Breukelen's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Breukelen's cheeks were glowing again, and the wolves were coming back. She crouched beside me at the edge of the pink-and-blue mansion's garden wall, one hand clamped over her face, trying to smother the light. It didn't help. The glitter she painted on every morning had been ordinary powder yesterday. Then a hedge-witch two villages back had told her to stop following me. Breukelen had laughed and skipped past her. Now the paint burned like lantern glass after sundown, and every hungry thing in the forest walked straight toward it. "I can scrub it," she whispered. "I tried. It's under the skin now." She had left her father's elven house without a word, chosen me on a road three weeks ago, and sworn she'd earn her place at my side. I hadn't agreed yet. I hadn't said no either. Tonight the cost of keeping her was measured in teeth. Something crashed in the hedges below the grand staircase. A white fox trotted out of the dark, fur bright with real fire, small flames curling off its shoulders. It stopped at the bottom step and stared up at Breukelen's face like it had found a second sun. "Don't move," I said. Breukelen moved. She stood up slowly, hands open, and walked down three steps toward the burning fox. "You're beautiful," she told it, honest as a child. "I need the curse off. Please." The fox tilted its head. Then a second creature slid out of the flowers beside it, foxlike, its body wrapped in purple bell-shaped blossoms that swayed as it walked. The two animals circled each other, then circled her. The flower-fox rose on its hind legs and pressed its blooming muzzle against Breukelen's cheek. The fire-fox breathed a thin line of flame across the other side. Breukelen flinched but held still. The glitter hissed. The light on her skin dimmed, dimmed, went out. Her cheeks were bare. Pink, ordinary, human. She laughed once, shaky. "Oh. Oh, that's better." Both foxes sat down at her feet and did not leave. A horn sounded from inside the mansion behind us. Then another, closer. Not wolves. Riders. I turned and saw torches climbing the drive, gold thread catching the light on the lead rider's coat, and a young man at the front I recognized from the coin side of every notice board between here and the coast. Oryn Pale. Engaged heir. He was looking straight at Breukelen, and at the two impossible animals sitting guard at her ankles. "You," he called down, reining in. "The half-elf girl. Who owns those creatures?" Breukelen glanced at me, bright-eyed, already grinning. "We do," she said. I hadn't said yes to that either. It was too late now. The curse was lifted. The forest was quiet. And a man with a country's politics stitched into his coat had just decided we were worth stopping for.