Nervously, she touched the butterfly in her pocket, stroking the delicate filigree of its wings, allowing the feel of it to soothe her slightly as she turned toward the forest border and the new world beyond. And with one last look at the huge sinuous beast she had killed, she followed.

A large carriage drawn by two brown horses was waiting at the edge of the forest, sturdy-wheeled, windowless, and painted gray. Stenciled on its side was the white silhouette of an archer aiming at a thin sickle moon hovering over his head. The whole carriage was battered and weather-beaten, the paint chipped and silvered.

Beyond the carriage, a field of cropped corn lay bare below a sky filled with pink and orange wisps of clouds. Lena stopped, her breath catching in her throat at the odd sensation of wind in her hair. How long had it been since she had seen a sky like this? As a child, she had been permitted to play in the gardens with the other cryptlings, but only at night. Whenever she’d been out during the day, her heavy cowl had framed her view in thick, ugly wool. Her hands twitched toward her cowl instinctively, but she stopped herself: it felt good, the dawn sunlight on her face, the air combing her hair loose from its ragged tail, cold and crisp in her lungs.

Why shouldn’t I have this? she thought, breathing deep. She was not a cryptling anymore. She didn’t have to hide. She felt a kind of happiness fill her like air, quickly followed by a heady fear of the unknown. If she wasn’t a cryptling, what was she? A mage, as Emris claimed? She shivered at the thought.

A driver in a gray uniform sat up at the front of the carriage, swigging from a hip flask. He was a middle-aged man, stout and fat, legs wrapped in a brown woolen blanket. He looked at Lena’s birthmark before he met her eyes, and she lowered her gaze. Emris called to him, climbing the three steps to the seat up front. They exchanged low words, and after a few moments the driver eyed Lena again, but with greater suspicion.

“You’d better get used to being looked at like that,” said Emris under his breath, climbing back down and offering Lena his hand to help her inside. “Rogues are feared throughout Valorian.”

“Rogues?”

“The common word for mages uninitiated into a temple, like yourself.”

Lena shook her head, not understanding. “I’d’ve thought it was obvious that I’m already used to being looked at,” she said tartly, facing him from the relative height of the interior.