“You want to go north,” Darlen Mathis said, pondering Mouse through bright, inquisitive eyes. “Why?”

  Mouse shifted uneasily, a bead of sweat rolling down her neck and sliding between her shoulder blades. She had resolved herself not to shrink beneath the scrutiny of her captor; it was her one consolation that he could not see inside of her pocket where she worried the little wooden tafl piece.

  “I have friends in the north,” she answered.

  “Friends,” Mathis mused. “What sort of friends, I wonder?”

  Mouse shook her head.

  “I assure you that they are no enemies of yours, sir,” she said, “if that is your concern.”

  Mathis arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Well, it wasn’t,” he said. “Though I do now wonder.” He stood with arms folded across his chest, taking Mouse in with a measured gaze.

  The truth was that Mouse was just as curious about Mathis as he was about her; the only difference was that she had heard of him before. She knew who he was, who his father was, where he had been born and when. She knew what his most notable conquests and ambitions were.

  As a political figure, there was little mystery to him. As a man, however, many questions remained. And it was the man with whom Mouse would have to barter.

  She stole a glance about the tent. The interior was small; there was no partition where there might have been, and where she had expected to find the tidy dwellings of a soldier, Mouse found instead the unkempt quarters of an errant nobleman. Furs had been thrown onto the floor and books strewn across the bed. A boot balanced precariously on one ledge of a trunk while a pair of braies hung over the other. The whole place smelled overwhelmingly of thornwood and ambergris, enough even to drown out the underlying musk of sheepskin, and on an overturned crate, next to a toppled tallow lay a long, slender horn with a small bowl at the end.

  She looked at Mathis, his neat dress, raked hair, eyes a vibrant blue-green, the color of them stark against his sun-darkened complexion. This was the person to whom she would needs must make her appeal, the man who by day wore a mask of confidence, of ease and composure, but who by night stared into the fire, cursing it.

  “I should like to go as far north as the Faunus,” Mouse said.

  “The Faunus,” Mathis repeated.

  “To the Agneus,” Mouse nodded. “There is a young man there, a knight. His name is Sir Frederik. He is very handsome,” she said, “and a very good swimmer.”

  A smile tugged at Mathis’ lips, something in his expression changing.

  “It is for love you wish to travel north?”

  Mouse felt the color rush to her cheeks. It was a fine balance to strike, saying enough without saying too much, selling a truth without letting it become a lie. She nodded, hoping that Mathis would not press her further. After all, there were two different kinds of lies: the one that someone would already be inclined to believe, the smile that hid a grudge, the well-placed word that masked an insult. And then there were the outright lies, the kind that were impossible to tell when looking someone in the eye.

  “Tell me,” Mathis said, still watching her, “how exactly is it that you plan to travel north?”

  Mouse blinked at him, caught off guard by the question.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  “The north is a big place,” Mathis shrugged. “Have you ever marched before?”

  It had not escaped Mouse that the number of horses in the camp fell far short of the number of men. Still, she supposed that she had assumed she would continue on the way she had come.

  “Long days with little rest,” Mathis continued, “hours spent under the sun. The terrain may be difficult, and the days will not all be so fine as this one. Do you really believe yourself prepared for such a journey?”

  Mouse felt the color in her cheeks deepen. She resented the implication that she might be either too weak or too complaining for the journey, but she knew that Mathis was right; she had never done anything truly exhausting, never endured any real discomfort save that of sitting a horse.

  She chewed her lip, her eyes traveling to her captor’s hand, where he fidgeted with something, a coin perhaps or a game piece, something small and silver that caught the glint of the light creeping in through the flap of the tent.

  Darlen Mathis was not just a military man, a noble, son of the great Persephus, he was a strategist, and Mouse would likewise have to act like one if she wished to reckon with him.

  He was her captor, and as such, he held her at a disadvantage in practically every way. But there was one aspect in which Mouse held the advantage, one way in which she intrinsically and inimitably bested him.

  “It is true, sir, that I am no soldier,” she said, “but I daresay that I am a good deal more prepared than you.” She watched Mathis’ eyes narrow, creasing at the corners as he tried to make her out. “Aros is my home,” she said. “I know these lands and these lords. I know which roads are tolled and in what amount. I know which bridges can be crossed and which are better left to brigands. I know who will let strange men camp in their woods and who will kill them on sight.”

