"What if this Gem Tracker is right? What if there really is the Tresor de L'espoir?"

"If this mythical legend held even a nugget of truth ... I'd send my men to find it myself, but there isn't. It's a story as old as time." Marcus laughed at Drake's question. No doubt this Tracker was a foolish young man drumming attention. It worked.

"But what if?"

"If what? If I am wrong? Then I will bow to whoever finds the missing jewel and pledge my allegiance." He guffawed at the words he spoke.

Drake didn't share in the laughter. He took this seriously, and his focus caused Marcus to pick up the paper once more, studying the words. Drake spoke, "If it's real, and we don't find it first, then the Gem Tracker will have all the power. Power over the land, power over you."

The air in the room shifted, as Marcus realized the gamble he'd make if he let the cards fall as they willed. It was too great a risk, ridiculous myth or not.

"I will send some men, Your Majesty."

"I suppose you should."

Marcus sat at his ornate desk, edged in crystals; trying not to think about the foolish story Drake had brought to his attention. A ridiculous boy, vying for the throne. He curled his lips at the absurdity that a simple boy from a village presumed to gain his own power.

Marcus focused on King Francis instead, calculating ways to force his hand, gripping tightly to his power gave him much more pleasure than a petty thief.

He had reviewed the preposterous items Cozette had agreed to provide for the people of Gemmes yesterday when listening to the representatives. It would cost a sizable fortune he wasn't keen on parting with. School funds, medicine, eradicating the food shortages. The list went on and on. The people loved Cozette because of her bleeding heart, but love only takes one so far.

He wasn't interested in love, anyway.

He lusted.

Power and control were yours if you held wealth. He wouldn't lose all of that to some petty thief known as a Gem Tracker.

Sophie Montagne North, Gemmes Sophie couldn't believe her luck. An hour in this dingy town, and already she had a partenaire dans le crime. She watched Tristan meticulously pack his bag, filling the extra crevices with the food he had purchased. Sophie insisted he buy plenty of hard candies if he wanted to keep her in his employ. He obliged.

His wavy blond hair hung over his face, covering the profile she couldn't help but admit she enjoyed. More than nice, actually. She bit her lip as she watched him, oddly tempted to fling herself at him. He didn't notice; he focused on the bags sitting on his bed in the Auberge. She reached toward him, wanting to touch him. He didn't notice, so consumed with the packing ritual he apparently had.

"Just two nights in the mountain, then we'll be back here, right?" Sophie asked. Her priority remained to find her parents. Still, when he asked her to be his porter, she hadn't said no. Clearly he offered the job as an excuse to keep her here, and Sophie didn't mind one bit. Sophie had hardly any money to finance the finding of the parents, and zero clues on which to go.

In the pit of her stomach she knew leaving the Vallee so hastily was a tad bit foolish.

"Yes, if we don't find the diamond by then, we'll need to reassess. I need to go, with that informant blabbing, I don't want to get any obnoxious trackers on my tail, or worse, the King's Legion. I'd prefer they stay seaside, arresting other Trackers."

Sophie nodded, absorbing his words. He had divulged so much information since meeting her, she couldn't help but wonder why he felt so comfortable telling her.

"Why do you trust me? Perhaps I'm a spy in disguise. Or I could work for the king himself!" Sophie dared.

"Something about you. It's like I don't...."

"Don't what?" she insisted.

"I don't want you to go. I am drawn to you, does that sound strange?"

"Yes, but also a bit desperate. I don't do clingy, you should know that." Sophie twirled her hair in her hand thinking on what he'd said.

Sure, it sounded thrilling, now that she believed him to be a legitimate hunter of jewels. One peek in Tristan's hiding place confirmed his story. A Gem Tracker indeed, with five rare and precious stones to his name. Well, one was missing, a sapphire. With his friend, he'd explained.

After showing her the gems, he explained how his Uncle Remy had believed in it enough to spend his life in pursuit of the Tresor de L'espoir. Tristan believed, too.

Sophie now firmly planted herself on the believing side. She couldn't help but be. She had seen the jewels. Why Tristan trusted her with seeing them didn't seem so clear to her, but he kept looking at her in a way that made her believe he did.

An awful lot.

Each of the four jewels was magnificent in their own right. Tristan said they each held a special purpose for being included in the collection. It seemed hard to believe these precious gems came from the mountains. They made the simple jasper in her pouch seem insignificant. They made everything seem insignificant.

