Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 1 of 19

The poster went up on the tavern post while Sienna was buying bread four days into her new life. She saw her own face on the paper before she saw the words. Brown curls, tiara, the same small mole under her right eye. WANTED, in letters as tall as her thumb. Two thousand gold and a winery estate, signed with her father's seal. She kept chewing. She counted to three, tucked the loaf under her arm, and stepped closer like any other curious traveler in the square. A baker's boy read the reward aloud to his friend. A woman in an apron squinted at the drawing and then at Sienna and then back at the drawing. Sienna gave her a tired smile. "Everyone says I look like her," she said. "My cousin swears I could ride to Lorimar and claim it myself." The woman laughed. The baker's boy laughed. Sienna shrugged and mentioned the price of flour. That was all it took. Four days ago she had slipped out of a palace with coins sewn into a plain shift, sure her sister's men were an hour behind her. Now three strangers were laughing at a joke about her own bounty. Lying, it turned out, was the one skill her tutors had accidentally taught her well. She worked the crowd loose the way she had worked court. She agreed the nose was similar. She pointed out that the poster girl wore silk and she wore linen with a burn hole at the cuff. She asked a farrier if two thousand gold would even fit in a cart. By the time she drifted back toward the mill where she had found work, the poster was still on the post and no one under it was looking for her. She let herself feel it for one breath: she had done it alone, with a smile, and no one had touched her. A friend, she thought. She could stay long enough to make one real friend here. That was the whole plan. She did not see the man in the black coat across the square. He stood in the shadow of an awning with his hands folded, watching her mouth move. His mustache was new, and it changed his face enough that even she would not have known him. Amelio D'agrane had come to Embermere on other business and stopped only because a poster caught his eye. He had watched her lie to four people in a row. He had watched them believe her. No one had hired him for this one. He would not need a contract to follow her to the weathered wooden mill by the river, or to wait by its slow water wheel until he was sure. He tipped his hat to a passing merchant and stepped off the curb after her.