Melanna softened to the embrace, and at last returned it. “Ashana walked with me, Father.”

“She always paid you more heed than I.”

She stifled a smile. She’d been five winters old the first time the goddess had spoken to her. Proud and terrified in equal measure, she’d run straight to her father and confessed all. He’d laughed, chided her for prideful dreams and returned her to bed. He’d taken similar confessions no more seriously in the following years. Eventually, she’d stopped telling him.

He released her and stepped back. “You’ve done well. I’m proud of you.”

Melanna’s heart swelled a size larger. “Thank you, Father.”

“And you had no trouble? No . . . individuals needing a visit from my icularis?”

For all the lightness in his tone, Melanna knew full well she was being invited to deliver sentence of death. The icularis – her father’s “Eyes” – delivered warnings in only the starkest terms. So much like the creature of Ravenscourt she’d fought on the road to Tevar Flood.

“There was . . . one. A man of shadow and crow-feathers. I put an arrow in his shoulder.”

Her father frowned in approval. “The icularis will watch for such a creature. And no others?”

Vorn’s face floated up from memory. Melanna shook her head. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Then why do you seem so ill at ease?”

Should she tell him about the shadow behind Vorn’s eyes before she’d broken his spirit? About the feeling she’d been watched most of the way to Trelszon? She couldn’t have done so with Devren present, but even her father was likely to misread her fears as foolish worry.

“I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Or you’ve heard too many farmers’ tales of darkness and ash.”

Melanna snorted. “Certainly not. In fact, they don’t even talk about what happened on their own land. It’s like they don’t know about the Sceadotha.”

She suppressed a shudder. The long dead Sceadotha – Malatriant, as the Tressians named her – cast a long shadow, even in the warmth and light of her father’s tent.

Her father scowled. “Most may not. Your grandfather always used to say that Tressians bury their past alongside their dead. I hope you’ve not grown afraid of the dark.”

She smiled. “Not while there’s a moon in the sky.”

His eyes searched hers for a lie. Finding none, he shrugged. “Good. You’ll let me have your reports on the roads?”

“So you knew?”

“Of course.”

“Then why . . . ?”

“Do I need Devren to make the same study? You’d have me force him to accept your word twice in as many minutes?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”

“Devren’s pride needs easing more than it requires hammering into shape.”

“And what of my pride?”