A rose had been crudely carved into the rock placed beside the road, along with the number fifty-seven. Bren sat up straighter in her saddle, shielding her eyes from the sun. They were perched on a small rise, and the black stone of the ancient imperial road they traveled upon was easy enough to follow, a dark thread wending between rippling umber hills until it finally vanished into the hazy distance. The last marking stone had displayed the number sixty, so at least they were going in the right direction. Still a long way from Leris, though. Bren supposed they could travel a few more leagues at least before they would have to stop for the evening. She applied gentle pressure with her legs, and Moon resumed his easy trot.

The City of Roses. Bren had begged her father for years to allow her to visit Uncle Merik, but he had always demurred, promising her that next season would be a better time. She knew he didn’t like the city, complaining for days of the filth and the squalor after he’d returned from his own trips to see his brother. Her uncle, though, had given her a different vision of Leris when he’d come to the farm. Towering stone houses, their facades veined with white roses; streets filled with bustling crowds; men and women from along the Flowering Coast and even more distant lands selling all manner of goods and delicacies.

Bren had always been inclined to believe her uncle over her father in this matter. After all, if the city was such a terrible place, why did so many people choose to live there?

But this was not how she’d imagined her first visit to the City of Roses. She’d daydreamed about kissing her mother and father farewell, giving Helat a bone-crushing hug, then embarking on a journey that would end with her enlisting at the office her uncle had told her the Bright Company kept in Leris. Instead, she was leaving her heart under a cairn behind her, and there might not even be a Company to join anymore, if what the paladin had said was true. She shook her head, trying to clear it of these black thoughts. If she allowed herself to dwell overlong on what had happened, she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to carry on.

To distract herself, Bren concentrated on the clip-clopping of Moon’s hooves on the road of perfectly fitted black stones. The way was beyond ancient, she knew, from the days of Old Gith and its Empire of the Dawn. That distant city was now a demon-haunted ruin, but the roads it had built bound together cities and kingdoms far beyond just the Flowering Coast. Gith had been the center of a vast web, and the strands remained even though the spider was long since dead. Those places she knew only from stories told by firelight on festival days: Akesh, a land of bone-pierced tribesmen guarding haunted barrows; Zenovia, where the children in their ancient, decaying cities were schooled in poison before they learned to read; the Crimson Dominion, with its dragonfly knights and thorned towers; and the black-sand deserts of Than Kamis, scoured by deadly flensing winds and wandered by madmen who had gazed upon the faces of the gods. Mostly lies, Bren was sure, but there had been many long afternoons when she’d sat under a tree in the meadow as the goats milled around her and yearned to see for herself what was beyond the seven valleys.

Then again, not long ago Bren would have thought dragons to be creatures of myth. Now she had seen their claws like scythes, their flashing scales and vast wings. She had seen their fire. Bren swallowed at the memory of those terrible jaws opening wide and the roiling flames birthed from nothing.

Flames that had not harmed her. The farmhouse had been razed, its wooden frame reduced to charcoal. Her family burned almost past recognition. But the fire that had washed over her had not singed a hair on her head.

Why? It had to be the Silver Mother. The goddess had reached down and enfolded her in her hands, granting protection from the dragon’s wrath. Bren knew there was nothing special about her. She was just a shepherd girl from the seven valleys. But the Sage of Pearls who had cast the demons from the shores of the Flowering Coast had once been a fisherman. Perhaps the Silver Mother was weaving a great destiny for her, and the thought both excited and terrified Bren.

A purple twilight crept across the heavens as they continued on, darkening the forest that hemmed the road. They had descended into a valley, and now the hills were shadowed swells rising around them. The jagged remnant of a tower was picked out against the sky, and she wondered if this might be a Gith ruin. The old empire had left traces of itself scattered all over these lands, though usually not as well preserved as their roads. Every few years the seven valleys would be chattering about some treasure that had been looted from an old barrow or temple, but despite this, most folks refused to go near anything that was suspected of having been built by the Gith.

Bren’s stomach grumbled, and she rooted in her satchel for a carrot. A poor meal, but it would keep her from starving until she got to her uncle’s house. She took a bite, and Moon’s ear perked up at the sound, his head turning slightly so he could see her out of the corner of his eye.

“You want some too?” Bren mumbled through a mouthful of carrot. “Maybe it’s time to stop for the night.” She had been hoping a good rest spot would materialize on the road, maybe a tree like a willow with the kind of spreading branches that would keep her dry if it rained and a stream with water clean enough to drink, but if they did not stop soon they would be blundering around in the dark. Sighing, Bren brought Moon to a halt and slid from his back, then led him off the road and into the woods.

