The mule's ears flicked back every time she shifted in the saddle, as if the beast had already decided it disliked her. The feeling was entirely mutual. Bai Yuyan had never been one for animals. They were too unpredictable, too smelly, and it took too much effort to control without the right leverage.
People were easier. People you could talk circles around. People were able to be manipulated.
The road was narrow, the ruts frozen hard enough to jar her teeth when the mule slipped on the hidden ice. All around her, the refugees from Baiguang shuffled forward in a slow, exhausted line. It wasn't that hard to tell between her guards and the men that were fleeing for their lives.
Those men had bowed shoulders like they couldn't take their next step. The women were carrying baskets with nothing in them but the memory of what they used to own. Even the children clung to threadbare sleeves, too scared of leaving their mothers to even look around the road.
