Beka shook her head. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

The camp was already stirring, and the green-and-white tabards of the riders looked ghostly in the morning mist. They were on cold rations rather than risk the smell of cooking reaching the enemy.

Captain Danos waved to her as she strode by his troop. They were sitting in small clusters on the dew-soaked grass with their cold beef and stolen cheese. This part of Mycena had been overrun by both armies twice this summer; there was little left to forage.

Beka smiled and waved back. Tall, broad-shouldered, and fair, Danos was as good a fighter and able an officer as any under Klia’s command. She was proud to call him her friend.

Her riders were on the far side of Klia’s tent, which was distinguished by the green horse-and-sword pennant flapping on a pole at the tent peak, and the black Aurënfaie horse with a distinctive white mane and tail tethered outside.

“Go eat, if you can find anything,” she told Syra, her own empty belly rumbling with hunger. “I’ll give Klia our report.”

“I’ll see if I can find us some meat that hasn’t turned green yet,” Syra replied with a laugh.

As commander of the Queen’s Horse Guard, Princess Klia led a squadron—half the regiment—under General Moraus. There had been talk when she was not given the general’s position after her unexpected recall from Aurënen. Moraus was an able man, but Klia had proven her worth in the field, too, and was Queen’s Kin. It had only fueled the rumors of bad blood between them, but no one could say they’d heard Klia complain.

Two of Captain Danos’s riders were on duty at the tent door and saluted Beka as she entered. Inside, the tent was divided into two rooms: this one, large enough for a map table and the commander’s council of officers, and a small one beyond a canvas wall at the back where Klia slept—when she slept, which didn’t seem to be very often these days.

Klia and her aide-de-camp and friend, Major Myrhini, were at breakfast in the front room, eating the same rations as the soldiers. Beka’s heart skipped a beat when she saw that the Aurënfaie—her Aurënfaie, as she liked to think of him—was with them as well, lithe and handsome in his worn leathers and corselet.