Chapter 49

For two days Emilia rode hard to Intavia, tears blinded her eyes at intervals but for the help of the stable boy she would have run headlong into rocks numerous times. Her heart was shriveling from the weight of her sorry, she wanted so much to cry out and vent at the gods, to ask why was being dealt with such cruel blows when she never did anything to deserve it. She cried for the loss of her home, for the birth of a child she didn’t want anything to do with and the death of a governess who was more of a mother than a worker. She couldn’t even stop along the way to eat she feared she would not stomach anything going into her mouth but when the stable boy needed to eat something and relief himself she let him go, giving him some more coins to take care of his needs. They got to the Intavia border in the dead of the night when the city had gone to sleep. The guards at the tower who were half asleep were awoken by the clop of their horses’ hooves.