When dawn broke I wandered from house to house, wondering how I would bury them all. The ground was full of tree roots, and I searched, and I searched, but I could not find aught even resembling a shovel. By midmorn I was hungry, and far more terrified than I thought possible. I had not realized how much I depended on Tristan to tell me go here, or do thus. Even at Court, I was at the mercy of Lisele’s schedule and the stifling etiquette, the propriety, the iron strictures of what could and could not be done.

Think, I scolded myself. Think, you brainless ninny! Think!

I stood at Risaine’s shattered house—I always seemed to return to her door—and hugged myself, cupping my elbows in my hands. There was not a single thing living in the bandit village. Deep hoofprints scored the earth, but I had no skill at reading or tracking such things.

Where is Adersahl? I had not seen him among the dead.

I shivered. Di Narborre’s orders were to capture, not kill me—or were they? What could have spurred him to level this hidden village? Or was it someone else, some other enemy?

Faint hope of that, Vianne. This is your doing, as surely as if you had ridden and slain with your own hands. The blood is on you, it will not wash away.

It will never wash away.

I took the dagger Adersahl had left me, and a square of smoke-darkened cloth pulled from a drying line and trampled into the ground. I wrapped the dagger in the cloth and tied it to my belt, then paused, staring at the wreck of the village.

“Forgive me,” I pleaded, my voice thin in the morning birdsong and the soughing of wind brushing treetops with a velvet glove. “I would bury you decently, as you deserve, but I can find no shovel, and I must reach Arcenne. I cannot brave the path to Navarrin, and must take my chances.”

I waited, but of course no answer came. I judged which way south stood by the moss on the trees and the slant of sunlight—being a hedgewitch was good for something; my heart twisted to think of Risaine—and struck out for the southron edge of the village. This took me through a haze of smoke, and before I realized it I was running, tripping over scattered, broken things and dodging through arrows stuck in the earth. I did not stop my flight until I plunged into the trees, hot salt water streaking my face again, though I had thought I had no more tears left.

I walked steadily through the day, aiming south as best I could, occasionally coming across a berry bush not yet in season. There were wild herbs one could eat, and I had a handful of cressten from a stream and two pom d’tirre I ate raw after washing them. I wished for a fire, or a cup of chai, or a bath. I had no skin to carry water—nothing but the knife, and the Aryx.

There was some small hedgewitchery I could use for survival. Court sorcery would make me the quarry in a hunt I did not have the skill to escape, and I shuddered to think of the doors of the Aryx opening inside my head, swallowing me whole.

And no Tristan to call me back from that golden flood.

I did not have a horse—nor would I have known what to do with one. My horses had always been saddled for me at Court, and riding with Tristan had not taught me to do such things. Yet one more thing I should have learned and had not.

My list of such regrets grew long by the time afternoon sent golden spears through the treetops.

I found another small brook and drank, washed some of the soot from my stinging face and blackened hands. I scrubbed with a handful of soapweed plucked from the bank, and felt much better even if my clothes still stank of fire and carnage. Still, I spent a long time laving my hands, seeking to wash the feel of slippery hot crimson from my fingers.

It did not leave me, but my hands grew too raw to continue.

As night fell I was well and truly lost, simply striking south for as long as the light lasted and stopping by the shelter of a tam tree. I built a small circle of stones and gathered what deadfall I could, deciding it was better to have a fire than to risk freezing to death—or being struck with fever in the middle of the Shirlstrienne.

The hedgewitch charm to light a fire produced a small flame I coaxed into life with handfuls of pinon needles. I soon had a small but respectable blaze crackling merrily away, and the smell of it—clean, without the reek of burning human flesh—was enough to bring fresh tears to my eyes.

I could not find a comfortable space to lie on, and it was cold and damp, yet I did manage to catch broken snatches of sleep, waking to put more of my small supply of wood on the fire.

I have spent many sleepless nights since, but that was one of the worst. I started nervously, bolt-upright, when an owl’s soft cry echoed in the darkness. Every slight sound I heard made me think of stalking men with bright swords, coming to make certain.

After the owl, I huddled with my knees drawn up, staring into the fire and thinking on Tristan. I would have given the Aryx to d’Orlaans without demur and wished him joy of it, if he could have produced my Captain from the darkness.

When false dawn began to paint the trees with cold gray, I doused the fire and was on my way, nerve-racked, stiff, and chilled clear through. The chill faded slightly as I walked south, again judging by the moss on the trees. There were hedgewitch charms for marking a path in the forest, but I could recall little of them.

And I did not wish my trail marked.

About midmorning, I began to see how silence and solitude could be, as Diodiorin of Scythandra stated, a balm for a troubled soul—or, as Euphorin of Thebim argued, could drive a person mad. I did not have to worry about assuming a pleasing expression or keeping my thoughts from showing, or about the length of my dress and the cut of my bodice, as I would have at Court. I did not have to worry for the Aryx or the safety of a few men mad enough to swear service to me. I had nothing to worry for but my bare survival, which was chancy enough.

Yet solitude also means nothing to distract the mind from chewing at problems as a dog will at a bone.

Where was Tristan? Who had razed the village? How did I think I could reach Arcenne without a horse or even a waterskin? Had the Guard been slain in a pitched battle and di Narborre’s troops come to level the place daring to shelter them? That seemed most likely. But then, where was Risaine—and Adersahl? I had not seen either of them among the…

Say it, Vianne. The dead. You did not see them among the dead.

I was bone-weary and stumbling by afternoon, impelled forward more by will than by any real desire to continue. I stopped under a pinon tree and slid down to sit between two great roots, leaning against the rough trunk. I closed my eyes for what felt a mere moment, and when I opened them again the purple of dusk filtered through the trees, and I was thirsty.

There was no water nearby, but—thank the gods—there was a hollisa bush. A handful of the tart, not-quite-ripe berries cut the edge of my thirsty hunger, and I cast about for deadwood to use as fuel.

I found very little, but I dragged what I could to the pinon tree and spent a few moments making a fire. Thanks to Risiane’s tender care I did not feel fevered, though my eyes watered fiercely and my strength ran away like water.

The Aryx pulsed against my chest, and of a sudden, as I was feeding fallen wood to the small hedge-charmed blaze, I was startled into thin, unhealthy laughter.

The Great Seal of Arquitaine, awake and active, the source of all Court sorcery by the grace of the Blessed—and I dared not use it. Oh yes, a fine Queen, standing idly by while a whole village of children, women, and old men were assassinated. I was even powerless to give them a decent burial.

All the royalty in the world is worth naught in the face of catastrophe.

My merriment sounded strange as it rose sharp and mocking, echoing through the trees. I laughed until I feared the sound of it, clutching the trunk of the pinon tree, my eyes streaming, my braid torn free and mussed, covered in soot.

You are mad, Vianne. Mad.

Mad I might be, alive I was still. But for how long?