Chapter One

Chapter One

     A light was left on in the east wing of the Castle Qent, flickering guiltily on the desk of the Princess Lenetta. She was writing frantically, her quill pen scratching across the page. The writing was spidery, as was Lennetta herself, being an unusually tall and dark and gangly sort for a princess. A door creaked shut somewhere deep in the castle, and Lenetta’s head jerked up. She looked around the stone room quickly, then went to the heavy wooden door of her bedchamber with her candle. She cracked it open as silently as she could. The darkness was complete in the corridor, save for the ribbon of light that slipped from her candle out the cracked door.

 

     Lenetta quickly closed the door after looking left and right down the corridor and finding it empty. She returned the candle to the desk and walked slowly to the window. She pulled back the velvet curtain just enough so she could look out, but the new moon made it impossible for her to see anything. She closed the velvet drapes and returned to her desk. She picked her quill up from the inkwell where she had put it and began writing again.

 

     She never saw the shadow detach itself from her wall. A hand gently stroked her hair and she jumped. She looked up at the figure behind her, startled, and opened her mouth to scream. But before she could, her hair was pulled roughly back and her throat opened in a flood of red that soaked into the white silk of her nightgown.

 

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     Wren looked like a boy, if you didn’t look at her face too closely. She was entirely too flat-chested to look her sixteen years, and her short hair stuck up in every direction. It might have been red underneath the dirt, but then again, it might have been that brown happened to be its natural tone. She wore too many clothes, all of which were too large for her, and her face was constantly smudged with dirt.

 

     This was all done on purpose, however. Well, apart from the flat-chested part. That was just luck. Wren had been alone as long as she could remember, even when her mother had been alive. And after she had died five years ago, well, there was no future for a poor eleven-year-old girl. At least, none that were good. So Wren had cut off her long hair and went without bathing. She bound her chest and wore baggy clothes, so no one would guess she was a girl and traveled to a village a few miles away, where nobody knew her. After five years of living in the shadows, she had forgotten what her face looked like when it was clean. She had forgotten the color of her hair. She had even almost forgotten her name, as no one used it anymore, and no one had in nearly five years. Those few whom she introduced herself to knew her as simply Waif, and in a whisper. She would never say anything else, afraid her voice would give her away.

 

     If you did happen to look at her face closely and for quite a bit, you would notice certain things, though. Her grey-green eyes were a large, elegant almond shape, and her eyelashes were long and dark and thick. Her nose was small, but her lips were full. Her face was heart-shaped. If it were not for the dirt, if she had a decent bath and proper care and perhaps a tad more to eat (though she rarely went hungry and was quite adept at finding food) she might have even been pretty. Well, maybe.

 

     Waif walked through the market. The air was crisp and cool, but not cold any longer. Spring was not far away. It was barely past dawn, but stalls were already set up and here and there people were wandering around the Square. Waif liked the chaos of the market later in the day, but the mornings were what she loved, when it was cool and foggy and quiet, and it felt as if she were part of a secret that only the stall-keepers and the few other villagers were allowed to know. The Spring Bazaar would not be quiet for much longer, though. In just a couple hours it would be chaos, and Waif’s work would begin. When people filled the Square it was easy to get food enough for several days, and sometimes even jewelry or goods that she needed or could trade for what she needed.

 

     She was not alone in this mission, but she was not surprised. Many others always showed up, and as the next three hours went by, Waif saw that this year would be no different. The stall-keepers were crying their wares, their shouts mingling. Villagers were crowding the streets. The Square was chaos now, the perfect time for her, and the rest, to begin their silent thievery. Throughout the bazaar she noticed a boy watching her, but concentrated on her work.

 

     By the end of the day, Waif had more food than she had ever managed to gather before, partially due to a pack that she had bought with money she had saved up for that very purpose. She sat in a tree just outside the Square, eating an apple, and watched the stall-keepers pack up and the gypsies form caravans and fade into the darkness outside the village. It had been a good day. Waif climbed down from the tree and walked through the remaining stalls being taken down in the Square. She headed for the small encampment just on the edge of the village, past the inn. The haven was always especially full after the Spring Bazaar. Waif wove and ducked around and through tents and small fires and bedrolls laid out on the ground until she reached her own makeshift tent.

