“I’m not begging. I need passage to Three Streams.”
Jorne snorted. “Look at you, girl. You’re barely standing. I run a freight haul, not an infirmary. Try the Iron Road stagecoach. They got cushions and guards.”
The mention of the official stage sent a spike of cold through her. The Iron Road kept manifests; they asked for names. “I can’t wait for the stage. My... sister is in Three Streams. She’s ill. I need to leave at first light.”
“Touching story.” He didn’t look up. “Wagons are full.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. With a quick, shielded movement, she produced two silver coins from beneath her cloak. They caught the lantern light—enough to buy his silence, but not enough to suggest she was nobility.
Jorne stopped. The rag stilled in his hands. He looked at the silver, then up into the shadow of her hood. His eyes narrowed.
“Silver,” he noted, his voice flat. “Most folks pay in copper or trade. You’re eager.”
“It’s what I have,” Gessa said, holding his gaze.
He weighed the risk against the silver. Greed won, as she prayed it would. He snatched the coins with a hand fast as a striking snake.
“Back of the second wagon,” he muttered, tucking the money into his belt. “Between the hides and the clay pots. It’ll smell, and it’ll shake the teeth out of your head. We leave at the crack of dawn. You’re late, we leave you.”
As the last light faded and Hillston settled into a rowdier, fire-lit evening, Gessa sought a hiding place. She didn’t dare seek a room at the inn; her funds were too precious, her anonymity too fragile.
She found a narrow, debris-strewn space between the back wall of the smithy and a woodpile. It was cramped, but the dying forge radiated a faint warmth through the stones. She unrolled her blanket, the rough wool a poor defense against the damp ground. Curling into a tight ball, she clutched her survival bag close, her hands tucked beneath her for warmth. The hematite pressed a solid weight against her skin.
She had sold her companion, shed her identity, and bought herself a chance. It was a bitter price, but freedom always came at a cost. Tomorrow, she would be one step further away. One step closer to a place where her Wild Blood was a birthright, not a flaw to be corrected.
4
THE SHADOW OF THE SPURS EDGE
Jorne hadn’t lied—the wagon shook her teeth with every rut, a jarring passage that left her aching. Yet Gessa was grateful for every lurch that carried her further south from Hillston. She kept to herself, huddled in the back of the second wagon amidst bundles of hides that reeked of tannins and animal musk. The stench was suffocating, just as promised, but along with her new, drab clothing and the choppy remnants of her hair, it helped her fade into the background.
Jorne, true to his word, asked no questions beyond her initial destination of Three Streams, and the two dour wagon drivers paid no mind to a lone, quiet woman. For three days, she ate sparingly, observed, and allowed her throbbing ankle to rest, changing the comfrey poultice when she could manage it discreetly. The hematite remained a constant pressure against her skin, a silent guardian.
At the muddy crossroads of Three Streams, larger and noisier than Hillston, Jorne’s caravan turned east. This was where Gessa had to part ways. With a curt nod to the caravan master, she slipped away from the wagons, hoisting the strap ofher bag higher on her shoulder. The Spurs Edge foothills—her next daunting objective—lay to the south. Here, the King’s writ ran thin. She was passing beyond the edge of the Concordium, into the wild margins where the maps were drawn in pencil, not ink.
Once clear of Three Streams, alone again with only the sigh of the wind in the tall grasses, a strange lightness unfurled in Gessa’s chest. The rigid vigilance of the settlements eased, shifting into the instinctual awareness of a creature returning to the wild. Her ankle remained tender, twinging if she pushed too hard, but it finally bore her weight without the constant, sickening throb of injury.
The sun on her face, the scent of pine and damp earth, the untamed expanse of the rolling foothills—it was a balm. Polan’s voice in her mind grew fainter here, silenced by the rustle of leaves or the call of an unfamiliar bird. Hardships remained: nights were cold and food was scarce. She scavenged, relying on the herbalism of her youth—knowledge she had possessed before the marriage, before he trapped her in a world of silk and silence. She dug for tubers and identified bitter greens, her hands reclaiming the skills he had deemed beneath her station. The track was often little more than a game trail, but these were honest hardships, clean and simple.
For the first time in years, moments of actual joy—sharp and unexpected as a winter berry—pierced her. A sunrise painting the peaks of the Spurs Edge range in gold and rose; the startled flick of a deer’s white tail as it bounded away; the quiet, simple satisfaction of finding a clear spring to refill her waterskin.
This, she thought, her hand finding the hematite. This is freedom. And it is worth any price.
That fragile freedom sustained her for several more days as she pushed deeper into the Spurs Edge foothills. The terrain grew wilder, the game trails harder to discern. One swelteringafternoon, having marched beyond the last reliable line on her stolen map, dread began to gnaw at her. She was hopelessly lost. Stumbling through a dense thicket of bush, half-convinced she would die there of thirst, she almost stepped into a loop of wire concealed in the grass. A snare. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Someone lived here.
She followed the faint signs of passage, moving with a silent caution, until she emerged into a tiny, hidden clearing. A low cabin of rough logs and river stone crouched against the rock face, nearly swallowed by the moss, smoke curling thinly from a chimney built into the cliff itself. Before she could take another step, a low growl vibrated from the shadows near the door. A massive grey wolf-dog detached itself from the gloom, yellow eyes fixed on her, lips peeling back to reveal white fangs.
Then, a woman stepped from the cabin’s doorway, moving with a silent grace that spoke of years in the wild. She was lean and wiry, her face etched by sun and wind, her hair the color of weathered silver plaited tightly down her back. She held a short, powerful bow with an arrow nocked, aimed at Gessa’s chest. Her eyes, the same piercing yellow-grey as her dog’s, were unwelcoming. This had to be Marta.
“State your purpose, stranger.” The woman’s voice was low, raspy as dry leaves, but carried the weight of authority. The dog remained frozen, waiting for a command.
Gessa’s mouth went dry. She raised her hands slowly, palms open, trying to look harmless. She was painfully aware of her disheveled state and her strange, chopped hair. The story she had prepared felt flimsy under that unwavering gaze. “I… I am a pilgrim,” Gessa began, her voice hoarse. “My name is… Aenya. I seek the Shrine of the Whispering Bells, said to lie deep within the Spurs Edge Foothills. I… I fear I have lost my way.”
Marta’s expression didn’t change. Her eyes flicked down to Gessa’s ruined ankle, then back to her face. “Pilgrim, you say?You look more like a hunted doe. What god demands such a penance in these wild parts, so far from any known shrine?”
Gessa swallowed, forcing herself to meet that penetrating stare. “A private vow, for… for a family lost to sickness. The shrine is said to offer solace.” She tried to feign a weary piety.
For a long moment, Marta said nothing. She simply studied her, the silence broken only by the low rumble in the wolf-dog’s chest. Gessa could feel the sweat trickling down her back. This woman was no fool; she lived by her wits. Finally, Marta gave a slight nod, her bow lowering a fraction.
