Evin stepped off the step and then suddenly laughed. He turned to her, sweeping her up in a strong embrace, swinging her around like he had done ever since she was a little girl.

“Fia-sister!” he said, just like he used to. “I’m so glad to see you! You have no idea how we’ve missed you all!”

She pressed her face into his shoulder. With so much talk of war and danger she had begun to be terribly afraid for her brothers, and to see Evin so bold and laughing nearly made her cry with relief.

“Oh, Evin!” Her words stumbled around the lump of gladness in her throat. “We hadn’t heard from you for so long, and we were worried…” She was laughing as tears slipped from her eyes. “Oh, I am glad to see you, too!”

“So, Fia….” Now somber again, he looked hard at her and set her down. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” she started to say, but then words failed her. How was she to explain it all, without telling him any of the important, secret parts?

“We’re helping people over the mountain to safety,” she said. “And the rest… well, it’s confusing.”

“But why aren’t you at home? Has anything happened?”

“Oh, no! Well, not to them! Father has been commended by the king and… Well, I…” She quite certainly wasn’t allowed to tell anyone exactly why she wasn’t still at Scelane… by order of the king. Or at least the Chancellor, which was almost the same thing.

She made a hurried decision to hit upon the main points and forget explaining the details. “I got an apprenticeship, and this sort of happened with it. Father knows all about it, Evin; if you’re thinking I’ve run away or something, it isn’t so. I’m at the Olayin House learning gold-smithing… I mean, I was. But…”

“Olayin House is on the other side of the high mountains, Fia.”

“Yes,” she said, wondering where she was going with this. “But they’ve been guiding Othirans that want to cross over. Then Andro got hurt, and then he and Arethmay and Calima went to Herlane, and he couldn’t come back, and so there was no one to go with Ilido and of course he couldn’t go by himself, so I came with him. Actually,” she amended, “Andro getting hurt didn’t have so much to do with it, because he might not have been able to make it back in time anyway.”

“Fia, I have no idea what you are talking about.” His blue eyes reproached her. “It’s not safe here.”

“Oh, I know!” she hurried to assure him. “It’s very unsafe. I’m going straight back over just as soon as our party gets enough horses. We’ll never be able to walk the whole way fast enough to keep ahead of the storm. Even now we may not be able to.” She bit her lip in retrospection. She hated the thought of that, getting caught in a mountain blizzard.

“Well. You certainly seem to know a lot of names that aren’t generally known. All I say is, if this is part of your learning, it’s a dangerously strange apprenticeship. Come on, we need to get you sent back home. This is no place for a sister of mine.” He thought of Ilido’s disappearing figure. “Fia, what was that happening just now?”

“That man, Arlot…” She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the building that served as a jail. “He is a thief, and he tricked us into stealing something. We didn’t know it was a trick! But since we were sort of responsible… well, we were getting it back.” She continued, “We never expected to see him here of all places, but when we did we naturally took the opportunity to recover stolen goods.”

“Well, I’m glad you are taking initiative and correcting your mistakes. There’s got to be a good story there!” He laughed softly. “But it can wait. I’ll take you back to the Captain and we’ll send you home with the next group that goes into Lorsia.”

“Well, as I said, I’m already with one.” They walked along the street. “We’ve only come to Brethil to get more horses since Arnithera was burned and there are more people coming now than had decided to come before. Everyone who escaped is coming. Also we need supplies, because all that they would have had with them was burned in the town.” She looked up at her older brother, so different now and yet so very much the same as always. “Can you help us with that?”

He chuckled, the slow disbelieving chuckle he had inherited from Father. “I don’t know what to say to you, Fia. I’m afraid you have developed a talent for getting into the most inexplicable scrapes. And all along I thought you were safe at home in Scelane. We’ll see what can be done.”

He slung his arm over her shoulder in the old companionable way, and they walked to where the King’s Men had set up camp for a few days, or even weeks if luck held. She asked about Arolin, and Evin said he was with a band to the south at the moment, and doing quite well.

“The Captain speaks highly of him,” he said, and she got the strong feeling that Evin thought pretty highly of the Captain. Then the next moment they reached the center of the encampment.