 

     She slung her pack into a crate beside her own pile of blankets and replaced the blanket that separated her tent from the rest of the camp. She pulled food and other items she’d pilfered out of her pockets and sleeves and tossed them into the crates, one for food and one for other things she’s stolen. Out of the bottom of the crate of other goods, Waif retrieved a small box with a lid. It held the things she managed to steal that were really valuable, like jewelry. At that moment it held only two rings that were only simple bands and a silver broach. Waif reached into a pocket and pulled out a small silver necklace with a small pendant that was made of a purple marbled stone, though she couldn’t tell what kind it was. She also pulled out various small stones. She put them carefully in the box and hid it again before pulling off layers of clothing until she wore only a long-sleeved wool tunic and a pair of cloth leggings. Then she crawled into the pile of blankets and went to sleep. She dreamt of the bird again. He was raven, with shiny black feathers. He was staring at her, with strange eyes. She couldn’t place what was strange about them. He stared for a long time, then finally flew away, leaving behind something shiny. Waif walked over to it. It was a necklace: a long silver chain with a green stone that seemed to glow. Then she realized what was strange about the raven. His eyes were green. The same green as the stone.

 

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     The shadowy figure picked up the pages the princess had been writing on with an evil smirk. Then he realized they were not written in Common, but a code. The smirk instantly disappeared as he realized he should have kept her alive, at least until he knew the pages were in Common, or until she told them the code. Not only that, but there was a nasty spray of blood on the last page that partially obscured a couple of lines of writing.

 

     Oh, bugger.

 

     His employer was not going to be happy, which meant he wasn’t going to be either. He grimaced, then carefully blotted the blood-stained page before folding the papers and making them disappear into an inside pocket of his black coat. Then he left the way he had come.

 

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     Locke had the incredibly aggravating and somewhat useful ability to see through lies of any variety, including half-truths and trickery. It took him until he was about five to realize that he was the only one with the ability. It took him until he was about twelve to learn not to correct people or point out a lie every time he saw one. Now at eighteen, he knew how to keep things to himself and had learned how to see what other people saw, as well as what he saw.

 

     He watched people walk around the Square. He was always amused by them. Locke tended to draw a fair amount of attention to himself, being tall and fairly handsome, if a bit rumpled-looking. He dropped off his dagger at the blacksmith’s to be sharpened and wandered around, making polite conversation with a stall-keeper or two. That’s when he saw the girl.

 

     He saw it immediately, but realized a second later that he was probably the only one who did: she was clearly dressed to look like a boy. She was, quite adeptly, stealing items from various stalls she passed. It was mostly food, but he also noticed a necklace disappear into a pocket somewhere in the recesses of her many layers of clothes, along with some scraps of leather, a small dagger, some small stones, and other various objects. He was intrigued, and followed her around the market. He noticed her looking back at him three or four times, but then ignoring him to concentrate.

 

     Locke watched her for a long time. She lingered at one of the gypsies’ stalls, where various herbs were hanging. He stopped with his back to her, pretending to look closely at various spices in a stall across the way. The girl didn’t speak, but the gypsy seemed to be answering her. Locke turned a little to watch. The girl was pointing at various herbs. Locke recognized some of them; thyme, rosemary, chamomile, peppermint, comfrey root, and ginger. The girl was looking through her pockets, and pulled out a couple of coins. She held them out to the gypsy woman, but the woman shook her head. It wasn’t enough. The girl made a sign that seemed to mean ‘a trade’. The woman shook her head. The girl sighed and left.

 

     Locke watched her meander along the gypsies’ stalls, noticing that she didn’t steal anything from the gypsies. She lingered at a stall and ran her fingers along a bone comb, with a carving of a bird on a background of Celtic knots. She smile for an instant, then turned and went back to the main Square, away from the gypsies.

Locke reached into the pocket of his leather breeches. He still had rather a lot of money left over. He thought for a minute, then turned to the stall with the comb.

 

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     The Raven cocked her head, watching the girl. She looked like a boy now, but the Raven remembered her. She was not the only one watching her. A tall boy with brown hair and brown eyes was following her at a distance. Neither of them noticed the black bird.

 

     She watched them for a long while. She made a satisfied noise in her throat as she watched the boy buy the comb. It had begun. The Raven flew away.