“Where’re ya headed?” the man with the missing tooth asked. He wore chainmail and carried a mace on his belt. There was a small shield strapped to his back. “And why don’t you got any shoes?”

“Four Roads,” Treya replied. “I’m visiting some friends. I’ve got shoes in my pack; I’m just not wearing them.”

“Four Roads?” the other man said as he looked her up and down with a wide smile. He had long blonde hair and a bushy beard, and wore a leather breastplate. There was an arming sword sheathed on his left hip and a parrying dagger on the right. “That’s a long way for a girl to go by herself. You should stick with us. We’re headed in that direction ourselves, and we can make sure you get there safely.”

She considered that. They were walking slower than her—she’d been catching up to them for the past half hour, and had just passed them when they’d called out to her. On the other hand, he was right. It was a long way to Four Roads, and this was only her third day on her own. She’d been taught how to travel and she’d been taught how to fight, but learning how to do a thing was different than knowing, for certain, that she could do it by herself. Perhaps it would be good to have some company in case something unexpected happened.

They kept staring at her chest, but men had been doing that for years, any time she went out into the city. She’d learned enough from the concubine training to know why men looked. As long as they didn’t make nuisances of themselves, she could ignore it.

“All right,” she said. “At least for a while.”

They started walking again, and she slowed her pace to match theirs. As they walked, they talked, introducing themselves. The man with the missing tooth was named Arnol, and the blond man was Des.

“We’re on our way to Larso,” Des said. “They’re hiring mercenaries, see? Good coin, too. Better than we could get up north.”

“You’re from the north? Up toward Lanport?”

“No, beyond the Storm Heights,” he said, referring to a mountain range north and west of Tyrsall.

Treya nodded. The towns and fiefdoms in the northern plains were constantly changing names and leaders, so when talking to southerners, the residents usually didn’t provide details. “Why is Larso hiring mercenaries?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. As long as their coin’s good.”

“Rumor is,” Arnol said, “we’ll actually be working for the prince.”

“Prince Rusol?” Treya asked. Part of her schooling had been learning the leadership of all the kingdoms on the continent. Rusol was King Marten’s second son, born from a concubine of the Orders. He’d become heir when his older brother had died in a riding accident. “Why does he need his own men?”

“Don’t know his name or why he’s hiring. I just go where they pay me.”

Treya suppressed a shiver. Shana hired herself out to fight, but never just for money. There had to be a good reason. It seemed wrong to fight without caring about the cause.

Des and Arnol told her more about the towns they were from and about the skirmishes they’d fought back home, both against snow beasts and other fiefdoms. Treya mentioned that she’d been born near Four Roads before moving to Tyrsall, but didn’t say anything else about her life. The men kept staring at her with uncomfortably long glances, so she didn’t want to talk about the Three Orders. Some people had funny ideas about concubines, and some thought any woman trained by the Orders was a concubine.

When the sun dropped below the horizon, they stopped to make camp. The men set up their tent while Treya started a fire, then unrolled her thin sleeping pad under the cover of a tree. She dropped her blanket on the pad, then started digging through her pack for something to eat.

“That’s where you’re sleeping?” Des said. He and Arnol had come up behind her. “You don’t have a tent?”

That should have been obvious to them from the size of her pack.

“No. I’ll be fine.”

“You should stay in ours. It’ll be tight, but we’re all friendly here.” He gave her a smile that didn’t extend to his eyes.

“I don’t think so.”

“I wasn’t asking, girl.” His fake smile had faded.

“You really don’t want to do this, Des.”

“Course I do.” He reached for her arm.

Before she could stop it, her second blessing flooded her body, and her hands began to glow with a pale white light. She thrust forward and hit Des’s leather breastplate with her palm. He staggered back, stunned. Before Arnol could react, she spun and kicked him between the legs. As he collapsed to his knees, she punched him in the face, taking care to avoid his throat and temples—she worried that hitting him in the wrong spot might kill him. At least the magic hadn’t extended to her feet this time, or his crotch might have needed a healer after her kick.

Arnol fell to the ground and Treya turned back to Des, finding that he’d recovered. He glanced wide-eyed at her glowing fists, but came at her anyway, drawing his parrying dagger. She waited for him. She’d trained against weapons, but she’d never been in a real fight before and was suddenly unsure. Her heart pounded in her chest.

As soon as Des was within reach, he tried to stab her. She twisted to her left to let the dagger go past, grasping his wrist with one hand and using her momentum to strike his radial nerve with her other fist as hard as she could. His breastplate didn’t cover his arms, and the shock caused him to drop the weapon. She let go of him, hoping he’d stop fighting, but he simply took a moment to recover before charging at her. Treya dashed out of the way and kicked the back of his knee as he went past, but she didn’t get a good angle. He turned and came at her again, not bothering to draw his sword, so she went after him with her fists, punching as quickly as possible.

