She gets jostled by a few soldiers passing by - and then as she's debating moving, a familiar voice comes up behind her. "You're gonna become a statue if you keep standing in one place, Svetka," her friend says, stepping up until their shoulders brush.

"That only happens to bad girls, in the stories. Like you, Val."

"I think I'm more likely to be the villain than the naughty maiden who needs a lesson."

"Depends who's telling the story."

"Maybe a little."

"But I bet they'd all agree you're the maiden in your stories."

"I am the paragon of pure and virtuous."

"You might be in those morality tales, then. The one girl who doesn't get turned into a statue. An example for the rest of us on the value of resisting temptation and being pretty."

"I think pretty is supposed to a side effect, not the goal."

"Don't know about that. All those morality tales start with how pretty the maiden is as a very central feature."

"So that people like you will pay attention."

Hum. "A point in my villainy column."

"Guess so."

She laughs. "C'mon, let's get moving to camp."

"Okay." Svetka will allow herself to be turned away from the vista.

And onwards, down the road to the encampment. 

- But they don't get far before Val wraps her arms around Svetka and yanks her off the road, nearly stumbling into the ditch.

Eep!

Svetka's ears ring and then pop, a weird bubble of something beyond silence, a strange un-noise enveloping them - 

Soldiers spill off the road in a scramble, the noise from their shouts of alarm, the scuffle of their boots, jangling metal or dropped bags faltering and twisting away. Val and Svetka were the first ones off, and it's probable Val's sudden movement alerted others to look around. 

Because coming down the road is a black carriage pulled by black horses. They should be making a racket. They shouldn't be moving that fast; the horses' gait is a walk, not a trot or canter or anything that could justify how quickly they move, as if the very road wants to hurry them along, get them off it.

They aren't, and they pass in perfect silence, a wave of pressure squeezing down on Svetka's entire body as she glimpses a sliver of a pale face for a moment between fluttering black curtains. 

And then they're past, rapidly heading towards Kribirsk, and the wave of un-sound collapses in a chaotic mess, distorted sounds coming back in and tumbling over each other before they sort into anything even vaguely coherent. 

"-What was that?"

"The Darkling," she says, voice tight and strange. "Leader of the Second Army."

"Why's she here?" she wonders.

"Well. We're crossing the Fold with a lot of her men, aren't we? A critical mission, what with the shortages."

(The newer sand-skiffs should be quieter. Faster. Enable more trade than what they're getting. But it's not making as big a difference as it should, not yet, not with war rumbling on their other borders and lean year after lean year hunkering down over them.)

(But they haven't sent this many soldiers, this many grisha, in recent memory, and whatever attempts came before are solidly in the realm of political amnesia.)

"I guess that makes sense..."

And speaking of more of her men, another carriage comes rattling along the road, louder than the first and chased in blue rather than black.

A woman observes through the window with a moderately interested expression. She catches Valeriya's eyes in passing.

 - Wow.

Val's maybe staring at that carriage now.