Fen’s clinic was the warmest room in the upper fort, smelling of boiled willow bark, pine resin, and the dry, medicinal dust of crushed coltsfoot.
In the center of the chamber, beside a small cast-iron stove that crackled with honest birch splits, Lady Serit sat on a low wooden stool. Her velvet mantle had been hung to dry beside the flue, replaced by a thick grey blanket woven from Mere wool. She held a steaming clay bowl of barley broth between her trembling hands, her face pale and lined with fatigue, yet the silver hair at her temples was already smoothed back with a horn comb.
Across the hearth sat Captain Arda Dorn. Dorn wore no sword belt; her royal commission lay folded in her coat pocket, and her bare leather tunic bore only the pale outline where her captain’s gorget had rested for fifteen years. On her knees rested an oilcloth bundle bound with waxed cord.
“You took a grave risk, Arda,” Lady Serit said softly, blowing the steam from the surface of the broth. “When Vane’s heralds announced you had fled into the hills after the mine collapse, I assumed you were in irons at the river garrison.”
