Emberlin Kitt's Arc

Chapter 3 of 2

Emberlin reached the crossroads before the court's rider did. Lilly was already mounted, Morin on her back, her horse turned toward the capital. She would not look at him. "You know what I have to say," she said. "The leak was contained. Not by you. Lycoris holds it now." She gathered her reins. "The court will hear you failed. I can't dress it up." "Then don't ride." He grabbed her stirrup. "Give me a day." "You've had your day." She was his friend. That was why she said it to his face. "I serve the crown first. You taught me that." She kicked the horse and left him in the mud. Emberlin stood in the cold and did the sum. Once Lilly reached the court, his name was finished. They would not accept him as the queen's kin. They would hunt him as the servant who lost her secret. His face was known in the royal city. He needed a new one. He had heard of a witch in these mountains. A stone hut, mossy, vines across the door. He found it by a shingle roof and a crooked board above the frame. He pushed through hanging herbs into warmth. Seven cats scattered. A woman bent over a wooden table crowded with mortars and small vials. Teal and gold robes, blonde plaits tight against dark skin, white paint around her eyes. She set down a pestle and fed a cat a scrap before she turned. "Flita Fiona Dazzle," Emberlin said. "They said you were court before you came here." Her dark eyes moved over him once. "They say too much." "I need a new face. Hair, skin, anything. Enough that the royal city won't know me." She crossed to a row of simple cots and stood between him and a canopy bed draped in teal. "You're running from the crown." "Yes." "I ran from a northern one." She studied his face the way she might read a wound. "The queen is your kin." He felt the lie forming in his own throat and let it die. "She is. She's never said it to anyone but me." Something shifted behind her eyes. She knew dying queens and their secrets. She said nothing about it. "Sit." He sat on the nearest cot. She ground roots and bark, mixed in a vial, and tipped his chin up. The paste burned cold on his skin. "It holds a month," she said. "Hair grows pale. Skin goes gray. Hazel eyes turn dull. Your own mother wouldn't stop you in the street." She held up a small mirror. A stranger looked back. Ashen, washed out, a man no soldier would salute. "The crown wants a halfling with olive skin and hazel eyes," Flita said. "That man is gone now. Pay me, and keep walking." Emberlin set the coins on her healing table. The queen's cousin had a new face, and no place at her side to return to.