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He eventually realizes I am not beside him and halts his mount, looking over his shoulder. Always looking over his shoulder. But it does not appear we are being followed. I’ve not seen or heard the riding party behind us all day.

“Where?” I ask, making it clear I will not move without an answer.

His face is mostly hooded again. But now I know what is underneath and can imagine those piercing eyes boring into me.

“Rimstead.”

A sudden coldness hits me at my core.

“Nay.”

“Come here, my lady.”

The narrow street makes it difficult for him to navigate with his mount, and he frowns. A hooded Shadow Warrior, his menacing sword ever-present and dangling at his side, his eyes hidden, this is the same man that sent hardened warriors scurrying away. I should do his bidding.

But I do not.

Father Aiken will not harm me. Of that I am certain now.

“Lady Hilla.”

He drops the reins and stalks toward me.

“There was little choice as we were being followed. I am as unhappy with the current situation as you. We will speak more on it later. But now, we need to move.”

Tis as much as he’s said to me all day.

For that reason, I follow him as he turns from me, regains the reins and continues to navigate us forward.

Rimstead.

Well within Meria, no longer along the border. The opposite direction of Breywood Castle. My sister’s court is now more inaccessible than ever. I could never reach it on my own. Running away from him was utterly futile.

He needs to believe me. I am certain if he does, the Elderman will return me to Cettina. How and why he helps my sister is still a mystery, but one I suppose I must solve if I am to convince him we are on the very same side.

I follow him to a building at the very end of the road, marked as an inn by the sign dangling from its second story, Crow’s End. Before I even see Aiken’s hand slip inside his robes, he’s handing the boy standing just outside the door enough coin to make him straighten his back immediately.

“Bring him to the stable, see him fed and meet me inside for another when you’re finished.”

The boy bobs his head enthusiastically, taking the reins. Although I do not see the stable from this vantage point, I assume tis nearby.

“Come,” he says, glancing back at me. Our eyes meet, his quiet and as intense as ever. Mine longing for answers. He frowns. “We will speak inside.”

We step into the inn, and despite the fact that I follow my captor, and that I’m further away from my sister this eve than I was this morn, I pause to smile.

Tis precisely what I’d imagine an inn to be. Wooden tables with barrels for seats. Dark, wall torches and candles lighting the interior as the sky begins to darken outside. Mostly men, but even a few women, eat and drink and laugh.

“You’ve not been inside an inn before?”

I finally notice the Elderman staring at me.

“Nay,” I admit. “I have not.”

As is his custom, he does not seem to believe me.

“My father would never have allowed it,” I explain, my new strategy to offer him as much information as possible to bring him to my side. “And my husband kept me more ignorant than even my father. Always feared I would flee from him, with good cause.”

We move to the side as a group of men brush past us to leave.