Oryn Pale's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Oryn left the study without asking to leave. His father did not stop him. The ledger stayed closed on the desk, but the numbers stayed open in his head. A cook. A tenant. His riding tutor. He walked past the ballroom without going in and took the servants' stair down to the side door. He had until midnight. He had a girl at the orchard gate who had kept a ring he gave her through a fox. He had no horse waiting, no coin sewn into his coat, no house at the end of any road. He had a signed contract in his father's drawer and debts spread across people who had raised him. He stopped at the boot room and stripped the gold stitching off his coat with a paring knife. He cut the ceremonial braid off the shoulders. He left the coat looking like any coat. He kept the knife. On the gravel path behind the kitchen garden, a small figure sat on the low wall. Pink dress. Purple hair down past her waist. Pointed ears. He had seen her earlier in the ballroom near Breukelen, standing in a window without eating anything. She was watching him now the way someone watches a clock. "You're going to the gate," she said. "Who are you." "Glitter Bug. I tend nightbloom. It grows where things die." She swung her feet. "Your father sent two men down the orchard road ten minutes ago." Oryn's stomach dropped. "Why tell me." "You gave the fox a ring. The fox belongs to a friend." She shrugged. "Go the back way. Through the south hedge. The hedge has a gap by the stone bench." "What do you want for it." "Nothing tonight." He believed her because she did not sell it. He started to run. He took the south hedge. He found the gap. He came out into the orchard from the wrong side and cut through the rows in the dark. Apples brushed his shoulder. He heard the two men on the main path, boots on gravel, going the long way. He reached the gate first. She was already there. She had the ring on her hand. She had a satchel at her feet and a stableman's cloak over her dress. She looked at his stripped coat and did not ask. "I have nothing," Oryn said. "No house. No money. My father will call in every debt he spread through the staff to punish me." "I know," she said. "I brought a horse." "It won't be a soft life." "I didn't ask for one." He put his hand over hers on the gate. The two men's boots turned onto the orchard road behind him. He heard them coming. He climbed the gate. They rode out before the men reached the bend. He had left the manor with nothing, and he had left with her. The debts stayed behind him, uncollected, waiting.