I have never felt more alone in my life.

Chapter 5

I reach the great wooden gates without incident, acknowledging the guards with a raised hand. They nod and go back to their conversations, used to my heading out for a solitary ramble now and then.

Outside, a wood warbler’s high twittering call carries across the cleared, grassy land from the surrounding forest. I turn toward it, taking a half-worn path through the grasses, ignoring the road down through the village. I want only to get away.

Walking is easier now that some of the sting from my fall down the stairs has faded. I know I could have stopped at the stables and asked the hostlers there to saddle Acorn, but I don’t want to see anyone right now. My mother’s words ring in my ears, my cheeks are damp, and there is a hollowness in my chest that threatens to swallow me.

As I reach the woods, I hear other birds—sparrows, a goldcrest’s distinctive chattering call, and further away, a woodpecker. At the edge of the forest, there is plenty of undergrowth, but as I follow the twisting trail into the deeper wood, the canopy blocks out the light. There are fewer low-growing bushes here, the walking easier.

I wander without direction, or rather, with only one direction: away from the hall. Away from my family who would discard one of their own so easily, and from a friend whose caring carried so little substance, and from the memory of Valka.

My eyes blur again, and I swipe at them often until finally I stumble to a stop, sinking down to rest against a tree. I’ve found a little dell, partially wooded with grasses and shrubs growing up where the sunlight falls at the center of its slight valley. There is peace here, and a faint, skipping breeze that blows past me and then funnels around again, hemmed in by the dell.

I rest my head against the tree, listening to a quiet beat. A beat that grows steadily louder. I go still. That is not a bird, not any creature but a horse, trotting through the woods. Without thinking, I scamper down, past my tree to a dense tangle of blackberry bushes at the bottom of the dell. I cannot push within their thorny bramble. But the hoofbeats are coming from the same direction I did; I hurry to the other side of the brambles and hunch down behind them.

I’m being stupid, of course. There is no reason to hide from a rider here. There are no bandits so close to my mother’s hall, no rogues or outlaws who might attack. But it’s not them I fear as I crouch down on all fours, sheltered by the brambles, the young leaves unfurled just enough to hide me.