She sliced through the wind, turning sideways as she skidded down the side of the hill. Air slid off her, as if it couldn’t find her. Even the sunlight seemed to melt off her skin. She was between places, here but not. No air, no ground. Just pure motion, so fast that she reached grass before it had time to pull away. It flowed around her, its touch brushed aside by her power.

Her skin started to glow, tendrils of smoky light rising from her. She laughed, reaching the bottom of the small hill. There she leaped some boulders.

And ran face-first into another tree.

The bubble of power around her popped. The tree toppled over—and, for good measure, the two next to it decided to fall as well. Perhaps they thought they were missing out on something.

Wyndle found her grinning like a fool, staring up at the sun, spread out on the tree trunk with her arms interwoven with the branches, a single golden gloryspren—shaped like an orb—circling above her.

“Mistress?” he said. “Oh, mistress. You were happy in the palace. I saw it in you!”

She didn’t reply.

“And the emperor,” Wyndle continued. “He’ll miss you! You didn’t even tell him you were going!”

“I left him a note.”

“A note? You learned to write?”

“Storms, no. I ate his dinner. Right out from under the tray cover while they was preparing to bring it to him. Gawx’ll know what that means.”

“I find that doubtful, mistress.”

She climbed up from the fallen tree and stretched, then blew her hair out of her eyes. Maybe she could dance across rooftops, ride on ropes, or … what was it? Make wind? Yeah, she could do that one for sure. She hopped off the tree and continued walking through the field.

Unfortunately, her stomach had a few things to say about how much awesomeness she’d used. She ran on food, even more than most folks. She could draw some awesomeness from everything she ate, but once it was gone, she couldn’t do anything incredible again until she’d had more to eat.

Her stomach rumbled in complaint. She liked to imagine that it was cussing at her something awful, and she searched through her pockets. She’d run out of the food in her pack—she’d taken a lot—this morning. But hadn’t she found a sausage in the bottom before tossing the pack?

Oh, right. She’d eaten that while watching those riverspren a few hours ago. She dug in her pockets anyway, but only came out with a handkerchief that she’d used to wrap up a big stack of flatbread before stuffing it in her pack. She shoved part of the handkerchief into her mouth and started chewing.

“Mistress?” Wyndle asked.

“Mie hab crubs onnit,” she said around the handkerchief.