We were nearly out of supplies again as we neared the border of the desert. “We could stop outside this town and you could buy some more food. Then we can sneak across the border in the night,” Silden said, pointing at the map. Looking down where he pointed, I could see the town was named Owassus.  It was larger than the last place we had stopped, less of a gathering place for farmers and more like a proper township. But of all the towns bordering the desert, it was the most remote.

Once again, a list of supplies was made up for me. This time, remembering the things that had made me seem so suspicious to the previous shop clerk, I made sure to summon water to wash up more thoroughly the night before, and washed and brushed my hair and tied it back into twin braids, my hair being too short for a single long one. I also washed the clothes I planned to wear the evening before and let them dry. When I made my walk into town, I carried only a little more money than I would need to buy the supplies, and even if I looked a little disheveled, I was still presentable.

I walked through as though I had every right to be there and smiled politely at people I passed, but still had the paranoid impression that I was garnering more attention than I wanted. At one point I heard a brief whispered conversation and turned to see a little boy running off across the street behind me. I paused, wondering if I should just turn around and leave town, but then decided that it couldn’t have anything to do with me and continued on to the store. Everything seemed to go smoothly while I was shopping, and I did not get any strange looks from the clerk as I recited my shopping list, aside from a brief comment that travelers didn’t come through often, as remote as Owassus was.

I spotted some foot coverings, very similar to leather moccasins, made from a slightly stretchy material. Shoes weren’t on the list, but I decided I had to have a pair for myself, and also felt the need to get some for the others as well. They weren’t as expensive as proper shoes or boots, but they would provide better protection. Besides, even if the others were used to walking in their bare feet, I wasn’t sure how they’d fare with the temperature extremes of a desert. As I admired the material, the shop clerk said, “That’s a local commodity. They make it from Dunslyth skin.”

“Dunslyth,” I said, aware that he was just trying to make the sale because he wasn’t aware that I was already sold. “What kind of creature is that?”

“Desert snake. They tend to live close to the borders of the desert, so they’re easy to hunt.”

“I see.” I ran my fingers over the stitching of the strangely smooth material, wondering how many snakes they had to kill to make this many shoes.

I was feeling extraordinarily proud of how well everything was going until I stepped out of the store to find a pair of soldiers waiting for me. They were wearing matching blue and grey tabards over their armor, with a pattern of a wolf’s long body stretched across the blue side. “Miss, would you come with us?” one of them spoke, stepping forward. I smiled nervously at them, wondering if I should just drop the supplies and run. Maybe cast a spell to get them off my trail? I weighed my options. We needed the supplies, and I couldn’t risk leading anyone back to the others.

But maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to escape from them with all my supplies at a later point?

I nodded, and plastered the most confused smile I could manage on my face. “Sure. What seems to be the problem?” I asked.

I was led to a building that was just outside of town, on what looked to be a small military compound that had training grounds, a couple of barracks, and a large communal building. Inside the back of the communal building, which seemed to lead to a cafeteria on one side and a row of offices on the other, there was a wide room with a table and chairs, some chests for storage, and a few small holding cells with bars. The soldiers placed the items I had been buying on the table, then had me sit in one of the chairs. Then they stood by the door and waited.

After several minutes, a woman arrived – a tall woman with brown hair that was greying in streaks. She did not wear the same tabard, but did wear armor that was in good working order, well kept if not entirely new looking anymore. She approached, sparing a casual glance at the supplies in front of me before taking a seat across from me at the table.

The silence stretched for a long moment. I stared at her evenly – I had no intention of talking first. Finally, a smile spread across her face. “That’s a lot of foot coverings for one person traveling alone.”

My eyes flitted over to the pile of supplies, the shoes settled on top. All different sizes. I did my best to not give anything away in my expression, but I could feel my jaw clench despite myself.

