I stamped and yapped in the dark until Urixx finally removed my blindfold, for the fourth time since we had left. I shook my head and blinked, cowering in the darkness like a dazed beast. Nearby, crouched on the damp stone, Forcas was fiddling with the remains of a fire with his fingertips, looking more curious than wary. The entrance to the cave was just ahead of us, studded with waxy-looking stalagmites, some of which were clothed in dense green moss. Beyond, a gray glow and mounds of greenery, the thorny stems of brambles and thickets of honeysuckle. The grove looked thick. I already knew that it would be difficult for me to walk through it. I breathed the air, which smelled of water and wet soot, as I noticed the drizzle outside and the slow drip that beaded from the leaves. Heavy and soaked from the morning's showers, my red cloak stuck to the back of my boots. I had used my tarpaulin to protect the rest of my gear, including my blankets and crossbow. A light but steady wind came from the south, carrying a cold dampness. The torch that Forcas had lit was spitting more than an alley cat, while Urixx was rummaging through his package looking for the last snack we would share together. I squinted my eyes, my chest swelling with impatience. Within arm's reach, the Gray-March was waiting.

Thurl had kept his word. A few weeks after our last meeting, Urixx and Forcas had come to get me and had ordered me to pack my things for an imminent departure. I was happy that Thurl had thought of these two to guide me, because I wasn't entirely reassured by the idea of disappearing into the mountains in the company of unknown warriors. Everything went very fast after that, so fast that I didn't have time to say a proper goodbye to anyone, a haste that I didn't think was accidental. Since the night the king had set me free, I had not seen Breanna again, not once, not even at mealtimes. I was in disgrace with Thurl, who didn't wish to have me around any more than he had to, and who had done everything he could to go through with his idea: if I could gather all my belongings, the Ceras didn't offer me any food supplies or alms of any kind.

When I left the fort of Su-Lanté, it was in silence, under no other eyes than those of narche Chara, clinging to the crenellations of the tower like a deranged harpy. Nobody came to say goodbye to me either when I left the village. Even my wineskin was empty. The truth is that these little disgraces didn't really affect me. As far as I was concerned, I had already moved on, and my only real concern was that Thurl might change his mind, have me murdered somewhere, and dump my body in a remote ravine. If I didn't doubt Forcas' ability to carry out such an order, it seemed to me that I knew Urixx well enough to be able to tell what his intentions were. Despite his usual jokes, I couldn't feel completely reassured.

We had then walked to the first pass, where my companions had explained to me that we were going to follow a precise protocol, established in advance by Thurl and Thelis. I had time to fear a perfidy, then Forcas had taken out the blindfold, and I had agreed to it with a certain relief. My last doubts had been swept away: if Thurl was protecting himself from me, it was because I had nothing to fear from him. My ability to see had therefore been forbidden on some parts of the journey, which had slowed us down considerably, especially at the beginning, when the snow was abundant and thick. Nevertheless, I admit that the technique had been very effective. While I was stumbling blind, with only two men I couldn't see to assist me, the road had been cut into incomprehensible sections, passes and tunnels, which had followed one another for five days. Finally, we had started to go downhill and the horizon had been cleared of frozen rock faces to become a distant, vast and green line. We had endured a bit of rain, then reached the cave where we were now, a curved shaft that faced the dripping foothills somewhere on the border between Greyarm and Hill.

Urixx handed me a slice of goat meat and a hard piece of wild grain bread. Usually, the Ceras liked to dip their bread in a salty sauce or meat juice, to soften it before eating it. We had no juice, but Forcas opened his wineskin and filled his bowl with it. Since we were sitting in a triangle, he put the wine in the middle so that we could marinate our bread in it. He then took out some of his own food and started to eat it. We ate without speaking, occasionally glancing at the dullness that soaked the grove. When we were done, they promptly packed up their things. I watched them, feeling inexplicably sheepish.

Urixx put his bundle over his shoulder with a grimace and turned to me. "There's a road half a day to the south. I don't know where it leads," he said simply. "Did you understand my words?" I nodded. My cera had improved considerably over the winter, but the studded warrior still spoke slowly and carefully to me. He took a step in my direction. "My king Thurl has ordered us to give you nothing when you leave. We'll obey him, of course, but his daughter asked me to leave this where we would part ways. I asked her if it was for the spirits, but she didn't answer me." Urixx grinned, then laid a small cloth package against the wall of the cave. "I wish you a good life, Fyss of the forest," he then said to me. "I hope you find this woman you're looking for." We hugged briefly. "Goodbye Urixx," I said in return, with a lump in my throat. I had too much to say, and I suddenly found that everything was going too fast. The warrior gave me a last smile, then turned his back on me and disappeared into the shadows.

