The sun had almost climbed to its peak when the townsman came jogging down the track between the newborn crop fields.

  At this hour, the runner from Yerner should’ve been asleep. Instead, sungoggles were strapped to his eyes, and he was staggering and panting as if he’d unwillingly slowed down from a dead sprint.

  Three fields away, Able spotted him from afar and instinctively knew something was wrong. “Wait, wait,” he said in a haggard breath to Sarah, retracting his thrust. His opposition lowered her parry and languidly followed his gaze to the stumbling figure in the distance. Able noted with inward exasperation at how unruffled the older girl looked for having been at the blade with him for hours.

  “He’s up late,” he remarked, leaning on his sword for support. “He must want something urgent with us.” It was a fair guess. The fields were empty except for them, the guests from the Ormr Order, and the cows—and the man had not likely rushed down here on bovine business.

  “There’s Milly now,” said Sarah. “I’d better go see. Wow, she’s done a lot.”

  Their small group had split up for the morning. While they’d been sparring, Able’s sister had been working in a field on the other side of the road. And now a sizeable portion of it no longer played host to mere seedlings, but showed its true identity as wheat, shafts of yellow up to the knees. As neither Able nor Sarah had learnt any real greenmancy, they hadn’t been able to help. For that matter, Milly had no real duty to Yerner with their crop either. She just wanted to do it.

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  As Able crossed the raw fields, his mind, freed from swordplay, eventually returned to the worries he’d had since early morning (the first dawn of his first visit to a Lemen settlement with his sister). Back to the moment he’d witnessed Milly working her magic on that plot of land. The bewilderment had been hard to hide. Actually, he wasn’t so sure she hadn’t caught it on his face. Was this what she always did when she went away from home to Lemen places? Help them with their crops?

  Perhaps he should’ve known. After all, she’d always been weirdly polite, even kind, to the slaves back home. And people were beginning to wonder where the daughter of the Seventh disappeared off to for weeks at a time.

  Sarah must’ve known all along too. He snuck a look at the tall girl striding beside him. Long brown ponytail, firm muscles, scabbard and mage gear hanging from her belt. Sarah had been Milly’s personal guard for as long as he could remember. And being of the same age, also her best friend.

  But Able supposed even his father couldn’t have predicted she would be enabling his daughter’s strange tendencies rather than protecting her from them. And now the Order leader was worried that her daughter’s peculiarities might be more. That there was a possiblity the future head of the Knights of Ormr could be a Lemen-sympathizer.

  Or so Able guessed.

  Well, wasn’t that partly why father had pushed Milly to let him accompany her on her trips? He was almost a man now. And, the only other person Milly would allow to travel with her. And for good reason had she been so stubborn, now that he’d seen why.

  … Good Dragon, what if his parents or the Order found out?

  The thought rumbled some panic through him. If it got out that Milly wasted her time and energy on Lemens … No; they could never be allowed to find out.

  Able sighed inwardly at the burden of a secret he had to adapt to, and locked it up as they reached the road.

  His problematic sibling turned from the doubled-over Yernersman before they reached her, puzzlement lining her face. “The Mayor wants to see us. Urgently.”