Wind scours the hill and kicks grit against Maya’s shins.

  Grass whips at her boots in ragged waves as if the ground itself was warning her away. She tastes dust and sun-baked earth on her tongue — swallows — and makes herself look down into the basin between the hills anyway.

  Below, canvas humps dot the shallow cut like tanned shells left by a retreating tide. Horses toss their heads along picket lines. A cart grinds over stone — axle clacking, jars clinking. Livestock bleats from somewhere out of sight. The rumble of wooden wheels travels up through long grass and into her calves.

  Nikolai stands to her left, broad and quiet, eyes already mapping approach angles.

  He says nothing.

  He doesn’t need to.

  Too open to linger. Too exposed. No cover if it goes wrong.

  Maya keeps her hands loose and empty.

  Don’t flare. Don’t beg.

  The rules sit crisp behind her sternum. Missing one rule — the one that she has fully yet to grasp. But that’s okay for now — because she doesn’t know how.

  “We walk,” she says. “No hoods.”

  Nikolai gives the smallest nod. Approval, or at least lack of objection.

  They push through tufts of grass that slap at their knees. Dry stalks crack under heel — dust puffs and hangs before the wind steals it. The path down is no more than deer-worn earth slick with fine gravel. Her thigh twinges where the last sprint caught her — then settles into the dull ache of something still healing.

  Their timely walk eventually closes the distance to the camp. It smells like cardamom and horse sweat and something sweet that’s been simmering all day. A woman sorts red-dyed blankets across a folding trestle; cloth whispers over wood. Men with sun-browned forearms stack jars — preserved stonefruit floating in syrup, salted meat layered in oil. Two boys squat by a brazier, rolling dice and trading silver and bronze coins to each other depending on the outcome.

  One glances up once. Measures.

  Looks away again.

  Assessments done.

  Maya counts tents. Eight.

  Two bigger ones framed with split poles. Lines strung low with tack and cured leather strips. No imperial insignia. No clan colours she recognizes.

  That should have eased her.

  It doesn’t — not yet.

  They don’t stop at the first curious stare. They don’t change pace. Nikolai angles a fraction ahead of her as the largest tent’s flap stirs.

  A figure steps into the light.

  Silver hair cut blunt at the jaw. Skin like desert bark. Eyes that don’t blink quickly. A scar draws one corner of the mouth into a permanent hook, not quite a smile, not quite a threat. Steam curls from a kettle on a low iron frame beside them — clove-sweetness rides the air.

  Nikolai dips his head with that precise military humility.

  “Evening.”

  The leader’s gaze tracks to Maya and holds there a heartbeat too long.

  Not lust.

  Not hostility.

  Recognition of posture. Of restraint worn like a second skin.

  Maya smooths the inside edges of her ribs with breath and lets her chin lift the width of a fingernail.

  “We seek news of the route ahead,” she says.

  No titles. No names.

  The leader’s hand gestures towards the kettle in invitation and settles cups to a tray that looks nicked by years of the same motion.

  A small etching sits just underneath where the handle lies. Patterns that looked too similar to the patterns and sigils that she saw on the bell and at the shrine.

  Her pinky glides over it as she grabs the cup. No traces of energy residue.

  Maya relaxes her shoulders that little bit more.

  “Sit,” he says. The voice has iron in it — the kind that keeps horses from breaking line. “Share tea. Words go easier with heat.”

  Maya lowers herself to a folded rug beside the iron frame. Nikolai remains behind her right shoulder, half a step back, the outline of his blade hilt a familiar weight at the edge of her vision.

  Tea pours.

  The steam smells like clove and pepper and something green beneath.

  She lets it fog her lips before she sips.

  It’s stronger than she expects. Bitter first, then sweet sliding under it like a promise.

  “What city,” the leader asks, pouring their own, “and what kind of trouble do you want to avoid on the way?”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Maya chooses the name like she’s choosing a thread from a tangle.

  “Miama.”

  Nikolai’s posture remains steady behind her. He doesn’t correct her. Doesn’t question. He trusts her to say the right words.

  “We prefer not to meet soldiers,” she adds.

  “Wise,” the leader says dryly. A faint lift at the scar. “Miama is far if you take the wrong road.”

  He reaches for a stick and scratch the dirt between them.

  A curve for water.

  A notch where hills shoulder up.

  A dark smear for bog.

  “Follow just the direction of the river — two days — but don’t be near it,” the leader says. “Stay on the west side. Go down the coast first if you have to. South on the eastern bank of the river turns soft near the bend and eats wheels.” The stick taps a thin line. “Past the forest where the trees start to become birch — your feet will hear it before your eyes do — there’s a ford shallow enough to cross without losing tack if you keep your horse calm.”

  Maya watches the lines appear. Watches the callus across the knuckle roll.

  “After that, head east,” he continues. “You’ll find a rider’s road. Old. But kept clear by other caravaners that care. It’ll take you along the ridge and down into the highland ways.”

  Maya’s gaze doesn’t leave the map.

  “Patrols?” she asks. “Traps?”

