The afternoon was longer.

She was aware this was not literally true. The afternoon was the same length as all other afternoons. It simply did not behave that way.

The road began to rise in the third hour after the midday stop, the chalky hills giving way to something stonier and less even. Arvel navigated it without difficulty. Seralyn navigated it by the application of considerable will and the complete absence of any visible expression. The ache in her lower back had graduated to something she did not have a polite word for. The inside of both thighs felt as though they had been introduced to a new and unflattering reality and had not yet made their peace with it.

She did not slow. She did not ask the column to stop. She rode.

The road narrowed as it climbed, the verge dropping away on the right into a shallow gully choked with dry scrub. Arvel picked her way along it without hesitation, her footing certain on the uneven ground, and Seralyn was grateful for this in a way she could not have articulated without admitting more than she intended to.

Cassius spoke to her three times in the afternoon — once to indicate a landmark that meant they were making good time, once to point out where the road to the Selvar crossing diverged from the main route, and once, in the second hour, to ask whether she wanted water from the skin his steward was passing along the front of the column.

"Yes," she said. "Thank you."

He passed it to her and watched, without appearing to watch, while she drank. She handed it back. He said nothing. She looked at the road ahead and adjusted her position in the saddle for what she had stopped counting.

She responded appropriately to all of it. She was proud of this in a way she would never have articulated.

By the third hour the stonier ground had evened out again into a long flat track through scrubland, the oaks beginning to appear on either side in greater numbers, and the light had started its early autumn thinning. She was aware of Cassius to her left with the same peripheral attention she had maintained all day. He had not commented on her position in the saddle. He had not commented on the frequency with which she had adjusted it. She had been keeping a private account of both these things and the account remained, for now, in credit.

Then he said: "How is your back."

She kept her eyes on the road. "It is fine."

"You have been shifting your weight for the past two hours."

She said nothing immediately.

"I am not raising it to embarrass you," he said. "I am raising it because we have four more days of riding before the terrain flattens and I would like to know if I need to adjust the pace."

She looked at him. He was watching the road ahead, his expression matter-of-fact.

"It is sore," she said. "That is all. It is the expected consequence of the first day."

"Yes," he said. "It is." A pause. "If it worsens, tell me. Not for your sake only — a rider in significant pain is a liability on difficult terrain. It is a practical concern."

She recognised this for what it was — the concern reframed as logistics so that she could accept it without concession. She was not certain whether to find it useful or irritating. She settled on useful.

"I will tell you," she said.

"Good." He looked forward again. "The way-station is less than an hour."

Less than an hour. She breathed through the next stride, and the one after that, and kept her back straight and her hands quiet and did not count the minutes.

The way-station appeared as the light was thinning, set back from the road among a stand of old oaks. Stone-built, low-roofed, functional. Exactly what he had said it would be.

The column stopped. She waited until Cassius had dismounted and moved to speak with his steward before she attempted it herself. She put her left foot down first and transferred her weight and swung her right leg clear and her left knee, in that moment, expressed a clear and specific objection that travelled directly up into her hip before she got both feet on the ground. She did not make a sound. She stood with her hand on Arvel's neck for a moment while the groom approached for the reins, and she breathed in once through her nose, and then she straightened.

She released Arvel to the groom and walked toward the way-station at a pace she would describe as measured. She was aware that measured and careful were not the same word. She was doing her best with the distinction.

"Seralyn."

She stopped. Cassius was six feet behind her.

She turned.

He was looking at her with the expression she had learned to read — attentive, direct, not performing anything in either direction. He had clearly seen her dismount. She did not know how much of it he had read.

"The first day is always the worst of it," he said. "Your body is not accustomed to it yet."

She held his gaze. "I am perfectly capable."

"I did not say otherwise." A pause. "You did well today. The terrain in the second half was uneven and you did not once ask the column to slow." He said it plainly, without embellishment. "There is a liniment in my supply pack. For muscle soreness. It is what the soldiers use. I will have it sent to our room."

She looked at him for a moment.

"That would be useful," she said. "Thank you."

He nodded once and turned back toward the column.

She watched him go. He had not made anything of it — had not pressed for a concession or catalogued her difficulty for future reference. He had simply offered the practical thing and moved on. And before that he had given her the warning about the terrain ahead dressed as concern for the column, which had allowed her to receive it without having to decide what to do with it.

She turned back toward the way-station door.

She was going to feel this tomorrow. She was quite certain she was going to feel it the day after as well. Three weeks was a long time, and her body currently held a different opinion about that than it had this morning.

But she had made the first day. That was something. It was not nothing.

She went inside.