“There’s a Hunter that insists that a woman of your description is traveling with a group of escaped slaves. That she’s dangerous. He’s requested the help of the border guard in finding and detaining any suspicious individuals.” She eyed me carefully, as though to determine whether I seemed dangerous enough.

“And you take orders from Hunters?” I said, hazarding a hope that Hunters and soldiers might have jurisdiction issues.

The smile never left her face. “Not typically,” she said.

Remembering something that Silden had said before about Hunters, I asked, “And it’s just the one, working alone? How do you know he hasn’t gone rogue?”

“From what we’ve been told by his Guild, he’s not performing an official duty. They have decided that the individual he’s looking for is not worth chasing, no matter how many slaves she has in tow. A strange decision that they refuse to explain.”

I frowned, glad to know that we were being allowed to escape but frustrated that I had been caught anyway. “Then why detain anyone? I’m not the one you’re looking for, but apparently if I was, you have no reason to keep me here.”

She shrugged. “He’s been a long time friend of the border guard, and apparently someone higher up owes him a personal favor.” She paused, as though she expected me to say something more, but when I didn’t she went on. “We’ve just sent word to him that we’ve detained someone matching his description, and he is coming to confirm your identity. If you truly aren’t the individual he’s looking for, he’ll take one look at you and tell us to release you. You won’t be here longer than a day or two, and then you can go safely on your way.”

I squashed the panicky feeling that began to stifle my throat. “And what if I don’t have the time to stay in your town a day or two?” I said, lifting my chin and narrowing my eyes. I hoped I sounded more imperious and less scared than I felt. Had he chased us all the way to the border, or had he simply come out here directly and demanded his favor from his friend higher up? I had truly thought we were in the clear, and knowing that he had been out here, just waiting…

“You’ll have very little choice in the matter,” she said, unperturbed. She gestured to the soldiers still standing at the door. They both stepped forward – one began placing my items in a chest, and the other opened one of the cells and then grabbed my arm to direct me into it. “Do you have traveling companions that will be worried for you, stranger? We can let them know you’re being detained.”

I glared at her and shook my head. She glanced again at my supplies as they were being placed into the chest. “Curious,” she noted, and then she left the room.

The soldiers remained to stand guard.

I paced in the cell for several minutes, trying to decide how to handle the situation. I was mad that I had been spotted so easily. Usually I considered myself nondescript – I had shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes and was often mistaken for other people by strangers I’d never met. But then travelers didn’t come through here often at all. One of the reasons we chose Owassus as our last stop before the desert was its remoteness, and apparently that had worked against us. I wondered if the kid I had seen running off before had been the one to get the soldiers.

If I waited too long, Lyre might try to come into town to find me. Even if he had the sense to wait until the cover of dark, how would he know where I had been brought? If the soldiers were on the look out for runaway slaves because of me, that made it even more dangerous for them. I’d have to get out, soon, preferably with our supplies. I walked over to the front of the cell and gripped the bars as I leaned against them, studying the soldiers that had brought me here.

They stood by the door, staring back at me in an almost bored way that said they could stay at their post patiently for hours. I sighed and wracked my brains. The stereotypical escape plan for characters in my situation involved acting sick, but would that really work? Dad had always seen through my acting so instantly when I was a teenager.

(You could put them to sleep) the voice in my head said. I jerked so suddenly I slammed my forehead into the bars with a clunk, surprised to hear it for the first time in weeks. I pulled away, letting a breath out in a pained hiss as I rubbed at my head. Sometimes I wondered if I had simply daydreamed the voices, and had worked to put them out of my mind. I looked up at the guards – both were frowning slightly at my obvious surprise, and one shifted uneasily.

I turned away and closed my eyes. How? I thought.

Once again, similar to when I had learned to heal, it was like I simply knew. I turned around to face the bars again, could see the glow envelope me as I reached for my magic. Both guards moved instantly, surprised but recognizing the light for what it was, one moving to a weapon rack for a bow and the other letting a dagger fly with an underhand toss. They started to shout, and I felt my heart jump into my throat as I thought of who could be listening. By the time I stepped out of the way of the dagger, they had both dropped to the floor in what I knew was a magically induced slumber. I froze, my eyes on the door, trying to quiet my panicked breathing as I listened for any sign that others were coming at the sounds of the shouts.

