Her plan was simple, forged in the afternoon as she gathered possessions for travel. Head east, away from Eskavord and the possibility of pursuit. Then veer south towards the forge-fires of Thrakkia, shadowing the roads. She’d be across the border before anyone knew she was free. No one in Thrakkia would care. The thanes were too busy fighting among themselves.

In truth, Calenne didn’t know wholly what to expect from Thrakkia, based as her knowledge was on the exaggerations and hearsay of Branghall’s servants. But all stories agreed that it was a more, well, bombastic nation than the one from which she hailed, full of colour and life. For good or ill, she could use a little of that. Flames lit in feast and celebration of the living, the dead and everything in between. The markets thick with treasures claimed from distant Athreos, and lands stranger still. The bright colours of unfurled sails as drakonships slipped into the open seas, making voyage of trade or war as their masters decreed. Thrakkia was dangerous, certainly, but peril had strange vigour of its own. Too much of Calenne’s life was drowned in grey, overcast by a shadow whose source she couldn’t see, and she’d longed to be free of it.

Even so, Calenne was aware that her plan was less than it first appeared. A starting point without definite conclusion. Food and coin wouldn’t last for ever. If work of a menial sort was required, then she’d do it. Whatever it took. Education had bequeathed a skill for facts and figures, and she possessed a winning manner when roused to it. She’d work her way south and east. See realms her ancestors had never trod.

Anything was possible, if she was prepared to do anything.

Rustling leaves stirred Calenne from dreams of the future. She twisted, her hand closing about the short sword’s grips. Left to her own devices, she’d have borne a dagger alone. Unfortunately, such weapons seldom intimidated unless they were already at the throat.

Not that the broken-nosed man looked the sort to be intimidated by anything. Scuffed travelling leathers and bruised features spoke to a dangerous life, or one marred by violent disappointment.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man’s features creased into a scowl. “It’s not her.”

Calenne frowned, then realised he’d not been talking to her, but to someone behind her. She rose, one hand on her sword, and the other on the scabbard. A thin man and a heavyset woman stood on the hillside’s gentle slopes, the latter with a rusty sword drawn.

“Does it matter?” asked the woman.

Broken-nose’s scowl deepened. “Guess not. Pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

On balance, Calenne had preferred being ignored. “I want no trouble.”