Once they were off the bridge, she hurried to take the lead. She liked being out in front, and it also meant she would be less tempted to look back. Yet she did anyway, as the villagers spilled out in their wake and escorted them beyond the stone-lined moat and all the way to the water-filled ditch that ringed the fields and orchards. A great huzzah went up as the prince passed beyond the protected zone, and then Elen lost sight of the village and its environs. The sounds of human life and livestock bells faded. For a while, they walked through woodland cut with pastures and meadows. At length, they entered the wild upland forest, with its rich scent of fallen needles and high-country ground cover of tough gall-leaf, creeping grass, and bitter spike.

The group fell into the same order as yesterday: Elen in the lead, Xilsi and Jirvy behind her, followed by the prince, Fulmo, and Luviara, with Ipis and Kem as rearguard and Simo ranging up and down the line. She set a steady pace. It was better not to dwell on what couldn’t be changed. Kem’s situation was out of her hands now. It hurt to think of the way he’d angrily muttered, “She’s not my aunt.” But he was free of Lord Duenn, so it had to be worth it. She had to stop thinking about him and do her job as a guide.

Her gaze roamed the path ahead, the understory of the forest, the familiar rise and fall of the land. Her ears caught the flutter of birds, the scattering noises of wildlife, the click and clatter of branches brushed by the wind, and the occasional rill of a stream. The air was fresh and clean, no trace of the telltale rose-oil scent, but she smelled rain on the way, coming up from the south.

She worked to get the measure of the other wardens. Ipis couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than Kem and was apparently Simo’s protégé, chosen for the mission because he wanted her to get experience. Xilsi looked quite young, too, and had features of unusually delicate prettiness, at odds with hands calloused from weapons training; she was also the kind of person who kept an eye on everything going on around her, and was quick to have an emphatic opinion. Jirvy was about Elen’s age, early thirties, with a stolid, quiet demeanor but a sour tongue when he did speak.

“What’s that?” Xilsi demanded, startling at movement glimpsed deep in the trees.

“A deer,” said Jirvy. “I forget you grew up in cities. Never seen a deer in the wild, have you?”

“I don’t need to be reminded by you thinking you know me.”

The others glanced their way and then ignored the exchange, as if they were used to it and wished it would stop, so Elen did too.