The groom held Arvel steady while Seralyn mounted. She did it correctly — left foot in the stirrup, weight up and over, right leg clearing the mare's back without incident. Arvel shifted once beneath her, a small adjustment of weight, and then stilled. Seralyn settled into the saddle and gathered the reins and did not look around to see if anyone had watched.

Cassius was already mounted. He rode a dark bay, considerably larger than Arvel, and he sat it with the same settled quality he brought to everything — no particular effort visible, no self-consciousness about being observed. He glanced at her once as she drew up alongside him and said nothing, which she was grateful for.

The column began to move.

They rode out through the palace gates at a walk, the horses' hooves loud on the paved approach and then quieter as the road changed to packed earth beyond the outer wall. Seralyn did not look back. She had decided this earlier, somewhere between the entrance hall and the courtyard — that she would not look back, because there was no version of looking back that ended well, and she was not going to give herself the option.

The road south of Vaelthos ran along the clifftops for the first mile before curving inland. The sea was immediately to the right — or rather, the drop to it was, the limestone edge cutting the sky in a clean white line. The morning light came off the water at a low angle and made everything too bright to look at directly.

She had ridden this road before. In shorter stretches, in pleasant weather, for no particular purpose. It felt entirely different from the front of a column with Drevorn at the other end of it.

"The road is good for the first two days," Cassius said. He was not looking at her, but he was addressing her — pitched low enough that it was a conversation between them rather than an announcement. "After the river crossing the terrain changes. Today will be the easiest of it."

"I appreciate the information," she said.

He nodded and said nothing further, and they rode.

The first hour was fine.

She was honest enough with herself to track it in hours, because that was the only measure that was going to be useful over three weeks, and she had always preferred useful measures to comfortable ones. The first hour was fine. Arvel moved smoothly, her gait even and unhurried, and the road was good and the morning cool, and Seralyn sat correctly in the saddle and kept her eyes forward and thought: this is manageable.

The first hour was fine.

She was honest enough with herself to track it in hours, because that was the only measure that was going to be useful over three weeks, and she had always preferred useful measures to comfortable ones. The first hour was fine. Arvel moved smoothly, her gait even and unhurried, and the road was good and the morning cool, and Seralyn sat correctly in the saddle and kept her eyes forward and thought: this is manageable.

Thessaly rode two lengths back on a steady brown cob, straight-backed and composed, giving no indication that she found anything about the situation remarkable. Seralyn had not asked how much experience Thessaly had on horseback. She suspected, from the ease of it, that the answer was considerably more than her own.

The road ran along the clifftop for the first stretch, the sea to the right catching the early light, too bright to look at directly. The column moved at a walk. Cassius rode to her left, his attention moving at intervals across the road ahead, the wagons behind, the tree line where it began to appear on the inland side.

"The column will hold this pace until midday," he said, not looking at her. "We will not push the horses on the first day."

"What is the pace on subsequent days?"

"The same, largely. We are not a military column. Speed is less important than arriving in good order." He glanced briefly toward the wagons. "The wagons set the pace in any case. There is no point in the riders outrunning the supplies."

"How long before the terrain changes?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. The road is good through most of Aelundra's interior. It is after the Selvar crossing that it becomes variable."

She nodded and looked at the road ahead. The chalk hills were beginning to rise on the inland side, pale and dry, the silver-leafed olive groves terraced up their slopes in long horizontal lines. She had seen this view her entire life from the Solathis. From this angle, at this pace, it looked different — larger, somehow, and less familiar.

They rode in silence for a while. It was not an uncomfortable silence. She had established, over eleven days in the Solathis, that Cassius did not fill silence for the sake of filling it, which she found restful in a way she had not expected.

The second hour was also, largely, fine. There was a tightness developing along the inside of her thighs that she noted and catalogued and set aside. That was normal. That was the expected consequence of riding for people who did not ride habitually. It would ease once her body adjusted.

"What is Halor Keep like in autumn?" she said.

Cassius considered this for a moment. "Cold," he said. "Earlier than you will expect. The forest holds the chill once the temperature drops, and it drops quickly in September."

"I have warm clothes."

"Good." A pause. "The keep itself is well-heated. My mother does not tolerate the cold well and my father has spent thirty years ensuring she does not have to."

She looked at him. "Lady Maren Vaelmore of House Halor."

"Yes."

"What is she like?"

He was quiet for a moment in the considering way that meant he was going to give her a real answer rather than a diplomatic one. "Warm," he said. "Genuinely so, not as a performance. She manages the household and has done so for as long as I can remember with a thoroughness that my father would struggle to match in his own domain and is wise enough to know it." A pause. "She will want to know everything about you. She will ask directly. I thought it worth mentioning."

"I do not mind direct questions."

"No," he said. "I did not think you would."

The road curved slightly, the clifftop dropping away as the track moved inland. The sea disappeared behind the rise of the hills and the morning changed quality — less salt in the air, more earth, the smell of dry grass and old stone.

"And your father?" she said.

"My father is not unlike the keep," he said. "Austere from the outside. Sound throughout." He looked at the road ahead. "He will treat you with respect. He treated my mother with respect from the day they were married and has not varied from it since. You will not find him warm in the way she is warm. But you will find him fair."

"That is sufficient," she said.

He glanced at her. "Most people say it is not enough."

"Most people confuse warmth with fairness," she said. "They are not the same quality. I would rather have the latter reliably than the former inconsistently."

He said nothing immediately. Then: "Yes. That is the correct assessment of him."