Zephyr Nexalis's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Zephyr Nexalis crouched in the wet grass and counted the man following her. One shadow at the well. One under the eaves of the bakery. A third he could not place yet, and the third one worried him most. He had crossed four dead star systems to stand on this street. He would not lose her to a stranger in a hood. Her name was Claire Vesterman. Eleven years ago he had earned a tattoo at a distant star and heard her name spoken there, and heard that she made people feel less alone. The mark still ran black along his lavender forearm. He had come to bring her home to his elders. Their union was forbidden. He needed their blessing anyway. First he needed to reach her without getting her killed. She walked below him now, basket on her hip, unaware. The man at the well moved when she moved. The man under the eaves counted her steps. Zephyr had watched them for three days. Any approach in the open would put a knife in her back before he closed the distance. He went to the one person in this town who owed no one an explanation. The palace witch met him at a side door. Silver hair, a child's face, eyes that had not slept. He had heard the staff call her the captain's witch, and heard also that she brokered favors when it suited her. She looked at his skin and his ink and did not flinch. "You're the tattooed one," Luna Silverweave said. "From the mill." "There is a woman in the market. Three men are hunting her. I need them asleep by dusk." "Names." "I don't have them." "Descriptions, then." She listened while he gave them. She did not write anything down. "The seals last until dawn. That's all I have left since the captain clipped me." "Dawn is enough." "My price is you forget where you got them." "Done." She pressed three wax disks into his palm. They were warm. "Break one against skin. Don't be touching the skin when you do." He found the first man at the well and brushed the seal against his wrist as he passed. The man folded into the trough. Zephyr walked him behind a cart and left him there. The second dropped under the bakery eaves without a sound. Zephyr searched for the third. He was already gone. Zephyr stood in the empty lane with one wax disk left and understood he had bought himself an evening, not a victory. He crossed the square. Claire had stopped beside a tree that wept black ink from its bark, one hand out to catch a drop, curious as a child. He stepped into her line of sight. She looked up. He said her name for the first time out loud, and she did not run.