Due south it was.

At twilight, she found a village. She tied her horse half a league away. It was too obviously a thoroughbred, a noble’s horse. On foot, slouching to account for her height, she made her way into the village. She kept her head down, eyes on the dirt road. Like how Ayla used to walk behind her in the palace, avoiding eye contact with the guards, with Kinok and Hesod and often Crier herself. It had always bothered Crier. She’d wanted to say: Look at me. Just—look at me.

Crier found the village marketplace, a small square with a handful of shops and vendors’ stalls. A butcher shop, a cobbler, a bakery. And an Automa-run apothecary. Crier had hesitated for a long time before entering the apothecary. What if someone recognized her? What if the sovereign’s guards had tracked her here after all and were lying in wait for her? What if—?

However much I can get for this, she’d murmured to the apothecary attendant in an approximation of Ayla’s voice, her commoner’s accent. Slurring a little, enunciating less. And she’d passed the Automa woman a thin gold anklet, the only piece of jewelry she hadn’t taken off, simply because she’d forgotten it was there. However much I can get for this. My mistress sent me.

The woman hadn’t even blinked. Because what would a human do with heartstone other than deliver it to their Automa employer? She’d passed Crier three parcels of heartstone in exchange for the anklet, and that was it. Crier had left the village and returned to her horse in a daze, some part of her convinced it was a trick, that the sovereign’s guards would spring out from behind a building at any moment.

But they didn’t.

Like this, Crier replenished her strength. She hoped enough time had passed that she could safely visit Rosi. What if the sovereign and Kinok had already looked for her there? What if they were waiting for her to show up? Was it really worth the risk? But if she was going to smuggle herself into Varn, she needed more than a set of servants’ clothes and a bit of heartstone. Maybe it was foolish, but she didn’t know where else to go. There was a chance Rosi might help her, if she played the Scyre Kinok trusts you angle. Even the sovereign doesn’t know his plans, so he has to play along with the search for me right now, but—! and so on. Rosi might lend Crier some coin, some clothes. Might make her feel less alone, if only for a short while.

Now, on the morning of her fourth day as a fugitive, Crier was headed back east. To Rosi’s manor. Provided she didn’t run into trouble, she’d get there a couple hours before sunset.

Everything will be all right, she told herself, repeating it over and over again until the words lost meaning, until it was more a mindless, reassuring drumbeat than anything else. Everything will be all right. Everything will be all right.