Allissa

We flew north until the world ran out of green.

The pines thinned to scrub, and the scrub gave way to stone, and then there was nothing under us but gray rock and old snow going on forever. The cold seemed to freeze everything … including time. I lost track of the days on purpose. Counting them meant counting how long my daughter had been gone, and I could not carry that number and keep moving at the same time.

Thorin gave his report every dusk, the way Darren had asked him to. He ...