They drew her in the moment she set her eyes on their glistening surfaces. They caused her to think of Miora. Thoughts of the five stones she had drawn. Stones Miora claimed propelled her fate. She didn't want to think about any of that; it overwhelmed and devastated Sophie at the same time. Being here now, a day away from home, she felt a lifetime away. She had nothing to go off of to find her true mother, besides a story of a woman at the side of a road.

She needed this distraction.

Besides, it was easy to lust after the tresor needing to be found. Tristan had promised her a share in the fortune. Finding the tresor would seal the fate Sophie dreamed of: living in the royal city of eclat in a decadent apartment, and a lifetime of self-indulgence. Miora's stone reading would have no influence over her if she held the power of Gemmes in her hand. These stones couldn't link themselves to her past if she created a new future.

Tristan revealed his grin, bright and wild for adventure. A look Sophie knew well, for the look often graced her own arched brows.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked. "So happily?"

"Because I know I am in the right place, at the right time. It's how I always feel when another gem is within my grasp. It makes me feel ... alive."

"Well, lucky you." Sophie returned his grin with a dazzling smile, holding onto the moonstone necklace. Still warm to her touch. "Now, are we going up the Montagne, or are we staying in this room all day?"

"I'd prefer to be here with you at night, Bijou."

Tristan's words made Sophie blush. She didn't reprimand or scold him for his salacious words, she rather enjoyed being teased and flirted with so openly. Henri would never speak to her like that.

It felt scandalous and delicious.

Of course Sophie was drawn to him.

"Well, I'm not in the habit of sleeping with men I haven't known one solitary day."

"Then let's pick this conversation up tomorrow."

She shook her head, and he winked unswervingly.

Tristan swept his bag over his shoulder and took Sophie's over the other. She didn't refuse the help, though she was to be his porter.

"For the sole purpose of wanting to know my porter better," Tristan continued, "what sorts of men are you in the habit of sleeping with?"

"I suppose we'll have to wait and see, won't we?"

Tristan's eye grew wide at the bold words Sophie spoke. Sophie knew most boys weren't used to her brazenness.

They left Ms. Josephine's with the promise of returning in two days' time. She didn't seem to care what they did as long as they paid for their rooms and did whatever mischief making they intended upon outside of her establishment.

Sophie had been the subject of enough of that sort of gossip in her life that it fazed her little. She liked this brazen version of herself, and wasn't intimidated by the notion of following through on the flirty words Tristan suggested.

Her face flushed, knowing Tristan was no boy from her Vallee. An amatory adventurer and risk-taker and because of that, Sophie found him irresistible.

They headed out of town toward the mountains looming above them. The late afternoon sun beat heavy across their cheeks, leaving Sophie glad she'd cast-off her underskirts before they left the Auberge. She felt lighter than she had in a very long time, it didn't only have to do with her attire. She felt lighter because she didn't feel oppressed.

With Tristan leading the way, Sophie was free to look around with a sense of curiosity and wonder she hadn't had on her ride in. Sitting on the wagon bench with the never-ending conversationalist, Beznik, hadn't afforded her a moment to take in the new view.

Sophie walked with her hands free, altogether useless, but Tristan seemed pleased with his employee. They easily found themselves in flirty tte--tte.

"Tristan?" she asked.

"Yes, mon petit Bijou?" he answered, rolling the cuffs of his shirt as he walked in the summer heat. A distinct familiarity wafted between them, something they couldn't feign no matter how suave they believed themselves to be.

"I have something for you, but I won't give it to you until you do three things for me when we set camp tonight." She twisted her lips coyly. She glanced over at the devastatingly gorgeous man beside her.

"Your wish is my command."

"First of all, I need some cafe. Second I need a slice of bread slathered with melted chocolate."

She paused, waiting for an indication that he would agree to her requests.

"Of course. I can do these both over the fire within minutes, Bijou," Tristan scrunched his shoulders as if this request was nothing to him.

Sophie rolled her eyes at his eagerness.

"By the way, has anyone else ever called you Bijou? Or am I the first?" he asked.

"Oh, Tristan, you're ridiculous and, perhaps, jealous?" she scoffed. "Anyways, there was this one boy ... Henri. He called me Jou-Jou." She shook her head slightly. It only served to encourage Tristan.

"And this boy, did you ever kiss him?" They were walking deeper into the Montagne and Sophie found herself needing to stop to catch her breath.

