The Guild gave her a decent price for the armor and weaponry—decent by the standards of a town in midwinter, at any rate. Decent, considering that her second-best suit of chain was now her best, and the suit she was willing to sell had been immersed in a river, drenched with rain, covered with mud, and generally abused.

What she wound up with would pay for room and board for her and Hellsbane for a fortnight.

She counted the pitiful little pile of coins carefully, but they didn’t multiply, and the numbers didn’t change.

She started to put them back in her belt-pouch, and her hand encountered something that crackled. She pulled it out, puzzled for a moment, then felt the blood drain from her face as she recognized Eldan’s letter and voucher.

It would be the easy answer. Her fortnight’s worth of coin, if augmented by living off the land, would take her to Valdemar.

I don’t have to do anything, she thought reluctantly. All I have to do is go. I can just collect my money, and leave. I don’t have to listen to anything he says.

She was lying to herself, and she knew it. She shoved the parchment back into the pouch and dropped the coins on top of them with a little groan. She lay back on the bed and rubbed her aching temples. I’ll go up there, and he’ll tell me how much he loves me, and he’ll offer me some sinecure—and I’ll take it, I know I will. Then I‘ll be trapped. Because it’ll be his job, and probably it’ll be no more than a token, a pretense-job, to make me feel less like he’s giving me everything. And gods, I do love him, it’d be so easy to accept that....

But love wasn’t enough, not for her. She had to have freedom, too. She had to know that she was earning her way, not just playing someone else’s shadow.

No. She gritted her teeth stubbornly. No. Not unless there’s no choice. I’ll go to the Plains, first, and become a nomad like my crazy cousins. And I haven’t exhausted all my options. I still have two more days.

As it happened, it wasn’t until sunset of her third grace-day that she found work. It wasn’t what she had expected; she was looking for work as a groom. She’d tried all the places mercs frequented, then the places that were the haunts of the city guard, and finally started trying tradesmen’s inns. No one had a place for her, not even after she demonstrated her ability with a couple of surly, troublemaking beasts.