SIX
Hunted
Her journey south to the vale had been slow, and she had underestimated the toll the increasingly cold weather would exact from her tired body. She loathed the passage of time; each passing cycle brought with it fresh torment, which, for the most part, targeted her aging joints. In her youth, a pilgrimage to Scrier’s Post would have taken half the time it now did, but those cycles were little more than faint memories, growing ever dimmer. She picked her way unsteadily through the wood, finding it difficult to navigate the uneven ground. Although she was still capable of seeing through the night’s gloom, her vision no longer provided the clarity it once did. She was, however, keenly aware of the excessive noise that she made as fallen detritus crunched and snapped under her slo
