Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 18 of 19

Sienna left Konda's hall with the slip folded in her palm and a plan already forming. If she was going home, she would not go as a mill girl in a stained apron. She would walk in as her mother's daughter. That meant a dress no dyer could afford, and it meant buying it in the one place she had spent months avoiding. The market. Clementine walked beside her without asking. Sienna was grateful she did not have to explain. The posters were still up. Sienna counted four before they reached the cloth stalls. Her own face stared out from the timber posts, brown hair curled, a thin crown drawn in ink, the wax seal pressed at the bottom in dark red. Two thousand gold. A winery. She kept her hood low and her eyes on the mud. "The moment I try a gown on," she said, "someone matches me to the paper." Clementine looked at the nearest poster, then at Sienna. "Then buy it fast. Pay and go." They found the stall at the far end. The gown hung on a wooden form, blue and red with gold thread on the bodice, a stiff collar that framed the neck, black boots set beneath the hem. It was made for someone who wanted to be seen. Sienna touched the sleeve and knew it would fit. She added long black gloves from the next hook and a pair of plain traveling cloaks to cover the color. She counted coins from the pouch at her hip. The seller's eyes moved to her face, then to the poster on the post behind her, then back. Sienna smiled the way she had been trained to smile at court. She paid double and walked out before the woman could speak. Behind the mill, in the shed where they kept dye vats, Sienna changed. The corset pulled tight. The boots laced to her knees. Clementine tied the back panels and did not soften anything. "You look like the poster now," she said. "You look like more than the poster." Sienna pulled the gloves up past her elbows. Her hands stopped shaking inside them. She told Clementine what she had not said out loud yet. Her sister, Princess Cecilia of Lorimar, had waited years for Sienna to slip. Cecilia would already be moving under their father's sickbed, buying captains, drafting orders, preparing a war she could blame on the scourge when it came. Sienna did not want the throne. She had never wanted it. But if the crown was step one on the slip, and if the barrier would not hold without it, then Cecilia could not have it. Clementine handed her the folded cloak. "Then we go at dawn." Sienna nodded. The mill girl was finished. In the morning she would ride north as herself.