Fidele gazed in wonder at the trees shadowing both sides of the road she was riding on. They dwarfed anything she had ever seen before, thick as a house and high as a tower, their dense layers of branches reaching above and over the road, weaving and interlocking to form a latticed archway above them, weak sunlight occasionally breaking through to dapple the ground with pools of light.

So this is Forn.

It had been a long, hard journey, taking them almost three moons to reach Forn Forest. First they had crossed the Agullas Mountains into Carnutan, then ever northwards, across great plains, through rolling hills and snow-swept valleys until they crossed from Carnutan into Isiltir. A ten-night gone they had reached Mikil, only to find that Nathair had ridden east towards Forn a moon before them. So they followed him. All six thousand of them, give or take the few score that had died along the journey, succumbing to the bitter cold. She glanced over her shoulder, glimpsed Maquin riding amidst a circle of eagle-guard.

Not him, though. I knew he would not die.

At first Maquin had lain in a wain, semi-conscious and delirious from the pain of his wounds, Alben tending to him while they travelled, but he had been on the back of a horse for over a moon now. Their eyes would meet frequently, though always briefly, both of them mindful of Alben’s advice and the charges that she was accused of. They were never allowed close enough to speak, Veradis’ eagle-guard rigorous in their duties. Fidele did not mind so much, as she knew the same devotion to duty would keep Lykos and his Vin Thalun away from Maquin.

What they have done to him. She could still see the burns when she closed her eyes, could remember the smell of charred flesh as she’d entered Maquin’s chamber back in Jerolin. Not for the first time a swell of rage filled her, coalescing about an image of Lykos in her mind. In it he was smiling at her.

I will see him dead. I will convince Nathair of the Vin Thalun’s crimes.

Part of her was desperate for this journey to be over, so that the long-prolonged and avoided justice that Lykos deserved could finally be meted out, but part of her dreaded the journey’s end, because then Maquin would stand judgement for his crime, and she could not see any other outcome than death for him, even with the mother of the high king pleading his cause. She felt a fist of worry clench in her belly just at the thought of it.

The road curved, and a building appeared ahead, framed by the arched branches. A grey-stone wall about a squat tower, thick with creeping vine, and beyond it the sound of running water.

We have reached Brikan and the River Rhenus, then. Am I about to see my son finally, after so long?