  She watched him toy with the silver object in his hand, spinning it between his fingers as he weighed her words. Mathis might have been a commander, the bastard son of a king, heir to the throne of Vejle, but he was still just a man. He had an incomplete view of the picture. He was not Arosian, and there were things Mouse knew that he could not, things she understood that he never would.

  “Do you accept my offer?” she asked.

  Mathis tapped a finger against his elbow, watching Mouse with something indiscernible in his expression, something which she could not decide looked more like amusement or agitation.

  “Would that I could,” he said, closing his hand tightly around the silver object, “but I am afraid I must decline. I’ve already written for your ransom.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Mouse sat on the edge of the clearing, knees pulled to her chest, watching the men practice their sword skill in the makeshift yard. The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon, but she remained, in part, because she had nowhere else to go, and in part, because her feet had gone an hour ago and she was afraid of what would happen if she tried to stand up.

  It was a singularly infuriating position she found herself in, at the mercy of a man who had no understanding of what was at stake, to whom she could not convey the desperateness of her situation without telling him everything and thereby risking everything.

  She wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. She had tried offering him her horse in exchange for her ransom, but his only reply had been to cock a brow at her and say, “You mean the horse you stole? The one with the mallow of Toth burned into its arse?”

  She rolled her head to the side, cheek on her knees, and looked up at the fletcher.

  “May I ask you something?” she said. “What is that mark on your cheek?”

  The fletcher brushed a thumb against his cheek, the place where the faded black ink made the shape of a triangle.

  “Yes,” said Mouse. “What does it mean?” She had thought to ask a hundred times before, but she had never dared. It was an impertinence. But now that she knew her days in the camp were numbered, she decided that there could be little harm in it.

  “My people,” the fletcher said. “Slav’e’manusen Braqueye.”

  Mouse blinked at him.

  “Slav’e’manusen Braqueye,” she repeated. It was the most she had ever heard the fletcher speak. Normally, he said nothing if he could help it, and if he could not help it, it was either “yes,” “no,” or “do again.”

  “You’re Braquish,” she said, the realization suddenly dawning on her.

  The fletcher nodded.

  “But—"

  But what was a Braque doing in a Vejlish camp?

  The Braques and the Vejlish hated one another. To be fair, everyone hated the Braques, but there was a special kind of loathing between the two countries. Their war, in fact, was the reason that Ahnderland had been decimated and forced to join to the Empire.

  Mouse looked at him, at his long nimble fingers, his weathered skin, the scarf wrapped tightly around his head.

  “You’re not a slave, are you?” she said. It was a foolish thing to ask; only Braques kept slaves, but she could not help the question from slipping from her lips.

  The fletcher shook his head.

  “Then what are you doing?” Mouse asked, looking up at him in wonder. He smoothed a hand over the arrow shaft, brushing away the shavings.

  “I,” he said. “I make the arrow.”

  Mouse lay in her tent staring up at the sprig of juniper that dangled above her. She had tried for hours to will herself to sleep, but all she could seem to do was lie there with the blankets pulled up to her chin, and wonder.

  She wondered about Mathis and what had brought him here. Had he had been summoned by letter or rumor to that plan which would necessarily put him on the throne of Vejle? Had he come for the three thousand men who were to be bought into his service, the three thousand men who then turned their steps for the capital to set the world on fire? Or was it through happenstance, some bizarre coincidence that they should all end up here, watching as a rebellion unfolded?

  What strange fortune, or misfortune, as it were, that he should be here waiting, and what odd design that Mouse should run directly to him.

  She wondered about the fletcher and how he had wound up here, in a camp full of his enemies, serving a man whose fathers had hated his fathers and whose people would never see a peace between them.

  She wondered about all the things that had brought them to this moment, all the wars and rebellions, the plots and schemes.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think anymore, tried not to wonder, until at last she drifted off to sleep, the little tafl clutched in her palm.

  That night, Mouse dreamt of the moon, large and yellow, hanging low in the sky like a scythe waiting to fall. She dreamt of men creeping through the mountains, men wearing armor made of feathers, weaving quietly through the trees, silent as moonbeams.

  She dreamt of whispered secrets and banging drums and fire.

  She dreamt that the moon fell from the sky, and then when it landed upon the earth, it had broken open, and out of it spilled frumenty.

