Winter went quiet a moment, guiding her horse over a tricky rut in the road. She’d been able to avoid riding much as a captain, but a colonel needed to be able to get from place to place quickly, and so she’d reluctantly taken to the saddle. The skill had come back to her surprisingly quickly. Riding had been on the syllabus at Mrs. Wilmore’s, as an essential skill for a sturdy farmer’s wife. Even in her earliest memories, just after her arrival at the institution as a little girl, she felt that she’d been familiar with horses. But rankers didn’t ride, and so for three years in the army the closest she’d gotten to a horse was a pat on the nose.

All the best mounts had gone to the cavalry, which was desperately short of good horseflesh, so the quartermaster had issued her an aging plodder, a gelding named Edgar who exuded a sense of placid resignation. Winter wouldn’t have wanted to push him to a gallop, but he served well enough for walking down a country road. When it came to actual fighting, she would be on her own two feet, colonel or not.

Cyte rode her mare with considerably less comfort, looking like someone with better grounding in the theory of horsemanship than the practice. Winter needed staff lieutenants, to deliver orders and handle the endless tide of paperwork, and she’d taken Cyte for the latter and Bobby for the former. She’d also requested Lieutenant John Marsh, Bobby’s lover, from the Colonials, and given him a company in the Girls’ Own.

Ahead, the column had come to a halt. Winter rode past the front ranks of the Royals and nodded to Captain Sevran, ahorse beside the battalion flag and drummers. The Girls’ Own stretched ahead in a loose march formation, small groups of young women standing around chatting in the road, and they waved genially at Winter as she passed rather than offering salutes. Quite a few, Winter saw, were carrying the tall plumed Hamveltai shakos.

Lieutenant Marsh, riding with the comfortable grace of an expert horseman, met them coming the other way. He was tall, blond, and handsome, with sparkling blue eyes and a ready smile. Winter could see why Bobby had fallen for him, and he’d proven himself unfailingly polite and competent, but she couldn’t help maintaining a certain reserve around the man. He knew at least part of her secret—it was hard to hide the strange, marblelike discolorations that were gradually spreading across her skin—but Winter wasn’t ready to bring him into her own confidence.

“Sir,” he said, saluting smartly with his free hand.

“What’s going on?” Winter said, nodding at the stalled column.

“Wagon train merging,” Marsh said. “One of the forage parties. It’ll be another half an hour before they clear the road.”