The Land of the Castoffs

As she was lost in her thoughts, thinking about the nightmare she just lived, the morning light came slowly, bleeding orange into the mist.

The caravan stirred and the guards stretched stiff limbs, rubbed sore joints, and grumbled about dreams and weather.

No one mentioned her. No one asked if she slept well.

They didn't need to.

Rinley didn't speak either. She rolled up the thin mat, fastened her cloak, and mounted her horse again when ordered. Her movements were slower, her gaze quieter, but something in her posture had changed.

She no longer moved like someone who was simply dropped into a world.

She moved like someone carrying something.

The path grew rougher as they continued. Trees closed in tighter, and the dirt road forked into winding trails that led between hills and quiet farmland. The capital was far behind them now.

One guard, a woman with an iron earring and sharp gray eyes, finally rode beside her.

"You don't talk much," the woman said after a while.

"Not much to say."

The guard tilted her head, her eyes studying Rinley closely. "You screamed last night."

Rinley looked ahead, she did not deny it either, since there was a possibility.

"If I did, it wasn't meant for anyone to hear."

The guard watched her for a few moments more, then let the silence return and handed her a soft loaf of bread and a flask of tea.

Rinley blinked in surprise, she was not expecting that, but she did not refuse either, since she had not eaten anything in a while. By midday, the trees opened again. A valley stretched ahead, dotted with fields, smoke rising from clustered homes. Those were a part of the exile lands.

The place where the kingdom threw its forgotten.

A new kind of stage.

And Rinley?

Her eyes narrowed as she took in the state of the place before her, she now realized what harshness she was being forced into.

If the world had chosen, her as its villainess…

Then she would build her own script.

The wheels ground over dry stones, creaking with age. They had been riding for hours, and though no one said it aloud, the air had changed. The trees grew sparser. The sky seemed paler, stretched thinner over hills that looked untouched by royal hands.

Rinley didn't ask how far they were.

The last village they passed had been miles back, a weary place where the roofs sagged and the people looked through them like ghosts.

Now, as they rounded the bend of a narrow ridge trail, the land before them opened into a wide basin, surrounded by rising green hills. A low fog hugged the earth in the distance, though the sun had fully risen.

This was the main part of the exile territory.

But it wasn't what she expected.

She sat up straighter as the horses slowed and the guards muttered under their breath.

A wall of stone encircled the land, not tall, but enough to mark a boundary. Its surface was cracked and chipped, overgrown with vines and moss and behind it, a settlement sprawled across uneven ground.

Wooden buildings. Some tents. Scattered stone homes clustered in rough formation. Small watchtowers dotted the hills.

And people.

Hundreds.

Maybe more.

Men, women, and children. They moved with a quiet rhythm, carrying pails of water, skinning game, trading vegetables at makeshift stalls. They weren't dressed in rags, but they weren't in silks either. There were even guards in weathered armor, though not from the capital.

Rinley blinked.

This wasn't a prison. Not quite.

It was something different.

"This is more like a forgotten kingdom," she muttered.

The captain beside her heard. "Aye. That's one name for it."

The gate creaked open without ceremony. A tall man with a scar across his jaw stood at the entrance, arms folded, a heavy blade slung across his back.

"A new one?" he asked.

The captain nodded. "She's the one from the circle."

The scarred man raised a brow and looked at Rinley for the first time.

His gaze lingered on her prosthetic leg, then shifted to the mark on her wrist. His face didn't betray emotion, just calculation.

"She gets a cabin?"

"She gets what she earns, otherwise nothing at all," the captain replied.

No fanfare. No announcement. Just that simple exchange and the gates closing behind her.

They dismounted the horses and stretched a bit, since her legs ached from the ride, but Rinley said nothing as she followed them toward the settlement's heart.

The path they walked was mostly dirt and broken stone. Small canals had been dug crudely into the land to redirect water from a nearby stream. Children peeked out from windows. Traders eyed her but didn't stop working.

A few murmurs followed her.

Not as loud as in the palace, but heavier.

They didn't know who she was.

But they knew what she was.

An exile.

And maybe worse, however despite that, she could feel there was no judgement, none, which was exactly what surprised her, but it seemed like things were much more different out here than within the confined walls of nobility.

They brought her to a small house at the edge of the settlement, with three walls of stone, one wooden, and a roof that leaned to the right like it had survived a storm or two.

It had a bed of straw, a broken chair, a table, and a water basin.

"Better than most get," the captain offered with a grunt.

Rinley didn't answer; she just looked around the area, then back at the captain and he grunted, to which she stepped inside and stood in the center of the room. Dust curled in the sunlight that bled through the gaps in the wood.

"Someone will fetch you tomorrow," the captain added. "There's work to be done."

She turned her head slightly since she was confused; her mind was swirling with many different things, some she could not quite understand. "Work?"

He looked almost amused at the expression on her face. "You are not here to live like a noble, girl. You will take your place like the rest of the exiles that are here. Little girl, the land doesn't till itself."

And just like that, he left.