I waited for Forcas to do the same, but he smoothed his beard and stepped forward to speak to me. "My king Thurl wanted me to say a few words to you," he growled, emphasizing his words with exaggerated gestures. "If you ever want to come back, to see the Ceras again, you'll have to come here and wait. A man comes every twelve days. He'll know who you are. If you venture beyond, into the mountains, we'll hunt you down as if you were an enemy. You should also know that sometimes, brownian bandits come here to trade. Our people will not harm you, but we're not accountable for those. Yes ?" I ran my tongue over my lips. "Yes, Forcas," I said clearly, and some of the bitterness in me dissipated. Thurl had left me with a half-open door, and while I didn't plan to push it any time soon, the mere fact that it existed put a smile on my face. The scarred man nodded, then grabbed my hand rather abruptly and shook it awkwardly, in a way that mimicked the brownian greeting. "Good luck, tespiné. You're an honorable man for a stranger, and I'm glad I didn't kill you." I repressed a caustic grin, and bowed as low as I dared. Forcas hoisted his package and torch and left by the path we had taken earlier. The flame faded away, then disappeared. I took a deep breath and sat down in the darkness, breaking up pieces of soaked coal until I could no longer hear the echo of footsteps in the tunnel. Finally, I dared to look at Breanna's package.

My trembling fingers first worked on the knotted string, which I wanted to keep. After using my nails and my patience for a long time, and resisting the temptation to use a knife, I could finally undo the cloth, which turned out to be a piece of embroidered tablecloth. In the middle of it, surrounded by waxed paper, I discovered a dozen honey cakes, as well as a piece of smoked meat. I looked for a note, in vain. There was nothing else, except for a tiny tin box with three silver coins stamped with Greyarm's hammer, and a lock of auburn hair coiled in a silk thread. My eyelids fluttered. I swallowed three times before nibbling on one of the cakes to take my mind off things. I fiddled with the lock of hair and the scented silk at the same time, trying to clear my mind, my eyes fixed on the soggy bushes that awaited me, looking in vain for the sky line between the leaves. I suddenly breathed out, because I was free, free for real this time, and before me lay a whole country whose language and customs were known to me. When I finally got up, after taking more time than I should have to reorganize my bundle, apprehension had dried up my mouth. With a determined step, I made my way to the exit, brushing the smooth stone of the stalagmites as I walked.

The cave from which I emerged was at the bottom of a winding gully, protected by a labyrinth of thickets. I squinted at the gloomy gray sky. Behind me was an uneven cliff gleaming with moisture, its cracked surface dotted with sickly-looking hanging plants that gave way to small, gnarled shrubs near the top. The air that greeted me was cool, but much milder than the bitter cold of Su-Lanté. In the mountains, winter would still linger for two moons, while here, a hesitant spring was already starting to bloom. At the foot of the bushes facing me, tiny yellow and white flowers were shyly displaying their petals. I tore off the green head of a young bramble shoot and chewed on it absentmindedly, then started to sneak through the thicket, trying not to damage my clothes too much. There was a trail, if you paid attention, and I followed it as best I could. It meandered at first, a steep skein that bordered the stone walls, arcing around the ancient scree. Sometimes I had to bend in half to avoid the bite of hawthorn and brambles, and relied only on the slope to show me the right way.

About an hour later, the sun was still struggling to find its place in the faded sky, when the shrubs started to get sparser. I walked around a large rock outcrop, then there were a few real trees, wild apple trees and small rowan trees bent by the wind. I had to go up one slope, then a second, and suddenly I was standing on the top of a hill. A gust of wind ruffled my wet hair and blew into my hood. I smelled the iron-scented wind, which was laden with the smell of a whole country before coming to rest against the mountains. The landscape that disappeared in the drizzle a few miles away was grim and bare. A poor moor sewn with a fine and ungrateful grass, dotted with large dark rocks and mineral fragments. In the damp fog that enveloped the hills, the concretions looked so black that some of them had the appearance of dark wells, unfathomable pits opened in the middle of the clods and thistles.

