“He was an unsavoury character, I can tell you that much,” the half-drunk captain was saying. While Brack had been buying him drinks and supper, his tongue was loosening, but it was taking longer than Nyssa wanted.

“Anything else, Captain? Did he mention plans, number of troops, anything like that?” Jara asked.

Nyssa had stayed true to Brack’s previous instructions and didn’t ask anything directly. She sat behind Jara and watched the door and the rest of the room for anyone of interest. It was well past the supper hour now, though, and most of the patrons were far gone with drink. She doubted anyone would recognize her even if she were to stand up in robe and crown.

“Nah, only that he hated transporting the horses. ‘Bloody shit-makers,’ he called them,” the captain said and took another swig of his beer mug.

Nyssa fixed Brack a long and knowing look. He nodded and they rose together.

“I thank you, Captain,” Brack said loudly and deposited two more coins on the table beside the man. “Compliments of Her Majesty,” he said and clasped the man on the shoulder. The captain’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the two coins.

“And my compliments to her!” he said and slid the coins off the tabletop quickly.

Nyssa rolled her eyes. They left the stuffy pub, and Nyssa breathed deeply even if it was to the smell of dead fish and seaweed.

“So, Ark pretty well covered all that was available here,” Jara said as they were walking to the public stables.

“It would seem,” Brack replied, looking back down the street and forward again.

When they were about to turn into the stables, he tapped them on the shoulder and ducked into an alley just before it. They walked a ways down the dark narrow path, and Nyssa saw a man shift his position in a doorway. They stopped and Brack motioned for Jara and Nyssa to lie against the wall and keep a lookout.

“The man was an islander for certain,” the hidden man said to Brack, his voice scratchy and unhealthy. Brack nodded, “but his Bosun was a big brute. Kitskan, I think,” he added. He pulled his ratty cloak tighter around him and looked down the alleyway. Nyssa could not make out his face in the shadow.

“The queen should be wary,” he said then and Nyssa tried to keep her face completely even. “The Bosun said the captain was on orders from the officers that she was to be taken on sight, no matter the cost. Not to be killed, mind you, but taken.”

“Taken where?” Brack asked calmly, trying hard not to frighten the man.

“To the ship. The Bosun said they had orders, all the ships, to keep a space for her, just in case. I told him that they were wasting their time. The queen would be in the capital, but he said she was here. Close by!” he said and Nyssa thought he sounded scared.

“She’s safe, my friend,” Brack said to him reassuringly, “in the capital, as you said.”

“Yah, well, my mate told that to that Bosun. Told him they’d never get her, that she’s too clever, too well protected,” he said, and now she did hear his fear. “And they killed him! Right there! In the street!”

Brack paused and, after only a few minutes, patted the man’s shoulder. “There, take this and find yourself a warm bed, my friend. No one’s going to harm you now,” he said and the man nodded his head, shaking the coins he now had in his hand. He shoved them inside his cloak and skittered down the alley, away from them.

Brack touched them both on the shoulder, pointing them back out to the open street. They found their horses and mounted calmly, but Brack led them back to the barracks at a hurried pace.

Colonel Bray met them at the main mess entrance while the grooms came out to meet the horses.

“Any luck, my Lord General?” he said politely.

“Enough,” Brack replied shortly, but he waited for Nyssa to come up and pass him to be in front of him. She turned and waited.

“Colonel, we’ll need provisions for the journey to the Bough Great Wood, and we’ll need to leave at first light,” he said quickly. Nyssa tried to say something, but he pushed her hard up the stairs.

Colonel Bray was surprised but nodded efficiently. “Yes, my Lord,” he said and followed up behind them, “I’ll make the arrangements immediately.”

It was deep into the night, and darker than dark when Nyssa made her way down the hallway, guided by the low light shed on the floor from Bray’s office. She was sweating and nervous, and wanted to turn back, but she couldn’t. She’d made enough of this mistake. It was time to move on.

