‘Look at her. Sunburned, full of wounds, dirty. She is still drinking like a sponge and hungry. I fear for her. She came from the east, I tell you. Passed through the Korath. Through the Frying Pan.’
‘Stories! Nobody survives the pan. She came west from the mountains by the passage of Suchaka. She is barely on the edge of the Korath and she had already had enough. When we found her she had already fallen and her spirit broken.'
'It is uninhabited for many miles to the west of here. Where did she come from?'
‘She walked, perhaps rode. For who knows how long. There were horse footprints beside her own. Must have been thrown from the horse in the Suchaka, would explain why she is beaten and bruised.’
‘Why is this child so important to Nilfgaard, out of curiosity? When the governor sen
