East, towards the City.

A country girl all her life, Shairi had heard stories of the big city. Her sister, Imagel, had gone there to become a whore, and Shairi had always wanted to go there. It’d be easy to find money there, too. And there were supposed to be whole universities of mages, so finding a magical tutor would be easy.

She circled round to the road, whistling to herself. One advantage of travelling light was that she made good progress. As night fell, she saw the lights of an inn up ahead. She didn’t relish the idea of sleeping wild, so she walked towards it. Of course, having no money would be a problem, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

She knocked on the door and was shown into the tap room. She ordered a glass of wine for herself and a saucer of milk for Queiss. Taking a seat, she looked around.

The inn wasn’t crowded. A pair of mercenaries sat at one of the tables. The innkeeper seemed scared of them, and didn’t intervene as they leered and made crude comments at the pretty girl – his daughter – who was serving them the drinks her brother fetched from the cellar. They were also eyeing up the other girl in the bar, a redhead whose bright clothes would have proclaimed her a bard even if the lute she was tuning didn’t.

Another customer caught her eye, though – one sitting in the corner, with a hooded cloak drawn tight around them so that no details could be made out. It made Shairi suspicious. But perhaps she was being paranoid – surely no one her mistress had sent could have caught up to her yet?