She paused, considering his question, and leaned against a tree. Then she released a slight huff, as though he put her through an absurd exercise of no consequence.

"I kissed him."

"And did he kiss you back?" Tristan found himself walking closer to her, as though his infatuation increased after she mentioned another beau.

It made her want him all the more. She had leaned back on the tree, resting her head against the bark, as he neared closer still. Nose-to-nose, she eked out the smallest of gasps, filled with longing.

"He kissed me back and he would have continued, had I let him, but I refused. I refused him, completely."

She licked her lips, her breathing increasingly heavy as he fixed his eyes on her.

She didn't look away.

Her eyes set harder now, as though bracing herself for what came next. Tristan leaned closer, daring her to move away.

She didn't.

"You have my promise of chocolat and cafe. What is your third request?"

"You are giving me exactly what I want."

"Then what is my gift?"

"You'll have to wait and see." Sophie pushed away, off the tree, and kept walking forward on the path, leaving Tristan to trail after her. She smiled to herself, no doubt now that Tristan would do anything for her. The exact place she liked a beau to be.

After they walked several uphill miles, Tristan stopped at a clearing.

"What is it?" Sophie asked, putting her hands on her hips. The path led them to an abandoned site, as if the king's miners had spent many years here excavating, then after raking it clean, left. Complete with an old mine shaft precariously open, and a wooden shack filled with empty, broken bunks.

The site sat in a clearing, open and vulnerable. The sun dropped lower in the sky, and the temperature seemed to drop the deeper in the forest they walked. Sophie wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.

"Maybe we should sleep here, and then keep walking in the morning. I'm looking for a particular spot, a few miles north. We won't make it before night. It would be safer to stay here."

"All right...." Sophie eyed the forest nervously, just now realizing the implications of coming up this mountain with this tracker. This stranger with sweat on his brow and flickers of light in his eyes, but she knew nothing of consequence about him.

Sophie pushed any crazed ideas out of her mind, realizing he probably just wanted to drop the packs he carried all day. He quickly set to making a fire in the abandoned pit, and asked her to gather some sticks to feed the flames.

She did as he asked and then sat on an old stump, across from him. Between the setting sun and the distance from home, she felt vulnerable for the first time in her entire life. She found herself looking at Tristan but thinking of Henri. What was he doing tonight, without her?

"So what do you usually do when you are done tracking for the night?" she asked, anxious to know what he expected from this evening as he handed her the promised cafe and chocolat slathered bread.

"I'm always with my uncle. He and I have done every trip together since he took me under his wing. I've never travelled to the mountains with a girl." He smiled through the yellow flames. "This view is better than a grey-haired man."

"That's a relief, I suppose."

Tristan laughed, then continued, "Usually I go over and over in my mind where I want to look the next day. I track well because of my focus. It'll be interesting to see how this hunt goes. You could be seen as a distraction, you know."

This time it was Sophie's turn to laugh, but she didn't. The heat rose again, not from the fire, but from the way he looked at her, laughed with her. Drawing something out of her that Henri never had.

Lust.

"But how do you know, to come here, to look in this particular mountain?" She wanted to understand this young man who had sincerely handed her a stake in this fortune.

"Don't laugh, but there is this devins-guerisseur I visit from time to time. Do you know what that is?"

"A divine healer? Like, a sorciere?"

"I suppose, but it's not like the olden days, when sorcieres cast horrible spells and performed evil sorcery. The king rounded all of those sorcieres and hung them, with reason. Tamsin's merely a lady who lives in the Frontiere de Provence. She's a harmless woman, and my mother trusted her. Mother and I would visit Tamsin if she needed medicine or guidance. After my parents died, I never stopped seeing her when I was nearby."

"Sorry, about your parents, I mean." Sophie spoke instinctually, knowing her words were the sort of thing appropriate to say in the moment. After all, Tristan did look sad when he mentioned them.

"Well, sounds like you don't have your parents either. I mean, you're here. Alone. Only girls who have nowhere else to go would be here with me."

"I have a mother. Or I had. I don't know. Honestly, it's all rather confusing. Basically what I thought was true isn't, so I left and I am here."

Sophie wasn't interested in the conversation, and Tristan moved to where she sat, finding a stump next to her for himself. He brushed her hair from her eyes. She froze at his touch. She wished she hadn't.

"So this woman, Tamsin, she tells you where to go?"