  Mouse woke the next morning to the sound of the camp coming alive. Normally, she was among the first to rise, climbing from her blankets as soon as the first rays of sun came creeping through the trees, but today, it seemed as though she was among the last.

  She stepped from her tent into the dim grey morning. The sun had not yet risen. Fires were being put out rather than fed, kettles being taken down and cleaned, stakes pulled up from the earth. Her eyes drifted over the scene trying to make sense of it.

  “Morning, lady.”

  Mouse turned to see the young soldier who stood guard outside her tent. He grinned at her with a mouth full of crooked teeth.

  “Good morning, Cyrus,” she said.

  “Sleep well, did you?”

  “Well enough,” Mouse murmured, her eyes still sweeping over the camp. “Cyrus, has something happened? Are we going somewhere?”

  She turned to look at him, watching him scratch his scalp beneath his cap.

  “Aye,” he said, “soon as.”

  “As soon as what?” Mouse asked.

  “As soon as—” he fixed is cap. “Commander want to speak with you, when you’ve washed and whatnot.”

  Mouse sighed. Cyrus was certainly not the cleverest person she had ever met, but he was kind, and that was more important.

  “Do you know what he wants to speak to me about?” she asked.

  Cyrus shrugged.

  “Very well,” Mouse said. “I shall go and find him, when I’ve washed and whatnot.”

  Cyrus smiled and turned to walk away.

  When Mouse entered Mathis’ tent some twenty minutes later, she found him once again standing at his desk, bent over his map. His hair was a mess, and he looked as though he had slept even less than she had.

  “Ah, good,” he said, glancing up at Mouse as she entered. “I need your help with something.” He gestured for her to join him at the map, and Mouse obliged, coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. She could see now, standing next to him, just how little a difference there was in their height.

  Mathis picked up a small silver bauble in the shape of a foxhead and put it on the map, in an area marked with a wood and a hut some miles east of Kriftel.

  “We’re here,” he said. He cast a glance at Mouse to ensure she followed. “And we need to go—" He picked up the bauble and replaced it on a town marked as Gelnshelm, a few miles from the Caldiffan border. “—here. How do we do it?”

  Mouse stared at the map. There were roads missing, rivers where there should not be, entire towns on the opposite side of the country from where they should be. The western border was reasonably accurate, but the Chatti lands appeared far larger than they should and Ahnderland much smaller.

  “What is this?” Mouse asked, pointing to a mountain range marked north of where they were presently.

  “What do you mean? It’s the Adderkops,” Mathis said.

  Mouse laughed.

  “The Adderkops are nearly twice that long,” she said.

  “No, they’re not,” said Mathis.

  “And this,” said Mouse. “Is this meant to be the Yar?”

  Mathis huffed a sigh of annoyance.

  “How do we get here?” he said, tapping his finger on Gelnshelm, one hand on his hip as he looked at Mouse.

  “That depends,” Mouse said. “How soon do you need to get there? How much attention are you willing to draw? How much are you willing to pay in tolls?”

  “Sooner rather than later,” Mathis said. “Less attention is better,” he drummed his fingers on his hip. “Though I suppose we don’t want to look like we’re sneaking around. I don’t mind much about tolls, as long as we’re not spending a fortune. Oh, and I’d like to avoid Magnus if at all possible.”

  Mouse laughed.

  “Everyone would like to avoid Magnus,” she said, “but unless you go through the east marshes,” she shook her head, “I don’t think it likely.

  She watched Mathis pick up the bauble and spin it between his fingers. She realized now what he had been fidgeting with the day before.

  “Start here,” she said, pointing to Aethelsbrook. “There’s a road here that goes north.” It wasn’t marked on the map, but she knew it would be there; it was the same road that led toward Silkeborg.

  Mathis studied the map where Mouse had indicated.

  “Are you sure?” He looked up, and Mouse nodded. It was strange, but until now, she had never noticed the black fleck that darkened one of his irises, the scar that split his upper lip. “Alright,” he said, returning to the map. “Best go and pack your things.”

  Mouse blinked at him.

  “Am I—Am I going somewhere?” She was almost afraid to ask.

  “Of course, we all are,” Mathis said, “as soon as the horses are ready.” He drummed a finger on the map before looking up at Mouse. “Pothes Mar is on fire.”