like a sharp bright piece broken from a star

Back home, the court moved. Breguswith had explained it to Hild once, when she was a child and adamantly against such constant travel. She wanted to stay in a place long enough to learn its habits, to discover its secret places, to feel it with her whole skin. But as her mother pointed out, a king could not remain in one area for so long, not if he wished to keep his thegns in line with his powerful presence and keep his court from eating those thegns out of house and home. And so they had drifted from castle to castle, following the shifting seasons, keeping time with the different vills. Bebbanburg, Yeavering, Tinamutha, once, Brough, Sancton, Goodmanham, York.

But time did not need a changing landscape to move on. Hild found herself on the cusp of fall, without York, for the first time in more than a decade. Darrow did not have York's sweet apples or pears, nor its wars. It did have something called a pumpkin spice latte, however, which was almost as delicious as the overexcited barista had told Hild it would be. She had ordered two if only to calm the woman, but she had reasoned that anything that garnered such praise, mostly earnest, had to be passing good.

Balancing a tray of coffees and a few scones in one hand, Hild texted a few of her friends with the other, inviting them each to join her in the park, if they had the time. The first to arrive could have the spare latte. So she said. Hild had every intention of ensuring that each of her friends could share in the pumpkin spiced goodness.