After only a few more strikes, he staggered back again, and this time fell to the ground. Unlike Arnol, he was still conscious, but he was dazed enough that he couldn’t move.

With both of her opponents down, Treya let the tension drain from her muscles and took a deep breath to calm down. The pale glow faded from her hands.

She’d been shocked the first time her magic had done anything other than heal. Luckily, she’d been sparring with Kelis at the time rather than Nina, and hadn’t done any serious damage. It had taken her months to figure out how to summon the magic only when she wanted to—mostly—but in the end, she’d decided the help it gave her was worth it. Treya was slender, and even after six years of training, she wasn’t particularly strong. She could fight well enough without the magic, but it lent her enough extra power that she could match Kelis, who was stronger. A mystic’s abilities didn’t require strength, but any advantage helped in a fight.

Her hands started glowing again as she called on her first blessing. She didn’t want to heal either of the men, but she touched each of them on the forehead long enough to sense the extent of their injuries. Des stared at her fearfully when she reached for him, but he wasn’t able to move away.

Reassured the men would live, she quickly packed her things. Des managed to sit up while she slung her pack over her back, but he was coughing and wheezing, not yet able to stand.

She walked past him on her way back to the road and looked him in the eye. “I think, perhaps, I don’t need any help getting to Four Roads after all.”

#

“Ill…us…trant. Or trent?” Corec frowned at the book Deshin had sold him. It provided instructions on casting a few simple spells based on how they sounded, for apprentice wizards who were still learning to read the wizard language. Deshin had explained that in addition to pronouncing the words correctly, he’d have to have the talent for wizardry as well as a certain amount of magical strength for the spells to work. The problem was that the words weren’t from any language that Corec knew, and the letters that had been chosen to spell them were often ambiguous, and could make different sounds in different contexts.

“Trant, I believe,” Bobo said, looking up from the other book about binding runes.

The two were sitting around the spot they’d cleared for that night’s campfire, though it hadn’t been lit yet. Katrin sat farther away, practicing quietly on her flute, while Shavala was off searching for an ingredient Bobo had requested for one of his salves.

“You know the wizard language?” Corec said.

“Only a few words. Anyone can learn to read it; there just isn’t much point. It uses a different symbol for each and every word, so it takes a long time to learn, and speaking it won’t do anything for most people.”

“Did you find anything?” Corec asked, pointing to the book Bobo held.

“Nothing helpful, unless you learn enough from your book to become a wizard, and you want to create more binding runes.”

“I don’t want to make more—I want to get rid of the ones we’ve got. Is there a spell in there for that?”

“I don’t think so, but the spells themselves are written in the wizard language, and I don’t know it well enough to tell if there’s anything else on those pages.”

“Deshin probably would have mentioned it if there were,” Corec said, “but we can ask the next wizard we come across. I think I’ve got this. Illustrant ac tenebras; tenebras atque illustrant.”

“That’s not right,” Shavala said as she came up behind them and handed Bobo a batch of purple wildflowers. “I could hear what you were saying.”

“She’s right,” Bobo said. “When a wizard casts a spell, anyone nearby can only hear indistinct whispers, no matter how loudly he’s speaking.”

Corec sighed. “Well, Deshin said I probably don’t have the knack for it, especially if I’ve learned to cast spells some other way. But he said if that’s the case, the spells I can cast will always be really limited. Maybe just the ones I know now.”

“They seem useful enough. Especially those lights.”

“That’s what this spell was supposed to do, summon a mage light.” Corec held his hand palm up and sent one of his lights to float above them. Then he dismissed it.

“If you can already do it, why learn a different way?” Shavala asked.

“Because if I can cast the light spell this way, then I can learn to cast other spells. Maybe I just have the pronunciation wrong. Illustrent ac tenebras…”

#

Late afternoon on their tenth day of travel, they reached Dalewood.

Corec stopped them at the edge of the town. “I’m going to go deliver that message for Senshall. Why don’t the rest of you go find an inn? The Green Duck is good, and I can meet you there in a bit. It’s on the other side of town, just before the road splits.”

“I didn’t realize Dalewood was so large,” Katrin said, looking at the buildings spread around them.

“About ten thousand people in the town itself, I think.”

“What’s that big tower?” she asked, pointing to a tall, stone structure set off from everything else.

“Something to do with refining iron ore. There’s a big mine to the northeast.”

“It looks like a blast furnace to me,” Bobo said. “It’ll turn ore to pig iron, which they can take to a finery forge to make wrought iron or steel.”

“The finery forge is where I’m headed,” Corec said. “It’s just on the other side. I’ll see you at the inn.”

