They took to the road again, heading west once more. They had lost much of the day with all that had happened; the sun was already nearly at its zenith. It was no less beautiful than it had been yesterday.
Yet everything was different. Vix no longer had time to admire the buttercups that dotted the trail beside her, or appreciate the gentle babble of the river. She was too busy checking the shadow of every valley for cloaked figures and listening for the sound of cracking twigs under heavy boots.
It was exhausting. Vix began to feel herself getting more and more irritable as the day went on.
Miles melted away before them, yet the serene, rolling landscape never changed. The only thing that showed they had moved was the Striding, which had bent away from them to the south and had disap
