“Hold fast!” cried the general.

“Shit!” swore Bysantius.

“You clumsy fools!” swore Lady Eudokia, her voice cracking with anger as one of her eunuchs lost his grip on the chest and it spilled to the ground.

The fog swept in. Between one breath and the next they drowned Not in water, but in a veil of concealment so thick that she could no longer see the general or the exalted lady. Even the head of Bysantius’ horse swam in and out of view. A tinkling of bells teased her ears, then faded.

Once, years ago, in the custody of Bulkezu, she had seen an opening and bolted, but he had caught her, of course. Of course. Yet why be ruled by fear, as were those bawling and shouting around her?

She saw her chance.

She pushed back over the mare’s rump, slid down, and landed as Bysantius called out sharply.

“The prisoner! The Eagle!”

She dared not run for the sea, not knowing what had destroyed the city and what might still lurk under the waves or on the far shore. She ran south instead, knocked into soldiers before she saw them, shook loose and kept going before they realized what hit them. She tripped once, three times, ten, but her bruised shins and aching elbows goaded her on. This time she would escape. This time it would be different even if she died in the wilderness or was hacked to death by angry Arethousan farmers.

That thought gave her pause enough to come panting to a halt, adrift in the fog with a sparse grove of trees around her, gnarled and low like the ubiquitous olives. She heard the clamor of the army behind her, surging as would the ocean in a storm as waves strike higher rocks and disintegrate into spray.

“Form ranks! Form ranks!” cried Sergeant Bysantius, his voice ringing out of the fog. Yet she sensed no body near to hers. That he sounded close was a trick of the weather.

Maybe it wasn’t so wise to wander alone, chained, and foreign in a land so notoriously unforgiving to strangers. Beware Arethousans, so went the saying. They were treacherous and deceiving, liars and heretics. But they had fed her, and the sergeant and her guards had kept her safe from those who would have been happy to assault her. She stumbled forward until she lurched into a tree, and sagged there with leaves and twigs tracing the contours of her back as she tried to catch her breath. The damp air chilled her lungs. She heard a nagging chimelike sound, as though her ears were ringing. As though her mind and heart were overwhelmed and dazzled. The choice seemed impossible: give up her freedom and live, or run and die.

“Hanna!”

The voice startled her into action. Despite knowing it was the wiser course, she could not sit quietly and be recaptured. Not again. She bolted, and slammed right into a body, oversetting him.

‘Ah! Ow! I pray you, don’t run, Hanna. Come with me.”