Lyrien Nightwalker's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

The winged creature led Lyrien for two days into the hills. On the third dawn it dropped to the roof of a mossy brown cottage. A white fence stood before it, its slats grayed with age. A small black-and-white lynx sat on the top rail, tail curled, blue eyes fixed on the king. Lyrien dismounted. His hands shook. He knew this face waited behind the door. He did not know her name. He had chased a memory for years and could not name it. He knocked. The door opened. A tall young woman stood there. Long black hair. Blue eyes. A ragged white dress hung from her thin shoulders. His breath stopped. It was her face, older but the same. Yet forty women had worn borrowed faces before. He had no proof. A name would prove nothing either, he realized. He had never known it. "You are the king," she said. Flat. Not a question. "I am Lyrien." His voice cracked. "I am looking for a girl I met at a market when I was a boy." She studied him. "Many men look for things." He could ask her the flower. He could ask what she said. But pretenders had learned both. He needed something no liar could carry. He stepped closer. "You wiped dirt off my face. With your sleeve." Her jaw tightened. "Anyone could say that." "Then you tell me," he said. "What did I say that made you laugh?" She went still. For a long moment she only looked at him. Then she spoke the words. The exact words. The ones he had never told a living soul, not his father, not Thomas, not the forty women in his hall. Lyrien's knees nearly buckled. No one else knew. No one could. "It is you," he said. "It is really you." "Elara," she said. "My name is Elara. I did not know yours until now." He had the name at last. He had her. The lynx dropped from the fence and wound between them. But she did not smile. She stepped back, one hand on the doorframe. "You should not have come." "I have searched for years." "Then you searched for a lie." Her voice stayed level. "The woman who raised me is not my mother. She took me as a child. From a king and queen, in another realm." She looked past him, toward the road. "She will be back before dark. If she finds you here, she will move me again. Farther than you can follow." Lyrien's joy turned cold. He had found her, and now he could lose her within the hour. "Then come with me. Now." Elara did not move. "If I run, she hunts. She has done it before." She met his eyes. "You found the girl. You have not found a way to keep her."