“Colonel?” Nyssa asked quietly from the doorway. He still wouldn’t know who she was, and besides, she didn’t want the extra attention. Bray’s head looked up from his desk when she called him.

“Yes, Colonel Switch?” he said politely, but he didn’t rise. He outranked her fake self here as commander of the barracks. She came forward and placed the letter on the corner of his desk.

“General Brack has placed incredible importance on this correspondence, Sir,” she said, trying to hide her emotions. “He asked that a bird be dispatched with it to Orak’Thune immediately, if you have one. Tonight, if you please,” she added.

“I will attend to it at once, Colonel,” he replied smartly, taking the letter and looking at the seal. His eyes widened when he saw it was her own seal and not Brack’s. But to his credit, he didn’t ask any more, and she quietly left the room.

At dawn, they were mounted in the courtyard. Roan was stomping and acting rather restless underneath her, and Nyssa felt his anticipation. The sea air was refreshing and cool, a light breeze travelled up to them from the shore, bringing the sounds of a waking pier.

Nyssa would return here, she thought to herself. As soon as all this was cleaned up and put away, she’d show Hedir the resort and the beauty of the sea.

They had a long way to go from Port Town to the Wood. A good five weeks if they made a run for it. She was anxious to be done with it, to speak to Keerie, and curiously, she thought, to just be back among the trees.

“Your letter should arrive in Orak’Thune maybe day after tomorrow or at the least by the day after that, My Lord. The bird left within the hour of your request,” Bray said as he was lined up with his officers to see them off.

Brack cocked an eyebrow at him, but then looked at Nyssa. She didn’t make an indication she knew what it was about. Her stomach flipped on itself and she thought she would throw up.

“Thank you, Colonel, much appreciated,” he replied, letting it lie.

Three days? Nyssa thought to herself. Her previous letters might be received by then, even the one sent to advise Hedir to go to Bough to meet her. But they wouldn’t leave right away. A day or two, they would figure they had time. She hoped this letter would arrive before he left. Otherwise, it would find him on the road. Either way, it would find him before she did, and that was all that she could do to make up for this mistake.

The road away from the sea city was less exciting now that they were away from the warm breeze and sparkling waterscape. The road to the Great Wood from here followed the Southern Highway, a controlled and highly used double-wide dirt road that forked about one hundred and forty miles outside of Port Town, at the small junction of Cross Town.

From there, it offered three directions with smaller roads branching to towns along the southern coast. The largest travelled inland toward Orak’Thune, the second to the seaport, the way they had come, and the third, the western road, which crossed the breadth of the continent from Port Town to the Bough Great Wood. Her great-great-grandfather had had a considerably talented group of civil engineers who’d mapped and charted the most reliable and direct routes around and across the vast continent that were still used exactly the same so many years later.

In nearly a week’s time, Nyssa’s party crested the bend in the tree-lined road to arrive at the fork. Beyond, she could see the aptly named Crossroads Inn, which was their destination on the fifth day. A very large, three-story, farm-style framed building, it had twenty-five rooms, two large dining halls with taprooms and extensive stable facilities that surrounded the main building on two sides. The owners, the Potts, had run it within the family for generations.

The small town of Cross was little else but a support to the massive inn. There were smithy and carpenter services for repairs to wagons and horse care, and supply stores selling the most portable of foods, such as farm breads and cheese wheels, dried and smoked meats and small kegged ales. They had fabric for wagons, boxes and barrels, tanners selling tack and saddlery and most anything one would require for use on the road. Most of the residents, save the farmers who lived just outside of the town centre, lived above their shops, keeping the town itself to a small size overall.

There was also the postal stop, the colonel’s office and his small regiment of troops. Behind his office were the larger barracks, fit to house fifty soldiers and their horses travelling through. Today they would need to house only twelve, but Nyssa was sure her entourage would be more jovial about their arrangements, as usually a group their size meant camping in the farm fields outside a tiny town’s limits.

