Ivar and Alberdina had not been idle. Ivar had chopped such an enormous amount of wood that it came all the way to the top of the tower wall, and she guessed it was about three cords’ worth. Nor had that been all he’d done, since he’d obviously hunted, killed, gutted, skinned, and butchered that deer.

Alberdina had been hunting as well—food and herbs. She’d found wild onions, swathes of bee-balm to tuck under the bedrolls to repel bugs, a big cache of nuts, and the wild honey she’d given them to eat with their travel bread. How on earth she’d gotten the honey away from the bees, Delia had no idea, and was too tired to guess. She’d found a lot more as well, since she’d been tying bunches of bee-balm and herbs upside down all over the outside of the shelter, but Delia didn’t recognize what all of the plants were.

So Delia didn’t get to see anything of what the mages did to actually create the Gates. Just the results, which were that the four curved uprights glowed faintly once the sun set.

She sat outside the shelter, which was full of equally tired mages, working slowly at the honey-soaked bread and the savory but tough venison. It was worth eating, however tough it was; those wild herbs that Alberdina had found gave it excellent flavor. Alberdina came to join her, and they gazed at the lake, the Gates, and the dark blue sky slowly going to black.

“Is this what it’s going to be like?” Delia asked, with the last piece of honey-soaked bread in her hand, nibbling at it slowly with tired jaws.

“You mean living out here, once we’re free of the Empire?” Alberdina asked. “Probably. Very probably. There’s going to be a lot of hard, physical labor, and everyone is going to have to pitch in. Your servants are going to be very busy doing other things than tending to you. You’re going to have to learn to wash clothing in a stream, and how to do your own mending. You’ll be set tasks like the ones I gave you yesterday and today, things that just need a pair of uneducated hands. It won’t be fun. It won’t be easy.”

“What if I just—don’t come along?” she asked in a small voice, because with the reality of what was going to happen setting in, living life out here in the middle of nowhere didn’t seem in the least attractive.