Trembling, she rubbed her eyes. Mostly, she had been able to leave behind memories of her childhood. But whenever the viper fed on Spore it left her vulnerable to flashbacks of other Spore encounters. Over the years, the dreams had mostly faded. These days she slept soundly, a trick she’d learned after she and Aoving had miraculously escaped from the place they had no name for, the home of their earliest memories. They had made their innocent, desperate way through supposedly impassable Pall and into what they had eventually learned was the Tranquil Empire, to a northern province called Woodfall.

Not that their lives in Woodfall Province had been better for Aoving, once her budding adolescent beauty attracted the eye of a lord. But at least they hadn’t been hungry all the time. Elen had earned a place in the lord’s militia as a trainee, where she’d learned to scout, to use a bow, knife, and spear, to ride a horse, to read and write, and to draw and interpret maps.

After Aoving’s baby was born, they had experienced some months of a more-or-less peaceful existence in the Manor. But when that peace was shattered in a most horrible way, they had run again. Accident, or fate, had brought them to Ilvewind Province and eventually to Orledder Halt. Here they had stayed.

Elen had taken the risk of hoping this home would be a safe haven. In a way, for her sister, it had been. Aoving had found peace in midwifery, working among villagers and the poorest hamlets. It was enough.

People like her and Aoving were but fragile sticks at the mercy of a roaring river. To survive as long as they had, to grasp even a sliver of autonomy, was a triumph beyond anything Elen had ever dreamed of when she had been a frightened little girl reaching out to hold the hand of an even more frightened little girl.

The light through the lattice had shifted, drawn into long afternoon shadows. She had slept longer than she’d realized. The pile of clothing she’d left on the bench was gone, replaced by a neat stack of clean garments and her polished boots. That Kem! He’d sneaked in and out without waking her. Of course he had, and taken her dirty clothes with him.

The water was cooling fast, making her shiver. She heaved herself out of the deep tub, water dripping onto the plank floor. After toweling off, she dressed.