As they reigned in, Brack mentioned that he would stop to speak to the colonel first. He indicated that Jara and Nyssa should confirm their lodgings and horses’ care while he was away.

Nyssa was in conversation with the groomsman, who was eyeing Roan with slight trepidation, when Brack came storming across the yard.

“Damn bird was faster than I expected,” he said, and handed her a small note.

Her Majesty is requested to hold at the Cross Inn while her husband rides to join her there.

She looked up at Brack and understood his frustration, but she was relieved. Nervous, but relieved.

“You told me to fix this,” she said to him calmly, waving the paper at him.

Turning from Roan, she re-read the message while she walked back to the inn. She was trying to see if it was his writing.

“The longer we linger in the open, the more options for Dascus’s spies to locate us and report back,” Brack said under his breath and very close to her ear. “They have bloody birds too, Nyssa,” he said and walked past her.

A waiting Cyrus greeted him and directed him up the stairs to this room.

Nyssa prepared for a long wait. She was five days out from Port Town and she had expected her letter, the first one sent with Brund from Brack’s camp, to arrive on this day. If it had, she would have left Cross already and Hedir likely Orak’Thune also, but the odds of him catching up to them before Bough were slim. Now, it was clear Colonel Bray’s birds had beaten her first one to it, this one bearing her confession and far more detailed reasons for going to Bough. He would be heading to her here. He would have received the message at most three days after they had left and followed near immediately, sending the one in her hand ahead of him. Six more days, maybe?

On the third day, Nyssa was at her window watching Brack and the Colonel Dru, he said his name was at dinner the previous night, exercising with the soldiers in the vast courtyard behind the barracks. She doubted her troops were overly enthusiastic about it, having been “exercised” on the road for the last month or so, but it would keep them busy. Neither Brack nor Jara had woken her to join them, so she took their hint, ordered her breakfast in her room and stayed inside.

It was just as well, she thought. She was distracted and her dreams since leaving Port Town were wakeful. Unlike her dreams as a girl, a reoccurring vision where an elusive ball of fire taunted her from a distance, she now had nightmares about the black-robed man, the scene changing with the events unveiled to her about her mother. She saw Dascus’s face, as she imagined it—she’d never actually met the man—but in her mind’s eye, it was scarred and ugly, with rotten teeth and boils. He was always suffocating her, breathing on her face, his hands around her neck. Sometimes, it was her mother who was choking her, and she was always crying. But no matter the scenario, they always ended the same; the eyes of whoever was attacking her would burn yellow, then red, then burst into flames and the person would let go of her, screaming in agony, clawing at their face, ripping the flesh there—the ball of flame she was familiar with returning to consume them, though it was shocking and gruesome.

She would want to help them, but when she would try to get up, she would realize she was heavy with child and cumbersome. Her legs wouldn’t work right, and she was awkward and slow. When she would look down, she would see oceans of blood on her thighs and her thin shift soaked and sticking to her everywhere. Panicked, she would try to run away, but the faces would burn and she could smell their flesh, their blood and the burning hair.

Always she would wake in a fright, sweating and feel the vomit in her throat and then she would retch violently.

On the road, Jara had taken to sleeping beside her. At first it was a matter of waking her, reassuring her, and she could return to sleep. But the last few days, she was unable to wake without him physically touching her. A slap to her face, a shake to the shoulders, water on her face. When she awoke, she always threw up. But when she was awake, at least it was cool and no one was on fire. Jara would hold her tightly until the shaking would subside. She wasn’t sure what she would do now without him.

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A piercing whistle came across the yard then and the colonel’s head snapped around to see one of his patrolmen coming toward him. Nyssa watched them in conversation, Dru’s head nodding sharply, and then the patrolmen left. When he returned to Brack, he was pointing to the street.

Nyssa fell asleep in her chair by the window. The light made it safer to sleep, she hoped. She dreamed, but it was detached, like the evil that haunted her couldn’t find purchase in her mind. She tried to keep it at bay, tried to remember Jara’s words to her; “it’s only a dream. It cannot hurt you.” She tried to remember the feeling of those who loved her and protected her, calling on it like a blanket she could wrap around herself to give her clarity. Give her a moment’s peace so she could rest.