After a very tense minute, no one else appeared. I forced myself to take three deep breaths.

I wasn’t sure how much time I had. I felt instinctually that this spell was meant to wear off by itself. I didn’t want to cause more noise and risk bringing the entire base down on me, so blasting my way out seemed unwise. I also wanted to collect the supplies. I finally settled for magically summoning the keys on one of the guards over to me. They were attached to his belt and didn’t want to come off, so I pulled harder, and his entire body started to scrape across the floor. I grimaced at the sound of metal against stone, wondering if being dragged across the ground would wake him, or if someone else would hear this noise, but soon enough he was within reach and still sound asleep. I pulled the keys off him and started trying them one by one until I found the one that unlocked my cell.

Once that was done, I gathered the supplies from the chest.

Then I stood, holding everything in my arms as I thought over my next step. The office was set in the center of the base, with the barracks arranged behind and the training grounds out front. I looked at the sleeping guards for a moment. The glow surrounded me again, and I prepared myself to cast my newly learned spell as many times as I needed to.

I opened the door to the holding cells and looked down an empty hall. So far, so good. I walked down the hall, careful of any rooms or doors that I might be visible from, but was lucky to find that all the doors were closed. At the end of the hall was the front room, where a bored looking soldier sat at a desk. I cast the spell at him before he even saw me, and watched him slump into a slumber.

I slipped into the room, staying close to the wall – the cafeteria on the far side was quiet for the moment, though I could hear the sounds of someone moving around out of sight in the kitchen. I stepped toward the front doors and glanced out. The training grounds out front was full of people, some sparring, some walking to whatever business they had next. In fact, some were approaching the building I was in.

I wondered at the limits of the spell. I closed my eyes again, focusing, trying to imagine casting the spell in a wave away from myself, for as far as I could manage. Behind me, I could hear the familiar voice of the woman I had spoken to earlier saying, “What are yo—MAGE!” I opened my eyes and pushed the sleeping spell out as I had imagined, could nearly hear a soft boof! like an audible pressure being released as a wave of light flowed out around me. I could see the woman, glaring as she stepped forward, a hand on the pommel of her sword. Her eyes widened, but before she could say anything or pull her sword, she stumbled and slumped to the ground.

I turned and pushed the door to the building open, and could see that the spell had taken effect more impressively than I could have imagined. The soldiers across the entire training grounds were all fallen over, asleep. I could hear shouting at the edge of what must have been my range, of other soldiers reacting to seeing their brothers in arms falling to the ground around them, but it was silent where I was. I quickly moved away from the base, and just as I stepped around one of the sleeping guards at the gate, I could see him begin to shift, heard groans and confused mutterings from behind me as others also began to groggily wake. I picked up my pace, moving away from the town in as much of a run as I could manage, to where I had planned to meet up with Lyre and the others.

We ran the remainder of the day and most of the night and only stopped when we were all too exhausted to continue. When we finally stopped, we were deep in the forest, and it was still dark. We huddled together under the blanket I had brought, not daring to produce any light or use any magic for fear the glow would be seen. Lyre stayed awake first, still too keyed up to really sleep, and woke Silden a few hours later to take a turn at keeping an eye out and listening.

The dawn was cold and grey, the light of the sun having difficulty finding us through the trees but still bringing a relieving visibility. Silden stood and stretched as we started to wake, and began walking out to see if there were any nearby sign of habitation such as trails or roads, but he found nothing.

