POV: Seraphina
They had been on the road for an hour before Seraphina understood what had changed.
Yona rode a horse's length behind her, the monitoring slate closed in her satchel. Its last entry covered the grey patch below the ridge and how far the gold had spread up Seraphina's arms. Then she had closed it. Every morning since, there had been nothing new to add.
Corwin still came down the line at his usual hour. He took Seraphina's wrist and counted her pulse, then turned over both hands and checked each forearm. Afterward, he wrote the date in his book and closed it without adding anything else.
He spent as much time on her as he had when there was something wrong.
The keeper staff remained strapped behind her saddle where Anton had secured it. She had not touched it since the last patch, when a few feet of colourless grass and loose soil had taken less than an hour to clear.
Suri spent most of the morning trotting in her horse's shade. When he tired, he climbed up behind Yona and rode with her. He had been able to come that close for a week. With no cleansing work, Seraphina's hands and sleeves smelled only of dust, horse, sweat, and her own skin.
The cub had noticed before anyone said anything.
For the whole circuit, Thalion had chosen routes that took them toward the worst ground. Yona's map marked each dead area in grey. The column moved from one mark to the next and stayed there until Seraphina finished the work.
Now they stopped only when the horses needed water. No one mentioned the change, but once Seraphina saw it, she could not stop noticing it.
Brennan had adjusted the provision count to match. For the first time in weeks, he only had distance to calculate, and the number did not change when he checked it twice before dawn.
He still counted supplies for thirty men who were not there. The crown had promised them at the rim and had not sent them. Brennan had carried the number in his book for two weeks because no one had told him to remove it.
Seraphina rode inside Gavrel's formation, in the same position she had held since the rim. From the first estate onward, the route and pace had depended on her. Every man knew why she was guarded.
Now their only task was to get her back to the capital alive. She had nothing left to do but remain inside their formation until they arrived.
She had wanted the cleansing to end. Now that it had, she no longer knew what place she held in the column. She considered that for several miles and found no answer.
Liora brought her another problem before midday. She rode up on Seraphina's left and matched her pace until their stirrups nearly touched. After the men ahead opened a gap, she lowered her voice.
"Gavrel wants Renn at the front for the rest of the road."
"He is good at the front."
"Yes." Liora kept watching the line ahead. "His shield barely lit at the third estate, but it burned on the night the line broke. Anyone who fought in both places can compare them. Then he starts asking why Renn was so much stronger on the second night."
Seraphina understood the problem. She disliked both choices.
"You want him moved."
"I want to know what you want." Liora's voice stayed below the sound of the horses. "If I ask Gavrel to move him, Gavrel will ask why. I have no answer I am willing to give him. If I leave Renn where he is, he rides at the head of an imperial column where anyone can count how often the captain chooses him."
Seraphina looked toward the front. Renn's head moved between two riders as the road dipped. The problem involved the same three men: Renn, Anton, and the captain who kept choosing both of them without knowing why.
She had written down thirty mothers' names herself, one campfire at a time. Lucien's records had supplied the rest. For a hundred years, the pattern had remained hidden because no record placed those names together.
Now one record did, and she had made it. It connected all three men to families someone had spent a century removing from official records.
"Does Gavrel know why he wants them?"
"He knows they are his best, and he would be right to say it." Liora glanced at her, then back to the road. "What he does not know is that they become stronger when you are close."
"How much stronger?"
"At the third estate, a horse fell onto Renn's shield, the shield failed, and his forearm broke under the weight." Liora waited while a wagon wheel hit a rut behind them. "The night the line broke, he held off four attackers until two men got clear. He walked away afterward even though you were fifty feet from him and using soulfire."
"If we put the three of them in the middle where no one watches them fight, we lose the men holding the front and the picket."
"Yes."
Liora did not suggest an answer. She had given Seraphina the facts and would follow whichever order came next.
"Leave it for today," Seraphina said. "I want to watch what happens on the road first."
The scouts returned in the middle of the afternoon. The column stopped before the order reached her.
The horses ahead shortened their steps. Behind her, wheels ground against the dry road as the wagons closed their gaps. By the time Gavrel reached her, no one in the line was moving.
Gavrel came back through the column. "Stay mounted, my lady."
She rode forward anyway.
Liora told her no once, quietly. When Seraphina kept going, Liora turned her horse and followed.
The crossing lay a quarter of a mile ahead. The road descended through a gap in the trees, crossed the water, and climbed onto a strip of grey gravel on the far side. Beyond the gravel, the trees covered the slope and blocked the road from view.
Thalion stood beside his horse at the head of the column with two scouts. All three were examining the near bank instead of the water.
Someone had removed the soil beneath the section the wagons would use.
From the road, the surface looked untouched. It was packed and dry, no different from the last two miles. Only the open side of the bank showed the cut beneath it. The upper layer remained in place over a clean hollow that followed the outer wheel line.
A rider could keep to the firm side and cross without seeing it. The first loaded wagon would put its outer wheels over the unsupported ground. By then, the rest of the wagons would already be on the slope behind it with no room to turn.
"How recent?" Thalion asked.
"Days," the older scout said. "The cuts are clean. The soil they removed is still dry through the middle."
"Has anyone crossed it since?"
"Only us. We checked it in both directions before we came back."
Seraphina followed the cut toward the water. Whoever had done this knew their route, the width of the wagons, and which side they would take down the bank. They had prepared for the whole column, not a handful of riders.
Thalion turned and looked at Seraphina, but asked nothing.
He did not need to. Since the valley, she had felt his earth magic respond to her soulfire whenever he was near. Four days of silence had not weakened it. She could keep her horse a length from his and refuse to speak, but his earth magic still moved under her skin all day.
Neither of them had found a way to stop it.
Ahead, the road could not hold the wagons. Until they found another way across, the column could not move.