“Go down there,” Evin instructed. “I’ve got to find someone to take my patrol for a few minutes.” And then he disappeared into the crowd.

She continued down the street looking for a place that he might have been referring to with “down there.” Evin never had been really clear with his direction-giving.

Someone in a brown cloak stepped quickly around a corner and brought them both up short. Fia was suddenly face to face with a face she knew well, though she’d only seen it once. It was the man in the hood from the palace vineyard.

The one who’s face she had seen, and therefore must be sent away far into the mountains.

But without his hood now. It was thrown back around his shoulders and his lean, chiseled face was open to the air, his fine brown hair lifted by a passing breeze. He seemed in his element here, less edgy somehow, but perhaps that was because he wasn’t sneaking around and it wasn’t nearly midnight in another country’s palace gardens.

He didn’t seem to have fond memories of her, at any rate.

“You again!” he muttered. “What are you up to, popping up like a jack-in-the-box?”

“Nothing,” she stammered.

“Don’t tell me you got lost.”

“I am!” she said before thinking, and then clamped her mouth shut. Evin was somewhere very close and he would find her soon.

“Fia!” came his cheery voice the next instant. “Oh, Captain, this is my sister, and although I haven’t understood how she got here…”

“I can well believe it,” the Captain interjected.

“…she needs to go back. She says there’s a group here from Arnithera going over as soon as they re-supply.”

“Yes, I have just been informed of that myself. They are asking for horses.”

“Yes, sir. Well, sir, I need to get back to my patrol, then; I can’t find anyone who’ll take it on such short notice. Can I leave her here, with you, sir?”

“I shall not let her out of my sight, Brithin, on that you may depend. Back to your post, she is quite safe.”

“Thank you, sir!” said Evin. “All right, Fia, I’ll talk with you later.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Be careful with yourself.”

“I always am,” she said, and gave him a smile. Then he turned and took off at a run for his patrol post.

“Except when you’re lost in oak trees,” the Captain commented dryly, and turned down an alley that in the area of town their company had clearly been using as headquarters for the moment.

His remarks were getting to her. “Really, sir, is there no information you would like to ask of me before my party sets out for Lorsia?”

“Yes, come to think of it, there is. How did you end up here?”

“It is a lengthy tale,” Fia admitted.

He sat down on a nearby three-legged stool and tipped it back against the wood siding of a deserted house as he took out his pipe.

“I’ve got the time to hear it,” he replied, and set about preparing a pipeful.

She sat down on the stoop step, and began. “Well, when I was so unfortunate as to become entangled in an intrigue at court of a political nature…”

“Never mind that part,” he said, and tamped his pipe down. “I know it already. I was merely trying to receive important information (which the royal family of Lorsia had been good enough to collect) that would assist in the clearing up of matters which have still remained murky. Until this murkiness is resolved it is impossible to tell where lies the root of this poisonous oak that overshadows our country.”

“The one spot that, when struck a killing blow, will crumble the entire regime?” she asked.

“Yes.” He looked up. “Where did you hear that?”

“A friend and I were discussing it,” she said offhandedly. “Well, to get me out of the way, the Chancellor arranged an apprenticeship for me. He figured that the Olayin House would be safe enough, being as it’s so very isolated. And I think he was unaware that it’s being used as a clearing house for Othiran refugees. Anyway, it was there that I met Ilido and his mother…”

“Do they have a surname?” he inquired.

“I’m sure they do, but they never told me,” she replied. She didn’t think he needed to know that Ilido had mentioned Enhousen. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought I might know them.” He let out a tendril of smoke. “I’m sure that I do. It is good to know that they are safe.” He tapped the side of his pipe’s bowl. “Don’t mention their surname to anyone, Fia, if you should come upon it. If the enemy comes to know where they are, they would then be able to take action against them, as well as those invaluable to the rescue of others still to escape Othira.”

She was silent a moment, thinking of that. She wasn’t sure if Enhousen really actually was Ilido’s family name, or something they had taken. Still, you had to be so careful when you were in the middle of wars and intrigue, where a movement or word could mean life or death.