My feet were hurt and bleeding and I had a number of small scrapes from running through the underbrush and the trees of the forest. In fact, we all had small lacerations and scrapes across our faces and arms and legs. I closed my eyes to focus on healing, not wanting to walk on sore feet all day – and found that I couldn’t. Worried, I turned and placed a hand on Lyre’s arm – he frowned for a moment until the small cuts across his skin knit closed, and then he smiled gratefully at me. I sighed with relief, glad that I hadn’t lost my power at least, and performed the healing for both Larina and Silden as well.

But when I tried to heal myself again, the spell failed to take hold. Larina stared at me the entire time, her blue eyes full of worry as she realized what was happening. “You can’t heal yourself,” she said, which caused Lyre’s head to snap around as he focused on me, his eyes darting over me as he looked at each visible wound I had.

I shook my head and shrugged, allowing the glow to drop as I stopped concentrating on the spell. “I guess not.” A thoughtful look crossed her face, and Larina stood and walked for a bit, searching through the underbrush. Lyre reached out to run a finger along one of the larger cuts on my forearm, wiping away some of the clotting blood and causing fresh beads of crimson to bloom. “I’ll be okay,” I told him, almost feeling annoyed, but the deep concern on his face softened that feeling. He took one of the rags from the crate and summoned some fresh water to wet it, then set about cleaning my cuts as best as he could. I sat quietly through his ministrations.

After a few moments, Larina came back with a few plants, and using two stones that she had also found and a bit of summoned water, began to grind the plants into a paste. I watched her curiously. When she was done, she pushed Lyre gently out of the way and began rubbing the green paste across each visible cut and all over the bottoms of my feet. Whatever it was, there was no sting when it touched the open wounds – first there was a warming sensation, and then a cooling sensation. Most notably it almost immediately helped how sore my feet were. “There are some people that can focus their magic on making these things work faster,” she said as she worked, Lyre hovering over her to watch, “Nothing as effective as your magic, and I don’t even know that spell anyway. But the paste should still help with the pain.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back and patted my knee, then shifted over to begin sifting through the crate, tossing clothes out at Lyre and Silden. She was shorter and slighter than me, so she had difficulty finding any clothes that would fit her. I gave her the blue tunic I had found before and my black leggings. I folded some of the ripped up fabric of old shirts to wrap around my feet and pulled my socks over them to hold them in place. As I worked on that, Lyre and Silden dressed. They both wore brown breeches, though Silden’s were a little short on him and looked more like capris. Larina had tossed Lyre a faded yellow shirt that was quite billowy and had buttons at the sleeves and near the collar, and Silden was wearing a faded green tunic that was almost too tight across his shoulders. Once we had rummaged for everything we wanted from the crate, Lyre tossed the robes into it and, speaking softly, set the entire crate on fire.

As we sat near the flames for warmth, Silden revealed what was in the bag he had grabbed from Wrasker’s cabin – a map and money. “Are any of the coins going to be useful in the Empire?” I asked curiously as Silden stowed the coin bag back into the larger bag he had brought.

“The Empire has different money, but the metal will surely still have value. Gold is gold, no matter it’s shape,” Silden said as he laid out the map. After studying it for a moment, he pointed. “We left the ship here, and entered this forest. I don’t know how far we’ve come, but we haven’t exited the woods yet.” He drew his finger across the map, a distance that made my heart sink. “The nearest border of the Empire is here.”

Lyre and Larina both leaned over to study the map as well. I could see some of the symbols and guess at the geological meaning of them – mountains, forests, cities. But I still had trouble reading all of the text. “We could cross the desert,” Larina suggested, drawing a line a bit south of where Silden had slid his finger across the map. “It’s not inhabited.”

“For good reason,” Lyre said ominously. But then he sighed, rubbing a hand against the side of his head. “But we could avoid capture by humans, as long as we were wary of the danger.”

“And what danger is there in the desert?” I asked. We could all summon fresh water, so we wouldn’t die of dehydration at least.

