But if the Tedrels broke through, these same people would be taking up whatever arms they had to defend their lives—or fleeing back up that road to Haven… And try as he might, he could not but help look at those peaceful villages and imagine flames rising above the roofs, and bodies sprawled in the streets.

It was better when they were riding through the countryside. And maybe the others were cursed with the same sort of imagination as Alberich, for their pace seemed to increase, just a trifle, when they were going through a center of population.

So it went, sunrise to sundown, league after league of it, and no end in sight. It almost seemed to him as if he was caught in a peculiar nightmare, riding inexorably toward a dark and dreadful fate.

* * *

Selenay had longed for a day when she might ride out like any other Herald, taking to the road with her packs behind her, leaving the Palace and all of the stuffiness of the Court behind. Now that day had come, and she thought—often—that it might have been a good idea if she had never made that particular wish. She would rather have to suffer being laced into a tight gown and listen to dull speeches every day for the rest of her life than face the Tedrels. And it didn’t matter that there would be an army between them and her. She was as much afraid for the people she knew, her friends, the people she’d been with as a Trainee, who would be in that army, as she was for herself.

What was more, the reason why Alberich had assigned bodyguards to her for day and night was real now. She understood that her life was in genuine, serious danger—and worse than just her life. She had learned in several sleepless nights following a long and somber talk with Alberich that there was a fate worse than death. The Tedrels had every reason to want to take her alive, and many more reasons to want to make sure that she was alive, and outwardly well, but not in possession of her wits anymore. And there were a great many ways to ensure that she wasn’t sane once they got hold of her… the most obvious being to murder Caryo. She was used to a Valdemar where the King could walk unguarded among his people—but her father wasn’t going anywhere without his six shadows either, and that shook her to the core. He no longer trusted his own people—or at least, no longer trusted the ones he didn’t personally know. It would have made her weep, if she hadn’t been too frightened to cry.