A Marriage of Swords
The pretense of the lady was packed away with the lavender gown.
For the first day, they rode in near silence, eating up the miles on the well-maintained post road that led east from the capital. The land was gentle, rolling, quilted with fields and orderly villages. By afternoon on the second day, the land began to shrug. The hills grew steeper, the farms more sparse, the forests thicker and darker. The air grew sharper, tasting of pine and wet stone.
Makil dropped back to ride beside her as the road narrowed into a rocky pass between two shoulders of granite. “We’re crossing into the Marcher Lands,” he said, his voice low. “The King’s peace is thinner here.”