As always happened when grief and despair claimed Owl’s Threads, tears began to erupt at the edges of her eyes, and Iseult could do nothing but stare. Stony. Silent. Useless.

She wanted to do more than simply hold Owl’s hand. She wanted to take the child into her arms and hold her. Tell her everything would be all right, that she would keep her safe and warm and fed. But instead, Iseult did nothing because no one had ever done it for her and she did not know how.

Then Owl’s Threads flashed with pale pain. “You’re hurting me.”

Iseult released her, snatching back her hand as if scalded. This was not the first time she had squeezed Owl too tightly, nor the first time her body had betrayed emotions she’d told herself she did not feel.

Stasis, she thought out of habit, even if she’d stopped believing in that word. Stasis in your fingers and in your toes.

Iseult pushed into the hut alone. The weasel followed; Owl did not. Iseult wished the child would, though. Just as she wished she could be a better guardian, better protector.

When at last she had managed to feed Owl with porridge and fresh leeks, she left the girl dozing before a small stove in the shepherd’s hut and turned to searching supply crates in the woods nearby. She wanted food that would travel well, and to her heavy relief, she found it: a cheese wheel, smoked meats, crab apples, and water bags. She also found the horses’ gear: black leather saddles, faded scarlet pads, and saddlebags stamped with the Cartorran double-headed eagle. Inside one of those bags was a map.

Iseult’s heart surged. After two weeks traveling by the stars and a weasel’s vague impressions, a map and horses could easily triple how much ground she and Owl covered each day.

Once more, she sent her thanks to whichever god had decided to favor her.

After checking on Owl beside the stove, Iseult stretched the map across the hut’s table. While she lit a lantern with cold fingers, the weasel explored the calfskin vellum. She sniffed, she chirped, and she stared at the black ink.

Iseult stared too, her mouth gradually opening in a way her mother would never have allowed. She couldn’t help it, for this was no ordinary map. Not only did it show roads and passes and villages of the Ohrins, each meticulously drawn, but it showed the location of the Emperor’s troops: his Hell-Bards, his soldiers, his guards. All were noted upon the map.

And all were moving.