The others headed down the main road to the center of town. Corec turned down a street to the left and reached the forge a few minutes later.

Entering the small office, he spoke to the apprentice manning the desk. “I’m looking for someone named Marcus.”

The boy took in his armor and sword with wide eyes. “Yes, sir. I’ll go get him.” He took off running, and a minute later, heavier footsteps approached.

“I’m Marcus,” a muscular, older man said. “Benni said you’re looking for me?”

“I’m Corec, a courier from Senshall. I have a package for you.” He handed over the letter, along with a chit for the man to sign to confirm the delivery.

Marcus signed the chit and handed it back. “Wait here for a moment, will you? Let me see if this is something that needs a response.” He opened the wax seal and looked over the document. “They want me to send shipments to Larso rather than Tyrsall or Terril? What kind of sense does that make? Larso has its own iron mines.”

Corec shrugged. “The fellow who gave it to me said the king’s hiring mercenaries.”

“Hmm. War, then? I suppose it’ll be Senshall that loses money if they make a bad gamble, not me. Anyway, I don’t need to send a reply, so you can go.”

“Do you have any packages for Four Roads? I’m headed that way next.”

Marcus shook his head. “I don’t. You might check at The Smiling Jester. If anyone needs something like that, they’ll usually leave word there.”

#

“I swear those donkeys are evil,” Ellerie said, as they took seats in the inn’s common room.

“They’re not evil, Elle,” Boktar replied.

“Left bit me!”

“He nibbled on you because you kept touching his ear. He doesn’t like that. And maybe he’d like you better if you hadn’t named him Left.”

“How else am I supposed to tell them apart? He always wants to walk on the left.”

“They were probably trained together. Once donkeys learn something, they like to keep doing it the same way.”

The serving girl brought over a flagon of ale and two mugs, bending over in front of Boktar to show off her cleavage. Ellerie looked her over with a smile.

After she’d gone, Boktar said, “She’s cute, for a human. Should I tell her she’ll have better luck with you?”

“Don’t tempt me. I’m trying to make our coin last as long as possible.”

“Speaking of which, you need to decide where we’re going next.”

Ellerie nodded. They’d reached South Corner, a large town east of Matagor that lay on the intersection of several major roads. She’d kept putting off the decision of which direction to go, hoping some sort of inspiration would come to her.

“Well, I guess we’ve eliminated the west,” she said. “The amulet doesn’t match any mountains in Matagor, Terevas, or the Black Crows.”

“Just how sure are you? Even mountains can change given enough time, and that amulet is pretty old.”

“It can’t be that old. And anyway, it shows seven peaks. Even if they don’t match the old shape exactly, we should still be able to judge relative distances. What about south, to Stone Home?”

Boktar frowned. “Stone Home is more hills than mountains, and has been for as long as it’s been settled. I don’t think anyone could have made the amulet there. Besides, if we go to Stone Home, my mother will try to marry me off again.”

Ellerie was careful not to laugh, since she knew her partner was sensitive about the issue. “Well, then where? North, to the Storm Heights?”

“Storm Heights is a good choice, but it’s a long trip and we can’t go north from here.”

“Why not?”

“It takes us past the dragon’s keep. We’d have to skirt way around off the main roads, up through the hills or near Terril.”

“Dragon? There’s a dragon in the free lands?”

“Yes. It took over an old keep at one of the major crossings about fifty years ago, and hunts all around there. The roads have gotten overgrown for about a hundred miles around in all directions, since nobody wants to risk it.”

Ellerie considered the options. “So, either we head north and skirt around the edge of the forest, or we go east first. Are there mountains in that direction?”

“There’s another range between Stone Home and the coast, south of Circle Bay. We could look there, then head north to the Storm Heights, then back west across the plains to see what’s north of Larso. You haven’t looked farther north than the Black Crows, right?”

“I went as far as Fort Northtower, but I didn’t cross the border. The knights said it wasn’t safe.”

“The plains can be funny that way—you never know who’s in charge. But it’s not all that dangerous as long as you don’t go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Ellerie wasn’t sure what she’d do without Boktar. For all that he was younger than her, he’d been on his own for a lot longer and had traveled widely.

“If it’s just plains, why go there?”

Boktar chuckled. “It’s only called that because nobody knows what else to call it. It’s not all plains. There are some mountains, but the Storm Heights are the biggest.”

“What about south of Stone Home?”

“I’ve never been that direction. They didn’t teach you geography in that palace of yours?”

Ellerie rolled her eyes. “I know the southern kingdoms. I just don’t know which ones have mountain ranges.”

“There might be some traders here from down south who could tell us. If not, we can find a map in Circle Bay.”

“East to Circle Bay, then?”

“East,” Boktar agreed.