The faint sounds of animals at their nightly rounds had ceased. Nothing moved. At first, Marit saw only the blink of late-season fireflies twinkling in the trees opposite her, but it was actually a woman stepping out of the shadows and blinking as her eyes adjusted to the firelight.

“I saw your fire,” she said. “You’re reeves out of Argent Hall.”

“We are—” began the man.

The other reeve cut in. “How do you know?” She did not lower the point of her sword. “You don’t mind my wondering why you’re wandering out here in the wilderness alone, I am sure.”

“Teren, son of Filava. Dovit, daughter of Zasso.” She had a mild voice and a mild face, round like the moon and pleasingly dark.

Teren choked out a word and stepped back, stumbling over the root he’d been sitting on.

Dovit said, in a quavering voice, “Who are you?”

The woman wore an undyed linen tunic with leggings beneath, humble clothing that was also practical for a traveler. The cloak she wore was so black it seemed it might dissolve to become the shadows. Oddly, she carried a writing brush and a scrap of rice paper. Without answering, she bent her gaze to the paper and scratched a few efficient lines.

Like rag dolls let go by a careless child, they dropped: first Teren, and a breath later Dovit, her sword clanging on a rock as it fell from slack fingers. The pen ceased scratching. From the clearing, two angry squalls erupted. Wings beating, an eagle chuffed in distress. Afterward, everything settled back into an uncanny stillness.

The reeves lay with limbs asplay, Dovit’s face pressed into the ground and Teren’s hidden by the hump of root over which he had collapsed. Branches snapped on the fire. Flames hissed.

“Who is out there?” asked the woman in a sharper voice. It wasn’t fear that edged her tone but a complex pressure of emotion rather like a cook who surveys her well-ordered kitchens with the sudden suspicion that a mouse is hiding behind one of the pots and means to nibble at the feast she has so perfectly prepared and laid out for her guests.

Marit sure as the hells did not reply, or move, or even breathe more than a shallow breath held, leaked out, and held again. She thought of how bright her cloak was, white as death, and she willed it to be as still and silent as the death that creeps unawares, never seen before it enfolds its unsuspecting victim.

How long that woman stood there Marit could not guess, but it might have been half the night. Cursed if Marit was going to reveal herself no matter how badly her legs ached from standing in one place. She could be more stubborn than anyone, and in the end she was.

Finally, the woman moved away into the trees, and Marit allowed herself to lean against a tree trunk, not a single step, until the world grayed toward dawn. She heard a crackling beyond the trees, and an eagle passed low over the forest. With a grimace, she popped the worst kinks out of her stiff limbs, then ventured cautiously to the dead fire.