She sighed, taking one last look at the sky, at the sun shining through a gap in the gathering clouds. Then she walked slowly around the side of the house, to the small landing strip where the flyer waited. She had kissed her children before she’d left the house, standing for a long time watching as each of them slept. She’d almost awakened them, but she decided it was easier to just slip away. The evening before had been pleasant, and she’d told them stories of her youth, and of their grandfather and great-grandmother as they sat in front of the fire, hours past their normal retirement hour. Those were better memories, she decided, than tearful pre-dawn farewells.

She walked toward the flyer. The retainers had already loaded her bags, and they were standing in two parallel lines, waiting to bid farewell to the mistress of the estate. She walked slowly, nodding to each of them. There were a few new faces, but most of them she remembered from years past, even a few from the days of her own childhood.

“Goodbye, Yuricus.” She smiled at the old majordomo. The ancient man had run the household staff for longer than Kat had been alive. She remembered her father telling her stories about Yuricus teaching him to fish when he was a boy. As he had done for Kat as well.

“Goodbye, Mistress. May the fates protect you and bring you back. I will see to the children while you are gone, as always.” There was sadness in his eyes, but his voice was firm. Even the servants of a great house were expected to act as true Palatians.

“Thank you, Yuricus. Be well, my old friend.” She nodded briefly, and then she climbed up the steps and slipped through the hatch into the flyer. She sat down, turning to look out the window, a last glance at her home. She had no idea how long she would be gone this time, whether she would return after her mission or whether a new war would begin. She could be years on the front before she again saw the craggy shores of her family’s estate.

She sighed softly. Kat had known her share of glory—she was the most celebrated officer of her generation, and it was widely expected she would advance in due course to the highest ranks. Some of her comrades and allies even spoke in hushed tones of her eventual ascension to the Council, as if it was already a given. But she knew the cold mathematics she faced, that all of her peers did. Fewer than half of Palatian Patricians survived to the age of fifty. The constant combat took its toll, and thousands fell in battle. War cut deeply with its scythe, and those it carried away were often the best and most honorable of their generations.