She was alone and she felt that was something new. Always surrounded by someone professionally and domestically, she was used to people; people helping, people in the background. But here, she was truly alone. She wasn’t sure she should be alone, and that too was new. She turned three hundred and sixty degrees and it was all just her. She called for Brack, then Jara, but no one came. She called Hedir, but nothing.

Again and again, Nyssa tried to understand why she should be alone. Did she send them away? She felt exposed now. Alone with no one. She felt her clothing for a weapon, something to protect herself, to make her feel less exposed, but there was nothing. Just her shift. She wasn’t even wearing shoes.

“Hello?” she called timidly, but the sound her voice made was dead, like a room with no air. She began to feel like her breathing was thin, like maybe she was in a room with no air. She started to sweat and her mind began to panic. She tried taking deeper breaths, but the air was thinning, getting lighter.

The more she tried, the worse it became. She felt weak and fell onto her hands and knees. She was clawing at her throat now, seeing spots in front of her eyes. She felt something and looked down sharply. Her huge belly protruding through her shift, she hadn’t noticed she was pregnant before. She placed one hand on the mound and felt the tears fall from her eyes. She was losing her battle for her life, and now it would cost her so much more.

“Nyssa!” she felt the sharp and sudden pain of a slap across her face.

At the same moment, she took a huge intake of breath, filling her lungs to capacity and feeling the world come back to her. She sat bolt upright, gasping, somehow now from her bed, and unable to speak. She felt a hand on her tummy, but she said nothing. She was still scared, still unsure of what was real. She breathed, holding her eyes tightly shut. She didn’t want to open them, fearing the burning faces would be there.

“Nyssa,” a familiar voice called gently to her now. She wanted to go to it, beg it to keep her safe, but she trusted nothing. Hands tried to wrap around her shoulders and she wanted them to, so badly, but an irrational remnant of her fear overtook her and she bolted backward, hitting the headboard and grabbing the post to hold on, should they try and take her.

“Nyssa," a firmer voice called her directly. “Open your eyes,” it commanded.

Nyssa concentrated on calming her breathing. Her face tucked into the crook of her arm while she breathed, gathering her thoughts. Jara, she remembered. That sounded like Jara. He was there with her; they were in the inn. Yes, the inn.

She lifted her head and opened her eyes to look for him. He was there, standing beside her bed, his face strained with stress, sweat dripping from his temples. When he saw her look at him, though, he grabbed her quickly, away from the post and pulled her to him. He was patting her hair, almost begging her to believe him that she was alright.

Nyssa let herself go in that embrace. She didn’t cry, just went limp and squeezed his hand when she could, trying to reassure him. She felt so tired, so fatigued in every muscle. She felt as if she’d been at trials all day and ran them herself. Despite not wanting anything to do with it, she couldn’t stop herself from dozing.

“She needs a tonic, something to help her sleep deeper so dreams won’t occur,” she heard a familiar voice say.

“There is such a thing?” Jara said. She heard whispering and then she heard the door open and close.

“Get her dressed,” she heard Brack say now.

Jara tried to talk to her, to tell her they had to go, but she couldn’t focus. Finally, he led her to dress and sat her by the window. She watched him shoving her things in her bags.

“You should have told me, Nyssa,” he said, not looking up and shoving things a bit harder than necessary into her bags. She didn’t reply, so he looked up. Nyssa sobbed into her knees until she felt hands gently pulling her legs down by her thighs.

She watched Jara move her shirt up and gently place his warm hands over her belly. He frowned and the expression tore the last of her resolve.

“I know,” she mumbled.

Her eyes told him volumes of something else. He let out a tired sigh and pulled one hand across his face, but his eyes stayed fixed on her belly.