“Large beasts, that hunt other large beasts, and get hunted by even larger beasts,” Silden said absently, tapping his finger on the expanse that Larina had gestured to. “But because of that, no people, no roads, no trade routes. If we get past the soldiers that guard the perimeter, no one would know we’re there. And they only have soldiers there to keep the monsters in, not to keep people out.”

“Wrasker bought each of us based on our offensive capabilities,” Larina said. “With the spells the three of us know, surely we’d be safe.”

They both looked to Lyre. He was staring at the map, a frown creasing his brow. He glanced up at me. “As strong as we are, we’d still have to be careful. There’s also the problem of the ravine.” He pointed at a feature on the map that cut through the desert close to the Empire side.

“It’s a very wide natural feature, created by the Edlun River. It starts high in the steep mountains here,” Lyre pointed and traced a winding line down until it reached the desert, ”Forms deep cliffs through here, and then opens out into valleys and plains south of the desert. The mountains would be almost impossible to cross. The cliffs of the ravine would be especially hard…  we may be able to manage hiking down into the canyons and out across the other side. But travel too far south…” Lyre traced down near the southern end of the desert. “The valley leading out of the canyons are very lush farm lands. We’d start running into humans again.”

As we sat in silence, Lyre nudged at the pack he had given me, and when I handed it over he pulled out some jerky. He shared it around. We sat, chewing on the tough meat in silence as we stared at the map. “We need to be moving. The hunter could still be alive and after us,” Silden said after awhile, standing and brushing off the pants he was wearing. He stretched his legs out for a bit, frowning. “I’ve never worn pants before,” he said. “Feels kind of restricting.”

“Only slaves wear robes. Cassandra was right to bring these – we’d stand out too easily without them, even at a distance,” Larina said. “I suppose I could have improvised a dress of some sort for myself though,” she added as she waved a hand, her voice taking on the echoey quality as she snuffed out the flames. The fabric was ashes now, the remainders of the wooden crate a charred skeleton.

“Would you have really wanted to hang on to it though?” I asked. Lyre and Silden each took one rapier. They didn’t have belts, so some of the remaining fabric was used to improvise something like a belt to hold their weapons in place.

She grimaced, and kicked at the ashes contemplatively. “No. Not at all.”

And then we continued moving.

We kept going at a clipped pace and reached the edge of the forest by that evening. Although we hadn’t discussed it much more, we did seem to unanimously decide the desert was best, and so had looped generally toward the southern edge of the forest. Once there, we paused to study the map before exiting the haven of the woods. There was some concern over whether we should travel on the road or not before we even reached one. Lyre thought it best to avoid the roads, but Larina pointed out that we ran the risk of crossing someone’s farmland, and that some humans disliked trespassers on their property. Still, their hair was cut short and the tips of their ears were easy to see, so running into anyone on the road could be disastrous. We spent the next couple of days cutting through fields and forests and avoiding houses and villages, but stayed close enough to the road so that we didn’t lose our course.

Midweek our rations were starting to run out, as Lyre had only intended to pack enough food to feed one person. We had wondered for a bit if we should steal something from a nearby farm, when Larina pointed out that I was human. “You could take the coins and buy provisions in the next village.”

Lyre was shaking his head, ready to protest, but before he could speak, I said, “It makes sense, and it’d be easier and less risky than being caught stealing.” Silden was already pulling out the bag of coins to plop down into my hands. It was heavier than I was expecting. I frowned. “What should I get?” I asked.

Larina composed a short list for me, and when I expressed some uncertainty about what price I should expect, she gave me a good ballpark figure to run with. “We should have kept the robes,” Lyre grumbled. “Then one of us could go with you at least.”

“Too late to fuss about that now,” I said, tucking the list in with the money. I wandered into town – a small village called Feldbern that worked as the central community to the local farms sprawled across the area. It had a general store and a town hall, a blacksmith, a small schoolhouse, and a few homes. A tiny inn sat next to the general store. Once inside the store, I pulled out the list and, knowing just a bit of the alphabet, I attempted to sound out the words awkwardly to the clerk that offered to help me. Frowning and irritated, the clerk held his hand out for the list, and I handed the short scrap of paper over to him. He gathered the items for me as I waited at the counter.

