Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 10 of 19

Sienna was sitting at the roots when she heard boots on the path. Pilgrims never wore boots like that. She looked up and saw a bald man in plate, red cape brushing the moss, beard braided down his chest. He stopped ten paces off and bowed the way her father's guards bowed. Not to a shrine. To her. "Princess," he said, low. "I've been riding six months. Your father is sick. He wants you home." She knew the voice before she placed the face. Elk. He had lifted her onto her first pony. He had stood outside her door the night her mother died. She stood up slow. The pilgrims at the wall had gone quiet. One of them, an old woman with a cup, took a step back and touched her forehead, still believing the story about old blood. Elk saw the gesture and his mouth tightened. "They think you're something," he said. "You're not. You're a girl who ran. Come on, my lady. I won't drag you. I'm asking." Sienna's hands shook against her skirt. Six months of quiet, a ribbon at the roots, a loaf of bread, and one man who knew her since she was four had unmade all of it in a breath. She turned and ran. She ran deeper into the grove, past the wall, toward the old statue at the far end where pilgrims left their smallest offerings. It was a stone man, robed, one hand at her chest, the plinth cracked. Sienna dropped to her knees on the moss. "Please," she said to the stone. "Please. I don't want to go back. Hide me. Do anything. Please." Behind her Elk's boots came steady through the leaves, unhurried, sure of the ending. The grove went silent. Not quiet, silent. No wind, no birds, no boots. A leaf hung above the path without falling. Elk stood with one foot raised, frozen mid-step, dust held around his heel. Sienna looked up. A boy sat on the plinth where the statue had been. White hair, a white robe pinned at one shoulder, sandals, bare arms. He looked about ten. His eyes were older than the stone. He watched her the way a person watches a moth on a lamp, curious, not cruel. "Sienna," he said. He did not ask if it was her name. "What do you want most." She opened her mouth to lie and could not. "A friend," she said. "One real friend. And a life where nobody kneels." The boy nodded once, slow. He tilted his head toward the towering tree behind her, the dark canopy heavy with small blue blooms. "And her," he said. "The one you sit with every day. Tell me about the tree."