  “Patrols last week,” the leader says, eyes still on dirt. “Camped near the shale rise. Made noise, left trash, didn’t bleed for it. They’re moving away from the coast now, if the caravan north told true.”

  He angles his head like a hawk tilting at glint.

  “Traps,” he repeats. “We found wires strung along thorns near the old orchard. Not ours.”

  A glance to Maya — pointed.

  “We only placed a few markings years ago on trees for waypoints.”

  Maya keeps her expression flat. Keeps her aura smaller than a breath.

  “We’ve seen them,” she says. “We’re…careful.” Although the mentioning of trees with markings had not triggered any memories.

  “Good,” he says. “Keep that. The wind has been wrong these days. It carries rumours too easily.”

  A young warrior drifts closer with a bowl of cut fruit and sets it within reach. Coal-dark hair hangs damp against a neck made for hard hours in saddle. The eyes lift — light brown — and land on Maya’s mouth once, then her hands.

  The glance is not shy.

  Not hostile.

  A measure that includes curiosity and the thought of future answers.

  Heat edges under Maya’s breastbone in something that isn’t tea. She presses her heel against the rug and stills it.

  Not now.

  Nikolai shifts half a step, quiet as a shadow. His hand settles heavy and casual on the rucksack of deer fur from the plains.

  “We carry spare pelt,” he says.

  Maya’s eyes flick to him, quick.

  He continues smoothly. “Smooth fur, decent quality — from the plains we were on.”

  The leader’s eyes flick to the arrows, assess.

  “Fair.”

  A palm lifts — a boy peels off, already moving.

  “You hunt?” the leader asks without looking at Nikolai.

  “When we need,” Nikolai replies.

  “That’s when it counts,” the leader says.

  The exchange flows quick after that. An older woman with sun-cracks at the corners of her eyes brings two blankets that smell like clean lavender mixed with the smell of storage. A younger man lifts a pot’s lid. Steam bellows and carries meat, cumin, and something green.

  Maya’s stomach tightens at the smell.

  She does not show it.

  Her body is too used to hunger to beg.

  She does math silently while they trade — counting pieces of pelt, counting weight, counting what they can carry without slowing the horse. The stew ladled into a travel bowl is generous but not foolish. The blankets are the right thickness for the season and not padded with scraps.

  The price doesn’t sing like a lie.

  It sits quiet and true.

  “Two days parallel to the river,” Maya repeats.

  “Then east,” the leader confirms. “Avoid the alder grove unless you like your boots to taste like rot for a week.” The stick taps a second line. “There’s resin in the cedars before the forest trees start turning to birch. It burns clean and keeps night things out of your bed.”

  Maya dips her head, and it isn’t a bow. It’s a note taken and stored.

  “Thank you.”

  The leader studies her again.

  Then he pushes his cup towards the kettle and rinses it once, steam rising like clove ghosts.

  “Sleep under cedar, if you can” he says. “You’ll make better time if your ribs aren’t thinking about the ground all night.”

  Maya stands in one motion that she made look effortless. The cup returns to the tray. Her fingers don’t shake when she does it. She isn’t sure if it’s the tea or the certainty of direction loosening the tight coil behind her sternum.

  Maybe both.

  They move through camp with blankets and a covered bowl tucked safe between Nikolai’s arm and chest. Conversations eddy around them — low, practical, laughter that has work under it. A tether rope creaks. A horse snorts and stomps.

  The coal-haired warrior’s light brown eyes track them as they pass.

  The gaze doesn’t flinch when Maya meets it.

  It lifts one corner of a mouth by the width of a breath — small and open, like a question offered without pressure.

  A thrill crawls over Maya’s skin like an animal finding its hole.

  She looks away first.

  Not because she is afraid of being seen.

  Because she cannot afford to invite a second look.

  They climb out of the basin on the far side and find the small patch of cedar trees where resin bleeds slow from long-sliced bark. The leader of the tribe following just behind.

  The smell hits first — thick and clean, sweetness that doesn’t feel like a trap. The trees lean together above a flat patch of earth as if telling any passerby that it’s there for their use.

  “Here,” Maya says.

  She drops the blankets.

  “Fire small. No sparks above the knee.”

  Nikolai is already scraping a trench. He works with the same precision he uses for violence. Three stones. Low flame.

  Shielded.

  Useful.

  They eat with the speed of people who didn’t know what hot means to a body trying to rebuild. Stew warms her palms down to the bones, then bleeds outward. The cumin doesn’t fight the clove still clinging to the back of her throat — it layers over it like a second memory.

  When they finish, Maya tucks the red ribbon under her tunic and presses the cloth flat where it hides. The motion is small and sharp. She tells herself she isn’t thinking of the white-haired girl when she does it.

  She tells herself a lot of things.

  Nikolai lies down with the blanket to his hips, turning so his back faces hers without touching. The gesture reads like trust even if neither of them calls it that.

  Maya sits with her knees drawn and her palms on them, eyes on the dark slope where the river will be a smudge of gloss in dawn.