“I will keep it to myself,” she told him. Then she went on to tell briefly of how it had happened that she had come to be here, skipping most of the details, especially the fact that she had discovered her traveling companion to be the heir apparent to the Othiran throne.

“Hmm,” the Captain offered when she had finished. “Well, I appreciate what you have been doing for my country and my people.” He drew a breath. “And I’m very sorry for scaring you when I caught you in the garden, if I scared you.”

“You did.”

“I apologize. Things are so difficult to discern these days. But if we keep trying we are sure to come through to the light of day again.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I hope so.”

She sighed and remembered Arlot. “That man that we caught here, and Evin had put into the wine cellar at the edge of camp. His name is Arlot. Gilahdro and his men want him.”

“Arlot, eh?” He blew out a smoke ring and it dissolved a few feet away. “They’re after that rascal?” Then his eyes twinkled. “You caught him, did you?”

“Well, yes.” She felt a little embarrassed. “Ilido and I saw him sneaking around while we were on our way to this encampment, and so we tried to catch him.”

“And succeeded, by the sounds of it.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have known what to do with him if Evin hadn’t come along.”

The Captain nodded solemnly, but still seemed pleased to hear of the event. Then they sat in silence for a moment.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had not had a good night’s sleep for about a week, and she was nearly dead-tired. “Will I be staying the night here?” she asked.

“Yes, probably,” he replied. “After all, I told your brother I’d keep a watch on you. And I can hardly keep a watch on you if you’re on a different edge of town. I’ll send someone over to your group with the information about the supplies and he can let them know where you are.”

“Thank you. Will they come and burn this town, too?”

“Probably not.” A puff of smoke drifted into the air. “It’s been deserted for a long time now. In the early days the whole town decided to move while they were able. They packed everything that could be moved and set out across the mountains. It was summertime then, and they made it just fine into the heart of Lorsia, from which they sent a messenger to King Hanor asking where he would like them to go.”

“What did he say?” she asked.

“He told them to go over to the edge of his border into the Forgotten Forest and that they could have as much land as they could clear in four years. They accepted his offer, and they’re over there still, happy and safe… while here towns are being burnt down. It is hard to make a new life, but sometimes it’s easier than the alternative.”

“So are they part of Lorsia now?” she wondered.

“I’m not sure.” He blew a smoke ring and watched it float away.

“Would you blame them if they did switch countries?”

He considered the pipe in his hand, and then the small tendril of smoke wisping up from its bowl.

“No,” he said. “Can’t say that I would. King Hanor has shown himself to be a truly great ruler and a wise ally, and anyone who chooses to live beneath his reign is making a good decision.”

The faint trail of smoke curled up and disappeared.

“You can sleep inside here.” He jerked his head, indicating the house behind him. “You’ll find a decent bed and enough blankets. Make yourself comfortable and get some rest.”

“Thank you,” she said as she rose to her feet. “I will.”

Inside she took some blankets from a stack and chose one of the beds to curl up on. The lumpy straw mattress felt like feathers to her ground-weary bones. The nights were not as cold here as higher up on the mountain, but still the blankets felt blissful wrapped around her.

She wondered what Ilido had thought of her a little bit ago, ignoring his sensible actions like she had. She would have to explain it to him when she saw him next. She yawned and snuggled the blanket’s edge closer around her face.

Now she could look back on the day that Ilido had told her about his brother’s death with new insight. She could see the responsibility he had been referring to, and why he would have missed his brother more than just as a family member, but as someone strong to carry the burden of the throne, and to hold the scepter high.

“It should have been me.” Ilido’s anguished words were clearer to her now than the day they were spoken. He wished that he could trade places with his brother, and let the elder be heir to a dangerous kingdom. Maybe his brother would have been better prepared to deal with it… but that was beyond guessing at now.

Poor Ilido! She felt deeply for his sad position. Poor prince. Lying in the deserted town, in the dusky room filling with the shadows of evening, she prayed that his father would get well, and that Othira would soon be a place of peace once more.

Then sleep overtook her.

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