“Let me explain. I brought you here to work on a battle strategy.” 

“All the way out here?” Ander asked. “If that’s all you wanted, we could’ve done this with all of our army's leaders.” 

“I beg to differ. I have a small force, powerful, but small. I do not trust easily, which is why I waited so long to make this decision.” 

“And what decision is that?” Maija interrupted.  

Hannah’s eyes shifted to Maija, “To fight alongside you and your army.”  

“But why exclude the humans, dwarfs and elves?” Anders asked. 

“When the gates holding our people from crossing into the south were broken, I didn’t know who I could trust. My people are counting on me to bring them home, which is why we have been observing the goings on for some time. The politics of your lands have changed much since my ancestors were cast out to the North.” 

“Norfolk,” Anders whispered to himself.  

“Do you have something to say?” Hannah asked in an authoritative tone. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t put this together sooner,” Ander said when he had connected the dots. Maija and Hannah eyed him with curiosity. “You’re the riders from Northland that Zorna told us about. She said the barrier Asmond created kept anyone who entered Northland from returning. Everyone but unbonded dragons,” he said speaking to Maija. 

Maija’s forehead creased as she said, “But she just said it was her ancestors who were blocked. It’s only been, what, a hundred years?” 

“Zorna?” Hannah asked. “How can that be? She went missing and her dragon returned, but that was thousands of years ago.”  

“Merglan’s journal,” Anders said with a snap of his fingers. “He wrote that he’d been gone for two years but when he came back, he had really only been gone for two weeks.”  

“The time paradox,” the rider who’d brought them to the rider’s camp said from behind them.  

“What?” Maija asked. 

“Zorna’s mentor, Magleen, prophesied many events in our history that have come true. She was there when the riders were cast out of the Southland. In her writings she stated she found a way through the wall. Each time she passed through, time passed much more slowly on the south side of the barrier.” 

“If that is true, Merglan could’ve found the hole in the barrier and come back through. Didn’t Zorna tell us her instructor taught Merglan?” Maija said. 

“There is no hole in the barrier. My father and grandfather dedicated their lives to finding a way though the barrier. Once someone came to Northland, they remained. Until a few weeks ago, that is, when the barrier fell,” Hannah said. 

“Merglan could’ve broken the paradox?” Anders suggested. 

“It makes no difference. We have come to fulfill one of Magleen’s prophecies,” Hannah said. “The barrier has been broken and I am here to claim my birthright to lead the good nations of this world to a time of peace.”  

Anders glanced at Maija. She gave him a questioning look in return.

“What prophecy?” he asked. 

“Thousands of years ago, Magleen predicted the barrier would fall and the child of the rightful King in the south would come on the back of a dragon to end the evil dragonrider’s reign.”  

“But you’re not the son of a king?” Anders mumbled. 

Hannah tilted her head, “You know of the prophecy?” 

Anders nodded and asked, “What birthright have you come to claim?” 

“My rightful place as Queen of humanity,” Hannah said seriously. 

Anders stomach churned at the words and he felt a shock spread through his body, numbing all of his senses. He snapped out of his funk. 

Aren’t you going to say something? Maija asked him. 

Maija, no. We don’t know if she’s telling us the truth. 

Anders, look at her. You’re practically twins, Maija said. 

Please, don’t tell her anything. I don’t want to complicate things. We need to get back to the city. Your sister could be in danger.  

Maija left his thoughts, but he could still feel her emotions pressuring him to say something about it to Hannah. “You said you wanted to talk strategy?” Anders asked, ignoring Maija’s thoughts and trying to focus on how eerily similar he and the rider looked.  

“As you know, there is a massive army marching from the coast right toward the city where you and your army plan to stage your battle,” Hannah said. 

“Which is exactly why we should be flying back there before they attack,” Anders said. 

“There is time. The dragons will be the first to attack. We haven’t seen them flying to join the army yet.”  

“How do you know that?” Maija asked. 

“As I said before, we have been observing and deciding which army, if any, we should join.” 

“Oh,” Maija replied with a frown.  

“In our observations, we’ve noticed that you, Anders, have a different skill set than we were trained with.”  

“In what way?” Anders asked. 

“Where we have excelled in masking our presence to other sorcerers, you have learned the long-lost secrets of the inhabitance crystals.”  

“I don’t know that much,” he said. “We only know what Zorna explained to us.”  

“It’s more than we know. I have been trying to use the one you let fall into the hands of the wraith. It will not work for me, yet you seem to have taught non-bonded people how to use them. I brought you and the others here to show us how to use them. You have enough for all of us to wield their powers.”  

Anders thought for a moment before responding. What do you think, Zahara?  

She shares your blood; I can smell it on her. She speaks the truth and I think you can trust her. Imagine what we could do with a dragonrider’s army and this wealth of power. 

Anders sighed, “We can show you how to use them if you get us back to the front lines before the enemy attacks.”  

“Why do you think we brought the ones who can use crystals with us?” Hannah asked. 

“You brought two of them. Thomas can’t use one and Inama doesn’t have one,” Anders replied. 

 “They both have crystals, which is why we brought them, too,” she said.