“I thought I could do it,” she said in a whisper and he looked up at her. She looked frail, he thought, deflated, surrendered. “I wanted so much to think I was in control, that no matter what, I could face it, if it chose me. Hedir was so understanding. He didn’t want me to push myself to think it was required or expected. He wanted me to wait, to use tinctures, but…I...”

Nyssa looked down at his hands and sniffed loudly. Jara stayed crouched where he was, waiting for her to unload it.

“He said Bough children are rare, that it might not even be possible. I think I thought it would never choose me. I would never have chosen me!

“Jara, what if I die? What if I kill this child? Like Sun?” She pleaded to him and he did move to her now. He brought her against him. “I kill enemies. I inflict violence; I am no mother! I don’t know what to do like this! I killed that child!!” she wailed, losing control of her anxiety now. Jara gripped her firmly.

“You did not kill that child, Nyssa! He was already dead!” he said harshly to her, almost shaking her with his anger. He physically controlled it.

“Your heart broke with his loss, that’s all,” he said more gently. “I think that makes you a very special mother.”

He sighed and wrapped her more against him while he sat back in the chair and Nyssa curled against him in his lap.

“You wanted mine once, do you remember?” he said after a long minute, his arms rigid against his emotion, but he wanted to remind her; when she knew love, she knew untold strengths against her fears as well. Nyssa looked up at him. The tears wobbled in her eyelids.

“Nothing would have stopped you if we’d been allowed; you remember I told you that you should have what you truly desired? If children were one, that you should have as many as you wanted?” She nodded and his arms softened around her and his hand found her tummy again. “I seem to remember it was important to you. Nothing you have seen should change that, Nyssa. It’s still you.”

Jara pulled her against him again. He cradled her head and shoulders, rocking her a bit.

“I get that you’re scared. Hell, so am I,” he admitted and almost laughed. “But Hedir will be with you. We all will.”

He felt her deep, shuddering exhale and she added her hand on top of his; it warmed her.

They were quiet and Jara’s thumb rubbed her skin lightly. It was the comfort she’d been missing. It was hearing encouragement and from someone she loved. She sniffed, her head on his shoulder and her face against the skin of his neck; it was him; she’d never forget him and she felt better, her dreams receding; it was Jara. She’d needed him, always, and she knew keeping it from him had been pointless and selfish.

They sat in the window. It was night and it was cool, but he warmed her. She felt no chill and no regret but loneliness a bit in her situation. The baby he rubbed was not his, but he was the one supporting her. Hedir was coming. He would be a force when he arrived and that too encouraged her. When she saw what a man who loved her would do, not what she had feared, she was more certain than ever she would make it through.

She lifted her hand to his face and he turned to see her. A moment from the past. Maybe a sign, but he returned the look between them and she lifted her face a bit and closed her eyes to feel it…

“Jara, I –“

“We need to go, now!” Brack said from the door and disappeared again.

Nyssa jumped in surprise and Jara had tensed. She looked up at him, and saw not the regret there, just the intense emotion of something much deeper. Then he shut his eyes and when they opened, he was moving them, the moment gone. He frowned when she could only watch him in confusion, but started gathering them to stand and dress to leave.

“Rogun soldiers have been spotted in the area. A lot of them,” he told her while he whirled her cloak over her shoulders. “We’re going to make a break for it, try to make a run for Bough,” he said and turned to lift the bags and came back to take her by her hands. Nyssa was staring at him in fatigued disbelief.

“Why not try to go back home?” she asked. Orak’Thune was considerably closer.

“Because the enemy has been spotted on that road and the one back to Port Town. They are moving down this way and we haven’t enough soldiers to fight them. Dru will stall them and hopefully stop them altogether. The regiment here is ready and Port Town has been alerted too, but he can’t be everywhere, and I am betting this rabble is planning on thinning our numbers by making them cover more ground. Dru will get word to the palace, but right now, we have to move!” he said and pulled her from the room.

