Winter, Briony thought ruefully. Only a fool would lose her throne and be forced to run for her life in this fatal season. The Tollys won’t need to kill me—I’ll probably drown myself, or simply freeze. She was even more worried about Shaso soaking in the cold rain so soon after his fever had broken, but as usual the old man showed less evidence of discomfort than a stone statue. That was reassuring, at least: if he was well enough for his stiff-necked pride to rule him, he had unquestionably improved.

By comparison, the Skimmer girl Ena seemed neither to be made miserable by the storm nor to bear it bravely—in fact, she hardly seemed to notice it. Her hood was back and she rowed with the ease and carelessness of someone steering a punt through the gentle waters of a summertime lake. They owed this Skimmer girl much, Briony knew: without her knowledge of the bay and its tides they would have had little hope of escape.

I shall reward her well. Of course, just now the daughter of Southmarch’s royal family had nothing to give.

The worst of the storm soon passed, though the high waves lingered. The monotony of the trip, the continuous pattering of rain on Briony’s hooded cloak and the rocking of the swells, kept dropping her into a dreamy near-sleep and a fantasy of the day when she would ride back into Southmarch, greeted with joy by her people and…and who else? Barrick was gone and she could not think too much about his absence just yet: it was as though she had sustained a dreadful wound and dared not look at it until it had been tended, for fear she would faint away and die by the roadside without reaching help. But who else was left? Her father was still a prisoner in far-off Hierosol. Her stepmother Anissa, although perhaps not an enemy if her servant’s murderous treachery had been nothing to do with her, was still not really a friend, and certainly no mother. What other people did Briony treasure, or even care about? Avin Brone? He was too stern, too guarded. Who else?

For some reason, the guard captain Ferras Vansen came to her mind—but that was nonsense! What was he to her, with his ordinary face and his ordinary brown hair and his posture so carefully correct it almost seemed like a kind of swagger? If she recognized now that he had not been as guilty in the death of her older brother as she had once felt, he was still nothing to her—a common soldier, a functionary, a man who no doubt thought little beyond the barracks and the tavern, and likely spent what spare time he had putting his hands up the dresses of tavern wenches.

Still, it was odd that she should see his thoughtful face just now, that she should think of him so suddenly, and almost fondly…

Merolanna. Of course—dear old Auntie ’Lanna! Briony’s great-aunt would be there for any triumphant return. But what must she be feeling now? Briony abruptly felt a kind of panic steal over her. Poor Auntie! She must be mad with grief and worry, both twins gone, the whole order of life over-tuned. But Merolanna would persevere, of course. She would hold together for the sake of others, for the sake of the family, even for the sake of Olin’s newborn son, Anissa’s child. Briony pushed away a pang of jealousy. What else should her great-aunt do? She would be protecting the Eddons as best she could.