She was afraid he might stumble in the underbrush or turn his hoof on a rock, but he was as surefooted as he was good natured. When they reached a small clearing far enough away that she could no longer see the road, Bren looped Moon’s reins around a stump and began setting up camp. She gathered fallen branches and leaned them against the trunk of a tree, making a crude shelter from the wind. There was more than enough wood left over for a fire, but Bren had no idea how to start one without flint or steel. It would be cold, but it couldn’t be any worse than how she’d spent the previous night.

Moon had been admirably patient, and she rewarded him with a half-dozen carrots from her satchel. As he crunched on them, Bren stroked his flank and rubbed his ears, praising him for the good job he’d done today.

By the time she was finished night had fully fallen, and the forest’s tangle of branches and briars had become a seamless black. Bren could just glimpse a slice of the Silver Mother through the thick canopy, but very little of Her light was managing to trickle through. She shivered, wishing she’d found a blanket in the barn and chiding herself for not bringing along Moon’s caparison. At this moment, the risk of attracting unwanted attention was far outweighed by the thought of curling up beneath that thick weighted cloth. Or she could have simply reversed the caparison, hiding the holy symbols. Bren sighed deeply, wishing that this idea had occurred to her earlier.

The slight breeze slithering between the trees and rustling the branches suddenly died. In the silence that followed, Bren felt a rising panic. Alone at night in a strange woods, the darkness so deep she couldn’t even see a hand in front of her face . . .what could be prowling around out here, stalking ever closer? The Gith ruins weren’t too far away, and that ancient people had been infamous for consorting with demons. Her heart quickened, and she silently implored Moon to whicker or stamp his hooves, so she at least knew she wasn’t all by herself.

Wait. She cocked her head, listening intently. Very faintly she heard raised voices. Thankfully, it sounded like men, not demons or monsters. A grating laugh drifted through the forest, and relief swelled in Bren. Just the knowledge that there were other people out there comforted her, though for all she knew they could be robbers or brigands.

Then again, they might be merchants, or a family of farmers making a trip to Leris. Bren clutched at herself, chewing on her lip. The thought of sitting around a fire, maybe begging for a taste of meat or bread and enjoying the company of others after the horrors of the last few days held a powerfully strong appeal.

Bren made her decision. She would approach quietly through the woods, and if these travelers seemed friendly she would show herself. If not, she would creep back here and hunker down in the little shelter she had made and pray to the Silver Mother for sleep to come quickly. There was a danger, of course, of getting lost in the darkness, so she couldn’t go too far. Fifty steps in the direction she thought the voices were coming from, and if she hadn’t found them she would turn right around and retrace her way.

“I’ll be back,” she whispered at the great black shadow where Moon was tied up, and then taking a deep breath for courage she started moving through the woods as quietly as possible. That was difficult, and she winced with every crackle and snap she made, but from the tenor of the voices the attention of these strangers was fixed somewhere other than the surrounding forest.

Soon the glow of a fire appeared ahead, flickering between the trees. Bren continued her careful approach, ready to retreat at the slightest hint of danger. The voices were all men, she realized, which was not a promising sign. If she’d heard the laughter of children she thought she would have wept for joy.

Finally she found a gap through the dense underbrush where she could see clearly who was sharing the forest tonight with her. Four men lounged around a crackling fire in a mossy clearing. They were all wearing tabards emblazoned with the same flower, but from this distance Bren couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe an orchid, which would have meant these were men of Velessi, or perhaps that was the lily of Chalice. Not a rose, she thought, although the uniforms were so dirty and disheveled that it was hard to tell for sure. Soldiers, then, and not brigands. Bren was still uneasy, though. She remembered the paladin’s warning about broken men slipping over the mountains, fleeing a disastrous battle and no longer bound by their oaths. How could she tell if they were broken? She had to admit that these soldiers certainly did not look whole. Their clothes were ragged, and in the reflected light of the fire Bren could see thin, hollow-cheeked faces. A few of them were smiling, though, as they held out skewers threaded with meat to the flames, and as she watched, one of the men said something that resulted in more raucous laughter.

When that finally died down the red-haired one that had spoken stood, and Bren tensed, afraid that he would come closer to where she crouched. She held her breath as he moved towards the edge of the clearing, but luckily it looked like if he continued his path he’d enter the trees two dozen paces to her left. If she hunkered down and stayed silent he would almost certainly not see her.

It was then that she noticed the boy.