Roan was dressed and waiting for her. The Elite formed up around her, Jara and Brack, and they thundered out of the courtyard into the blackness of deep night.

Nyssa had nothing to do but to contemplate Jara’s words as they ran through the night. Her mind was foggy and slow, but her heart was working. She cried thinking of Hedir, and gripped the reins tighter to hold on so she could duck her head into her cloak and just deal with it. He had been right. It was nothing to rush. They had time, but now they had nothing but her stupid, pointless fears turned arrogance and an enemy force at their back. They were nearly two weeks to Bough and how many days or weeks apart?

The nightmares continued. They seemed weirdly unnatural in their frequency and vehemence. Their endless violence and graphic scenes wore down her emotions; she fought numbness in the fatigue now. She threw up often, and swore she smelled dead flesh and the sickly-sweet, unappealing smell of burnt sugar in her dreams. Every bit of food spoiled her stomach. She’d eaten next to nothing in a week and Jara was losing his control.

“Nyssa,” he called her from a dozing stupor and lifted her in his arms to rest her against him. He held a heel of bread in his hand. Nyssa awoke, but shook her head at the food.

“Nyssa, you have to eat. You have to eat for the baby,” he said to her in her ear.

She whimpered but eventually nodded and he handed her the bread. She took a nibble, but it was small, and she barely chewed. Jara shook her by repositioning her to lean higher against him. “Come on, Nyssa. The whole thing, let’s go,” but he wasn’t harsh with her.

Brack eyed them over the fire. Jara caught his glance and he understood it. They were in trouble.

Jara had never seen her like this before. He knew it was the dreams. He’d made her recall every detail, and even he’d blanched a few times at what she’d described. To have them every night was exhausting. He watched her flail and the physical assault on her mind was inflicting the same on her body and it scared him to death.

Four days out, a Rogun scouting party found them. The Elite fanned out, forming a protective circle, and they vanquished the threat, but they were a challenge. Brack had had to draw and Jara too. It was way too close. Nyssa had watched the whole thing in numb fear. She had drawn her sword on instinct, but Jara had had to jump and catch her when she’d near fallen out of the saddle. After that, he’d ridden Roan with her on his lap.

They risked a camp a few days later when their scouts reported no activity in the two-mile radius they’d checked. The group was exhausted themselves; they needed to sleep more than two or three hours. Brack and Jara decided on a discreet underbrush to put up a tent for Nyssa. If they were attacked, she would be well hidden. Brack then ordered Jara to stay with her, even if he no longer had the authority to do so, but Jara didn’t complain; he was infinitely grateful he was there.

“We’ll handle the watches. You need to keep her quiet and hidden,” he’d said and walked away.

Jara was exhausted beyond any other time he could recall. Nyssa was still and breathing deeply beside him, warm against him. He hooked his belt loop to her own waistband and fell immediately to sleep.

Barely an hour later, Jara heard the outcry and men yelling from the other side of the camp and he was detached from Nyssa and rolled out the door within seconds. The sun wasn’t yet risen, but predawn shed enough to see shadows and shapes. The smoke from the nearly finished fire was heavy and low on the ground, mixing with the mist. He saw figures in the fog, but they were indistinguishable, friend from foe.

He held his sword aloft and waited. He didn’t think leaving Nyssa was a good choice in these conditions; if she were discovered and he’d gotten lost too far away, she’d be defenceless.

The fight came to him. Two men, Rogun invaders by their uniforms, stormed the campfire. Jara met them both, holding his own and keeping them from getting behind him. More men arrived and his Elite brethren showed up to assist. Brack passed through, sword slicing a weaker man who fell shortly after, gurgling somewhere lost in the fog.

Jara had dispatched one of his men and was working on the other. He was turning to face the second threat, but another Elite cut him away. More poured through the fog into the circle of their camp and Jara started calling orders to form a ring beside him. The Elite responded and then there were new faces. Orak Elite and plenty of them. They cut through the remaining raiders and then the camp was only them, standing in a circle, per his command.

