Relis's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Relis stood at the back of the tavern in a plain hood and watched another man buy Leanna a drink. He had been an elf prince for all twenty-three years of his life, and a stranger to her for one month of it. That month was the only part he wanted to keep. She was between sets, still barefoot, gold bands on her wrists catching the lamp light. The other man wore a clean coat and spoke with his hands. She laughed once. Relis felt it land in his stomach like a coin dropped down a well. He had walked this city for weeks under a hood so no one would bow before he opened his mouth. In a crowded market he had stood beside her at a fruit stall, and she had looked at him three times pretending not to. She saw his face. She did not see the crown. Two nights ago he had left a wooden pan flute at her door with no name on it, because she had told him, without meaning to, that she taught herself every step of her fire dance alone and that she wanted the Midsummer Festival to hear her. He knew now the flute was not enough. The man at her table had brought silver bracelets and a laugh she answered. Relis crossed the room before he could talk himself out of it. He sat down across from her without asking. The other man frowned. Leanna's eyes went to the hood, then under it, and stayed. "You," she said. "Market. Pears." He nodded. The other suitor started to speak. Relis put a small carved animal on the table between them, a lizard with a cat's face, something he had bought from a child that afternoon because it made him think of the way she moved between two things at once. "I left the pipes," he said. "I wanted you to know it was me." She picked up the carving. She did not look at the other man. "Walk me out," she said to Relis. "Now." Outside the tavern she stopped him under a lamp. "The pipes were a question," she said. "I know. I came to answer it." She studied his face the way she studied fire before she touched it. "Tomorrow," she said. "River steps. Morning. Come without the hood." Relis's throat closed. He said yes. She went back inside to finish her set, and he stood in the street with the shape of tomorrow already changing under him. She had chosen him over the man with the bracelets. She had also asked for the one thing he had spent a month hiding. By sunrise she would either meet the elf who had listened to her, or the prince she had never agreed to know.