Hazel stood at the edge of the packhouse gates.

No pack. No cloak. No weapon.

Just the thin clothes she’d worn yesterday and a small satchel with a waterskin and a piece of bread. The guards hadn’t stopped her. Orders were orders. Exile at dawn.

The air bit her lungs. It was colder than it had been in weeks, and the wind cut through her like knives. She pulled the thin fabric of her shirt tighter around herself and stepped past the iron gates.

Behind her, the packhouse doors stayed shut.

Alaric hadn’t come.

She hadn’t expected him to.

He can’t, she told herself. If he follows me, he loses...