In all, the raid lasted less than a quarter of an hour, but Jara was surprised by how many and how fast they had come upon them.

He was trying hard to catch his breath. He noticed one soldier, his sword still held wide, coming through the dim light directly for him. The brightening morning sun lit his silhouette as he stepped across the camp. Jara squinted to see who it was. The man was moving fast.

Hedir’s features cleared as he came through the swirl of smoke and mist. Jara blinked in surprise.

“Jara, where is my wife?”

“Here,” came her weak voice from the bush behind them.

Jara turned on his heel and stepped back. Hedir moved up, trying to see her. Nyssa pushed her way through the leaves on her hands and knees. Hedir’s expression was fierce. He ran over to her, dropping his sword and moved to take her hands to help her out. She hesitated, sitting upright, and could only shake her head at him. Jara ordered his soldiers to gather the horses. They needed to leave and fast, but he also did not want to hear this conversation.

“I am so sorry,” she said and the misery made the gaunt look of her malnourished face more ghastly.

Hedir looked unclear by what she meant. He looked her over, trying to figure which way to touch her. Nyssa sat up straighter, over her hips and put her hand over her belly and sobbed. “I should have told you. I should never have left Orak’Thune!”

Hedir looked visibly shaken. His eyes were locked to her hands and her belly, his child. She thought he would cry. He swallowed hard, but he cleared his throat and looked back to her. He smiled weakly.

“Nyssa, we are here now, together,” he said gently and moved to take her slowly in his arms, pulling her over his lap and against his chest. His hand hovered over the belly, but then he put it down. His face melted in relief when he confirmed for himself it was there.

The group moved quickly around them. They were packed, saddled and ready in less than half an hour. Jara put Hedir on Roan and Nyssa with them, and they rode out without another word. They were mere days from Bough.

---

Nyssa had trouble registering what she was seeing. Her brain was adjusting to the shock of a nightmare, but it was getting better. He was there. Really there. But she thought he looked more terrible than she had ever seen him. He was dishevelled, his clothes wrinkled and worn and his face was dirty. His hair, always neatly braided and long down his back, was still so, but there were tufts pulled loose, and leaves stuck through it. He was concentrating on driving their horse, absolute and total determination on his face.

Nyssa wanted to explain but didn’t know how. She was so tired. She wanted to sit up and greet him, tell him to stop so she could speak with him. She needed to explain she knew how much she had hurt him, stolen from him, led him to believe she was a person worth loving. Here she was breaking his heart, not months after she swore to never do so.

As they rode, Nyssa settled to consider their situation. She was a marked target. Her pain now was her own to bear; her risk should have always been her own. She was selfish to believe she deserved anything different. She felt the shame of embarrassment now as she realized all the doubting faces when she’d defiantly told them she had married—and deserved it no less—had all been thinking what she now understood. Only she had come to it too late and now it would hurt the two people she would love most.

She saw Jara riding up beside them, and she thought he looked desperate. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She had made people around her suffer and that was not what she was raised to do. She was raised to protect her people, not endanger them.

Nyssa turned her head to lean her face against Hedir’s neck. He startled when she shifted and he felt the cold of her skin suddenly. He looked down at her, but the expression on his face didn’t change. He tried to reposition his arm around her, but she took the one in front and ducked it under her cloak, so he’d understand what she was talking to.

“I will carry him, deliver him, but I will deliver him unto you, Hedir,” she said very quietly in his ear, trying to add authority in it. “I know I have made mistakes, bad ones, and that I have endangered us all with my selfishness, and for that, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry,” she said and tears rolled down her cheeks.

Hedir was shaking his head and had to keep looking up to be careful to pay attention to the road, but she squeezed his hand hard where she held it against her.

“I will deliver him,” she said again, sniffing but closing her eyes. “And if I am successful, if I live through, I want you to take him immediately away from me, into Bough. Safe and away, away from me so he is safe,” she said, and then she fell asleep, her head drooping again lower on his chest.