“Don’t,” Dorrin said. “I don’t want to risk it. I need a competent scribe, so I can read this page aloud and send a copy to the prince, but though I have literate men among my cohort, none are skilled at dictation. Do you have a scribe with you?”

He shook his head. “I’m the only one. If you trust me.”

“Of course,” Dorrin said.

“I mean, I might be one of those Verrakai put in someone’s body. I might be about to kill you.”

“We can find out,” Dorrin said. She read out the phrase that supposedly forced the transferred Verrakai to reveal themselves.

“What was that?” Valthan said.

“Proof you’re not a Verrakai,” Dorrin said. “Let’s get this done—time’s passing.”

Valthan wrote to her dictation; then Dorrin copied his copy, which matched her memory.

“Do not let my relatives know you have this,” Dorrin said. “They might find a way to destroy it, if they suspected its existence. It must go to the prince’s own hand.”

“A courier?”

Dorrin considered. “Do you have a man to spare? Considering how many prisoners you have and the Verrakai yet at large?”

“Not really,” Valthan admitted. “But I expect to meet another troop on the way.”

“I still worry that attack on a single courier would be easier than on a troop. If you send one, warn him to stop nowhere but at a grange of Gird—not for water or food or rest.”

When they returned to the great hall, the guard had changed to Phelani; Valthan’s were out in the stable, readying horses and wagons for the morning’s departure. They would sleep there, in relative safety, to be rested for the next day’s travel. Dorrin went to the front entrance and murmured the command word that swung the great doors wide. Sweet cold air flowed in, smelling of early spring, the first faint fragrance of healthy growth. She wanted to walk out into the darkness and never come back. She’d done it once; her escape saved her life and sanity.

And she had come back, unwilling, to save those who would not thank her, the innocent among her bitter and resentful family. In her mind she saw the view that darkness hid—the fields, the trees beyond, the view that should have been as dear and familiar as anything in the world. Instead, longing for the Duke’s Stronghold stabbed her, the familiar inner and outer courts, sunrise seen from the parapet, that dinner table with Kieri at its head and Arcolin and Cracolnya across from her. Her eyes stung with unshed tears.

Would she ever feel this was home? A safe place, a comfortable place?

She stared at the gloom until her eyes dried, then turned and went inside.

Before dawn, Dorrin and Sir Valthan ate breakfast in the dining room of the main house, still from rations they’d brought, and Dorrin wrote out another report for the prince, on the conditions she’d found in the keep.