The sky was black and starry when Gwen stepped onto the path to Wirtrumburg. She hadn’t walked it for two years, not since a few of the sheep fell sick and she’d gone with Seamus to the next town over to find an animal healer. Then, like now, Steffan had been back at the house.

Then, unlike now, he had known she was leaving.

But Gwen couldn’t afford to wait. Not after what had happened to the Torchbearer of War. It had been hard enough getting Steffan to agree that she should trust the Herald, much less leave home at all. There was no way he’d understand why she had to go this very moment, breaking her agreement from their duel. So while Steffan slept, Gwen packed up and wrote him a note and left. He’d have to get someone to read it to him, but that was fine. The more people who knew she was gone, the better chance of the Usurper accepting it and moving on without hurting the villagers.

That was what the Herald had called him: the Usurper. Someone had tracked down one of the Torchbearers, threatened his family, killed two armed militia members with ease, and then fought and killed that Torchbearer. What was worse, it was the Torchbearer of War, probably the most dangerous of them all in a heads-up duel. Who in the Roots could have done that? The Herald assured her the Usurper was human, not a monster or a troll, but then how had he beaten the Torchbearer of War?

What was more, now he was the Torchbearer of War. The Usurper had somehow stolen the Ember of War for himself. Not only had he defeated its previous bearer in single combat, but now his power had practically doubled. The Herald didn’t know how the Usurper stole the ember, explaining that only other Torchbearers were supposed to be able to do so. Gwen had decided to think about the implications of that later.

The bottom line was that a violent marauder was hunting Torchbearers and stealing embers. A monster of a person who had no second thoughts about threatening or killing anyone in his way. And now he was also far stronger than any lone Torchbearer.

Gwen hadn’t wanted to leave her village. In fact, her guilt had almost stopped her. She’d made a promise to Steffan, one she meant to keep. And then she injured his shoulder, making it even less likely he’d be fine on his own.

But not being fine was better than not being alive. For all Gwen knew, she could be the Usurper’s next intended victim. It made sense to target one of the few embers still among the Roots. It made even more sense to target the ember that had belonged to the king of the Beohur before its new bearer grew strong enough to use it properly. Gwen had to leave so that if the Usurper came for her, he’d have no reason to hurt anyone she cared about. Besides, most of her fellow Torchbearers were ahead of her, so if she wanted to form any sort of alliance against the Usurper, she had to climb.

So, feeling guilty and cowardly and sad, Gwen set off toward Wirtrumburg and the base of Ascangen. She’d left almost all of the coins for Steffan, but she would be fine with sleeping under the stars and learning to hunt and forage. It wasn’t as if she had any other options.

There was another thing that convinced Gwen to leave right then: the race for the throne. What if the Usurper’s plan was to steal one ember and then reach Selador before anyone else? Sure, he could be hunting down the Torchbearers without caring about ruling, but even then, winning the throne had to give Gwen some options to resist him, right? But if she wanted any chance of doing so, she had to leave immediately.

Gwen’s village was about fifteen leagues from Wirtrumburg, with a couple of others on the way. If she walked quickly, she could nap for a couple of hours in the middle of the day and still get to the city by nightfall. If she was lucky, there would be an almshouse she could stay in for the night, and then she could find her way up the Tree.

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Gwen suddenly found herself wishing she’d taken more of an interest in the occasional traveler they’d had from the branches, because now she had no clue how to start moving upward. Her pilgrimage had seemed so far off still that she hadn’t looked into those details. Now that everything had happened with the Herald and the embers...

Tears clouded Gwen’s vision, and it only took a few moments to figure out the source of the tight sadness squeezing them out of her. She had been planning on leaving home with everything in order, so she could visit holy places and feel her connection to the Beohur. Now, she was leaving her injured brother in the middle of the night to run away from a murderer, and she was both more and less connected to the Beohur than she’d ever wanted.

The crying subsided after a few minutes, but the sadness lingered like the darkness around her. It would sneak up on her every few hours or so, albeit never as suddenly as the first time.

For most of the walk, looking at the world around her took up Gwen’s focus. The path ran parallel to one of the Roots, which stayed a steady couple of leagues away on her left. The giant tendril grew steadily as Gwen drew closer to Ascangen, keeping the sun from rising until it was practically midday.

The closer Gwen drew to Wirtrumburg, the closer and smaller the farms grew. After she passed through the village closest to hers, she started seeing mines--tunnels into the earth wherever there was a hill or an especially rocky stretch of land. Because the area near Wirtrumburg got so little sun, plants didn’t grow especially well, leaving the ground better for mining than farming or grazing. There were still strips of land that were good enough for crops, but those were mostly in the sunnier strip between the Roots, not this deep in their shadow. In the shadow of a Root, the ground was barren for large stretches.

When the sun finally reached its peak, Gwen headed off of the path. She found a nice, cool boulder to lean against. After a quick meal of a hunk of bread and a pickled egg, she prodded her pack into the shape of a pillow and laid her head on it. As soon as she closed her eyes, the sleepless night and the stress of leaving dragged her under the surface of sleep.

#

“What d’you think is in the pack?” a nasal voice whispered.

“Dunno,” a second, deeper voice whispered. “But that staff looks nice. We could at least make some coin from the metal bands.”

“She’s starting to stir,” a third voice whispered. This one was higher and sharper. “You idiots were too loud!”

Gwen’s thoughts finally caught up to her body. Bandits! She let her eyes, which had been starting to open, flutter closed. Hopefully, if she kept her body relaxed...

“It’s fine,” Deep Voice whispered. “See? She’s back asleep.”

“Barely,” Sharp Voice hissed. “Sigurd, grab the staff. Then if she wakes up she won’t be able to do anything.”

“Not that she could anyhow,” Nasal Voice said with a chuckle. “There’s three of us and one of her.”

“Shh!” Deep Voice said. “I’m trying to focus.” That had to be Sigurd.

Gwen let herself peek out through her eyelashes. Her vision was reduced to a blurry strip, but it was enough to see a broad-shouldered man creep toward her. He knelt to her right and reached out toward her quarterstaff.

Gwen snorted and rolled onto her left side, cradling the staff so he couldn’t reach it from his position. Hopefully the would-be thieves would think she was still asleep and had just rolled over at an unfortunate time. That would buy her some breathing room to figure out who they were and why they were stealing from a random penniless girl. Not that bandits ever needed a reason.

It seemed to work. From behind her, Gwen heard a sigh and then shuffling sounds as Sigurd got up and walked around to her front. She felt a couple of soft tugs on the staff as he tried to figure out how to pull it out of her grasp.

“Mmm,” Gwen murmured, wrapping her arms tighter around her weapon. She’d worked hard for it, and it was important to her quest. The thought of any stranger holding it made her skin crawl, much less a bandit, but she still had to pretend to be asleep. If they knew she was awake, she’d lose the advantage of surprise.

“She won’t let it go,” Sigurd whispered from so close to Gwen’s ear that she would have heard him even if she were truly asleep.

“Fine,” Sharp Voice said irritably. “Weapons out.”