And people are watching. Prying. The guards are now looking inward instead of outward half the time, afraid of another riot, and every idle farmer watches for any alteration in patterns of behavior. Everything is a potential threat, even Treila with her rocks.

So when she can’t excuse her ramblings in the day, she does it at night. The rats help, or their scant corpses; she makes a deal with the quartermaster, finally, to bring him what she catches. She can see anger in his eyes when she offers, because he could have used her months ago, but he has no room to fight her.

She brings a rat; she deposits a stone. She isn’t paid a single coin, but she is earning her escape, so she accepts it.

A messenger is selected; Simmonet was right that they were looking, and Treila was right that they are realists, and will not believe in quick salvation, no matter the staying of Etrebia’s weapons. This time, they send the houndsmaster. And then, once he is over the wall, they slaughter his ten remaining dogs.

They’re careful about it, of course. They learned the hard way, when they slaughtered the first batch, nearly two thirds of the pack, months ago to reduce the number of mouths to feed. Half the residents of the castle would be horrified if they knew, and the other half would rush the great hall, screaming for the meat. So Ser Leodegardis does it himself, because nobody would expect it of him, and he does it quickly. Treila watches from her perch in the rafters of the kennel as he takes each one behind a half-height wall, crouches, and slits its throat.

It is a subtle thing, the way the kennel quiets. It takes a few days for the word to spread, and by then everybody’s gotten a small portion of fresh meat, so they’re already satiated, already complicit.

The horses are next, Treila figures. The hay is all but gone, the grass in the yard long turned to mud by all the refugees. With no food, the horses will starve soon enough, so better to take the meat; but without horses, they will have no way to sortie with the enemy. They will be giving up their last chances of anything but a close fight. They will be choosing to outlast on their stomachs alone.

But it’s not really a choice.

Hopefully she’ll be long gone by then.

On the fourth day, she’s cleared a gap that might be big enough to fit through, and she sits back on her heels, staring at the hole. Her fingers ache. Her heart pounds. She thinks of sliding through that gap, down and out, and then—

And then what?

She came to Aymar for a reason, and if she leaves, she will be abandoning it.