclair’s keep, where Torquil had indicated he would send Chase and Halldor.

Eleven men rode toward the Myst. Eleven men but twelve horses. From this height she recognized them all, even the empty saddle keeping pace next to Chase. The empty saddle belonged to none other than Halldor O’Donar.

Hovering above them, a shock of realization swept over Christiana as she accepted what she was seeing.

She knew Halldor existed in that scene. If she dipped lower and concentrated on the spot where he should be, it was almost possible to decipher his form.

Yet, for reasons she couldn’t understand, the sight of him was masked from her.

Second, and possibly more confusing than her not being able to see him, was the realization that Halldor could not possibly be Chase’s brother. She should have recognized that long before now. Unlike Chase, Halldor existed in this time, whether or not he was visible to her in the Visions.

Like so many other enticing strands, these would be paths of knowledge for her to pursue at another time. Though she had no doubt of their importance, they were not her purpose for being here today.

Pulling back to regain her perspective only increased her frustration.

So many paths branching out from each of the men below presented a tangled maze for her to sort, requiring her to carefully pick and choose a single thread to follow.

Her focus sharpened on Chase, as it must if she were to have any hope of finding what was to come if he traveled these paths.

She’d seen this part before. She’d watched as their horses entered the Mysts bound for Sinclair Keep. It was what lay beyond this that she must find now.

Once again she dipped lower, plunging into the heavy Myst to find a point in the future where the horses followed a return path to Tordenet.

There were only six animals along this particular strand of the future, galloping hard, their sides bellowing in and out.

Two were riderless, one of them belonging to Chase.

Not that path!

She backtracked, blinking at the burn in her eyes and the acrid taste in her mouth as she plunged again down through the Myst. Each of the paths she followed from Sinclair Keep led to the same result. Chase would not survive.

The realization buffeted her, rolling her feet-over-head and tossing her like a leaf high into the air. By the time she recovered her stability, she was so far above them, what little she could see appeared as no more than insects.

The wind of return began its insistent pull even as she struggled to continue forward. There had to be another path. One she’d somehow missed that would lead Chase safely back to her.

Instead, ahead in the distance, a patch in the Myst revealed Tordenet, her tower in flames. Screams drifted to her ears, screams she knew to be her own.

But which path did this lie upon? She could not decipher where or how it connected beneath the Myst-covered maze any more than she could resist the force pulling her away from the knowledge she sought.

Her eyes lifted to seek the glowing rip in the tapestry of the future, the hole where Chase’s life thread had been altered. It seemed to lie in a different direction than it had before. It and another very much like it. And yet another.

The sprinkling of dark holes across the web of time could mean only one thing: his was not the only life thread that had been altered in the vast landscape of the tapestry!

Her feet touched the ground and the door between her world and this one shimmered. With so much to consider, she did not resist when the force pushed her gently toward the opening.

What could they mean, those shiny, tattered holes in the tapestry of the future? Was it possible that Chase had been right? Perhaps the choices woven by the Norns were not the only pathways into the future after all.