The stablemaster didn’t look back. The moment passed, leaving her shaken, the clink of the coins in her pouch a cold, necessary comfort against the aching void.
Her first act with the money was to find a stall selling used clothing. In a dim, musty corner of the market square—little more than a trampled patch of dirt between the inn and the smithy—an old woman presided over a jumble of garments draped over a rickety cart. She had eyes like polished jet, missing nothing, set in a deeply wrinkled face. A pendant of clear, flawless crystal hung around her neck—a Truth-seer’s mark.
Gessa froze. A Truth-seer would feel the dissonance of a lie the moment it was spoken. She kept her head down, offering no greeting, resolving to let the coin do the talking. The woman watched her approach without expression, her gaze taking in every detail but offering no judgment.
Mounds of folded garments crowded the trestle table, a sea of drab wool and faded linen. The clothes smelled faintly of harsh lye soap. Most were heavily patched or scrubbed thin, but Gessa searched for practicality, shielding her hands with her torn sleeves as she sifted through the piles. The woman offered only a curt nod, letting her browse.
Gessa finally selected a pair of sturdy, patched woolen trousers the color of dried mud, a plain linen tunic of indeterminate brown that had faded with age, and a dark, hooded traveler’s cloak—well-worn but thick. They felt rough and unfamiliar, worlds away from the soft fabrics Polan had allowed her, but they were whole. And they were anonymous.
In a secluded, filthy alley between two leaning shacks, heart pounding with the fear of interruption, Gessa changed. She bundled her torn, stained dress deep into her survival bag. Looking at her reflection in a murky puddle, she barely recognized the figure staring back. Thinner. Harder. The poisePolan had beaten into her was gone, replaced by the brittle shell of a survivor.
Next, her hair. Polan had always admired its length, its darkness, toying with it in a way that had once felt like affection and later, a mark of ownership. She found a quiet spot by the stream at the village edge, downstream from where women scrubbed laundry. Their chatter was a distant hum.
She opened her satchel, pushing aside the new rough wool cloak to reach the small canvas roll—her survival kit. It contained the sum of her thefts: the bundles of dried comfrey and willow bark, the roll of bandages filched from the linen closet, a stolen flint and steel, and a small, sharp paring knife she had taken from the scullery.
She drew the knife, the blade small but serviceable. Holding a thick hank of her dark hair tightly in one fist, she began to cut.
With awkward, sawing motions, she hacked through it. The sound grated in her ears. The severed locks fell onto the damp earth like discarded remnants of a life she had to erase. The result was brutally choppy, shorter than she’d ever worn it, but it altered her appearance completely. She looked wilder. Less like a pampered lady, more like someone who belonged to the gritty fringes of the world. Someone Kestrel might overlook.
Returning to the town square, Gessa spent a few more coins on a hunk of dark bread, a wedge of sharp yellow cheese, and a small sack of dried apples. She kept her hands unobtrusive as she counted out the payment to the leathery-faced farmer.
The man’s eyes, shrewd and weathered as his produce, followed her brief glance toward the jagged line of the Spurs Edge foothills to the southeast.
“That way lies naught but trouble, mistress,” he grunted, bagging the apples. “Wicked country. Only folk who use that pass regular-like are the Iron Spurs on their southern post run. They have the steel to hold the road; the rest of us don’t linger.Besides them, the only soul daft enough to live deep in that misery is old Marta. Keeps to herself, her and that wolf-dog of hers. If you’re heading that way, best pray you don’t stumble on her cabin. She ain’t known for her welcome.”
Gessa gave a noncommittal nod, though her heart fluttered nervously. She filed the name away. Marta’s cabin wasn’t a warning to be heeded; it was a potential landmark, a single point of human existence in the vast, intimidating wilderness ahead.
She retreated to the relative anonymity of a shadowed doorway, sinking down with her back against the rough wood. She laid out her purchases on her lap. The smell alone—yeasty, salty, and sweet—made her stomach clench with a painful, desperate longing. She forced herself to be deliberate, breaking off a piece of the bread rather than tearing at it like a starving animal.
The first bite was ambrosial. The bread was dense and slightly sour, worlds away from the light, flavorless manchets served at Polan’s table. This was real, substantial, tasting of the earth and the baker’s hearth. She paired it with a sliver of the salty cheese that melted on her tongue, a potent burst of flavor that felt like waking from a long, tasteless dream.
Each bite was a conscious act of reclamation. Polan’s meals had been exquisite poisons, each course served with a side of silent judgment and the ever-present threat of his displeasure. Fear had turned the finest food into boiled leather. This humble fare, bought with the price of her escape and eaten in the dirt, was the most satisfying meal of her life. The leathery sweetness of a dried apple finished it, and the feeling of true sustenance spreading through her—a slow, deep warmth in the pit of her stomach—was a profound comfort.
Needing information, she made her way back toThe Dancing Stallion. The common room was a dim, noisy cavern, crowded with rough men nursing their tankards. Heavy oak benchescluttered the space, the floor hidden beneath a fresh, crunching layer of pine sawdust. The air hung thick with the yeasty punch of strong ale and the waxen scent of melting candles.
Gessa kept her hood pulled low to shadow her face, hands tucked into the sleeves of her new cloak. She bought a cup of watery, bitter ale she had no intention of finishing—the price for lingering near the hearth. She chose a shadowed bench, her back to the wall, and listened.
Men spoke of a dispute over straying sheep, the poor quality of the southern roads, and the inflated price of iron tools. Nearby, a portly man in a merchant’s vest slammed his tankard down, foam sloshing over the rim.
“They have us trapped,” he grumbled to his companion. “I pay the Iron Road a fortune to haul the wool because the bandits won’t touch their wagons. Then I have to pay a Wayfinder a king’s ransom to run the bill of sale just to ensure the market price holds.”
His companion agreed. “Two hands of the same greedy giant. One holds the road, the other holds the magic. Neutrality, they call it. I call it a stranglehold. We just pay the toll.”
“We pay the toll,” the older merchant grunted into his ale, “because the alternative is war. Think about it. If the High King of Pelagorn seized the Ley Lines, he’d starve Ghyllfast in a month. The Spurs keep the peace by keeping the roads open to everyone, regardless of whose flag flies on the castle walls. We pay them so they’re the only ones holding the knife.”
The conversation shifted to local poaching, but Gessa had heard enough. The Spurs were the safe option—theexpensive, tracked, official option. She couldn’t use them. She needed the margins.
She nursed her ale as long as she dared, then sought out the ostler she’d spotted earlier—a younger, more talkative version of the stablemaster. She pressed a small coin into his calloused,dirt-ingrained palm. He confirmed a small merchant caravan, two wagons laden with local pottery and hides, was due to leave for the larger town of Three Streams at first light.
Gessa found the caravan master in the inn’s outer yard. Jorne was a mountain of a man with a thick, greying beard and eyes that had seen enough of the road to trust nothing on it. He stood by the rear wheel of a mud-spattered wagon, shouting orders at two lads strapping down a tarp.
Gessa waited until the boys scrambled away before stepping into the lantern light.
“Master Jorne?”
He turned, wiping grease from his hands onto a rag. His gaze raked over her—the hood pulled low, the patched trousers, the way she kept her weight off her left leg.
“Not hiring,” he grunted, turning back to the wheel hub. “And I got no coin for beggars.”