“Traveling through?” he guessed. I wasn’t sure if it was just because he didn’t recognize me or if the provisions were a giveaway, but I nodded. He frowned, looking me up and down, and I realized I probably looked like quite a mess, in dirty clothes and improvised footwraps, my hair disheveled, my face and arms covered in cuts with the green paste staining my skin. He frowned more deeply as I produced the heavy bag of coins to pay. “How did you come by all that?” he said, his voice dripping with disapproval. I realized belatedly that I should have taken just as much as I needed and not the whole bag.

I wondered briefly how I should explain, and settled for hardening my expression and saying, “That’s none of your concern,” as menacingly as I could manage.  He grimaced and did not look threatened in the slightest, but asked nothing more.

As he was near to finishing up, I asked, “Do you have any belts?” He did, so I bought two. It was a bit of effort to heft everything and carry it out of town by myself. As I was on my way out, I glanced back to see that the clerk had left the store to stand in the middle of the road and watch me, his arms crossed, his expression still disapproving. I wondered nervously who he would tell about the strange woman buying traveling supplies. Just outside of town, I closed my eyes and took three, steady, calming breaths. Then I hurried back to my companions. When I met up with the others the weight got more evenly redistributed and Lyre and Silden had proper belts to attach their rapiers to.

We moved on from that village quickly. Despite my misgivings, there was no sign that we were being followed. The next several days was a routine of walking, mostly through the evenings, most of the night when we could manage it safely, and through the mornings. We followed the road, but stayed mostly off of it, and looped far around habitations. When there were stretches of woods, we’d travel through for the cover they provided. We had enough provisions at this time to last us until we arrived at the edge of the desert, and then we planned to buy more.

Annoyed at my lack of reading ability at our last stop, Lyre and I started the reading lessons again using the slim red book I had taken from the ship. My grasp of written Blest was stronger every day, and reading even this small tome was helping to expand my vocabulary. There were even some days when Lyre wouldn’t cast the translation spell, and the three of them would take turns having conversations with me to give me practice. One evening we were sitting very close together so he could see the page over my shoulder. Before I could start sounding out the words, Lyre cleared his throat. “We can skip this section,” he said. I frowned and considered the story leading up to this page, and then really studied the section in silence for a moment before feeling my face heat up. I realized it was a very vividly described sex scene.

I remembered suddenly the Captain’s joke about reading lessons and Lyre’s initial discomfort about using the book to teach me and realized that I was learning to read from what basically amounted to porn. In the same instant, I realized exactly how close I was sitting to Lyre and said, “Oh!” I pulled back quickly and flipped the book shut. He stayed very still and continued to stare at it, his face and the tips of his ears turning slightly pink, and I felt my entire body warm with embarrassment. “Why didn’t you just tell me what kind of book it was?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrows and looked up at me. “I wasn’t sure we’d get very far into it. Besides, it’s a bit hard to explain.”

“You could have just said it was the Captain’s smut.” I could hear Larina stifling a giggle from where she was supposedly sleeping, and Silden quietly shh’ing her. I ignored them.

Lyre coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like he was cutting off a laugh. “I was quite surprised that was what he gave you to read. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it if you knew.” I sighed and flipped the book back open to where I had left off. “What are you doing?” Lyre asked, a slight frown on his face.

“Reading. Apparently I just got to the good part,” I said. Lyre froze, his eyes wide, his features reddening even more. I read silently for the most part, but a few moments later had to hold the book out to him. “What’s this word?” I asked, my tone dripping with innocence as I pointed to the page with a finger. With context, I could guess, but I wanted to see if he would say it out loud.

Silden chuckled and Larina did not successfully hide her laughter as Lyre turned away and curled up to sleep, completely ignoring my question.