I hurried up, wrapped up in my cloak, walking at a guess without being able to locate the sun to know where I was going. There were here and there fir trees, small groves, dripping and gloomy, whose protection wasn't very appealing. I turned around from time to time, now guessing more than I saw the imposing mass of the Carmian Wall, half engulfed by the bad weather. Occasionally, a bird song echoed across the moor, but most of the animals were sheltering from the drizzle in their nests and dens. The relative silence of the walk contributed to a feeling of uneasiness that caught me off guard and disappointed me considerably. I had thought to leave the mountains with a triumphal step, my eyes fixed on the panorama of the whole Peninsula, and here I was moving forward bent over like an old woman under the drizzle, without seeing much of a horizon which seemed to want to escape from me. My gaze scanned the moor with distrust, my mind thinking sometimes about the pain my departure must have inflicted to Breanna, sometimes focusing on a movement seen under the cover of the groves. The idea that I was going to run into a group of bandits like the ones Forcas had told me about earlier didn't leave me. I felt small and lost, as if I had fallen back into childhood, but not the good parts of childhood, the parts where I had been scared and helpless, the parts where I had hoped with all my might that an adult would come to help me. I was free, but I was alone.

A little before nightfall, the rain stopped and I finally came upon the road, a narrow path so worn that all the earth had long since been washed away. I felt as if the roots, the very bones of the Grey-March had been exposed, and that it was on a spine of rock that my boots were lapping. I had turned right to head in the general direction of the west, and the border with Hill, and was moving briskly, doing my best to avoid the puddles. The cold had become more prevalent as the day wore on and, with the humidity, I shivered as I walked. I stopped briefly to eat some meat and another of Breanna's cakes, blowing on my hands to chase away their tremors. Before setting out again I explored one of the small woods that lined the road, wandering between the shiny trunks until I found a long, sturdy, straight ash stick, which I cut with my dagger and then used for walking.

A sticky mist slowly invaded the landscape, first appearing in the hollows of the valleys to overflow on the moors, and reducing more my visibility. I had to slow down sometimes not to lose the road and get lost. The night was opaque, moist and uncomfortable. In the distance, in the forests that bordered the mountains, I could hear the mournful howl of wolves, and I hoped that they were too busy hunting game and stray cattle to be interested in the comings and goings of travelers like me. I wasn't really surprised to find the road deserted on such a night, and I also figured that with the warlike proximity of the Ceras, the people in the area had to move cautiously and in numbers, venturing out of the protection of their villages only when they had no choice.

Although I was cold and had not really eaten properly to avoid wasting my meager supplies - after all I didn't know how long I would have to make them last - I wasn't tired, and I intended to keep going until dawn, if I had to. The road began to climb up and down, straddling rocky ledges, and soon after there was a large forest of fir trees, whose bushy branches gently swept over the stifling silence of the limbo. Farther on, the shape of a small house rose out of the night, giving me some hope before I realized that there was little more left than four crumbling walls. I staggered around the rubble for a while looking for something useful, rummaging blindly through the debris of soaked wood and rotting thatch before deciding to leave empty-handed.

Irrational thoughts began to haunt me. I feared that the country was empty, that the plague had finally reached this place and that only a ghostly and devastated land was waiting for me. I was still wondering why the Ceras had not warned me, and then a faint light appeared somewhere ahead, strangled by the mist. I moved forward at a faster pace. Suddenly there was the gurgling of water. I crossed a stream that burbled on its bed of pebbles before finding myself at the gates of a small village surrounded - as far as I could tell - by the shadow of a palisade. It must not have been as late as I thought, for I could hear noise inside, the sound of voices, and also a rebec tune that was unfamiliar to me, but whose long, familiar trills almost brought tears to my eyes.

As I stood there, amazed that I had finally arrived somewhere, the reinforced door to the village opened with a creak. Two men in the middle of a discussion appeared, before pausing as they saw me. One of them was fat and had a chinstrap beard and a grimy apron, the other was red-faced and dressed in the stained gambeson of a cantonal militiaman. We stared at each other in silence for a few moments, then the soldier asked me in a squeaky voice if I was drunk or just plain stupid and if I was going to stand there all night. Despite the darkness, the gruff accent and the unpleasant tone, I couldn't repress a joyful laugh upon hearing him speak brownian. They stared at me curiously at first, but as I didn't stop, they laughed too, and finally invited me to come in more politely. I crossed the palisade. The anxieties and regrets that had gnawed at me earlier didn't follow me.