Cold penetrated her cloak, and depression weighed heavily on her shoulders. She threw open the shutter to get the last of the light. Beside her bare bunk was her armor-stand with her spare suit of chain, which could be sold easily enough. At the foot of the bunk was the locked chest where she kept the smaller objects she didn’t want to carry with her on campaign, and under the bunk was the clothespress that held the rest of her wardrobe.

Winter clothing, all of it, and she bundled it all up and bound it into a pack with a spare blanket. She unlocked the chest and looted it just as thoroughly, though there was considerably less in it. Knives, her jewel-carving supplies, a couple of pieces she’d finished, various odds and ends. Some were too bulky to take with her; some impractical. It was only after she’d made it all up into packs that she saw the letter lying on the shelf above her bed, with the odd bits and carvings she’d picked up over the years, the sentimental things she could not take with her.

Who would send me a letter? My brother? But the seal was unfamiliar, and the handwriting on the outside none she’d seen before. She picked the folded parchment up, her hands trembling for no reason that she could think of, and opened it, breaking the strange blue-and-silver seal.

It contained two pieces of paper. The first was a simple note of two lines and a name.

“I kept the letter of our agreement, but you can’t fault me for arranging the terms to suit myself, ” it read. “If you want to redeem this, you’ll have to come here, and you’ll have to see me. ”

And it was signed, simply, “Eldan.”

The other paper was a draft, in Valdemaran scrip, for the amount of the Herald’s ransom. She would have to go to Valdemar in person to cash it in.

More specifically, she would have to go to the capital of Haven, as the draft had been written on a Crown account there. And it had to be countersigned by the issuer, which in this case was Eldan himself.

To claim her reward, she would have to confront him on his own ground, and deal with him and all her tangled feelings about him.

It was a bitter sort of salvation he offered. If she went to him, to Valdemar, her troubles would be over, temporarily at least. She would have ready cash to tide her over until she managed to land a free-lance position. She might even be able to get a position within Valdemar. Surely they needed bodyguards, personal guards, and caravan guards even there.