His frozen gaze was fixed on the garments next to her. Raising her eyebrow, she examined them too. The stays looked nothing out of the ordinary, with their white laces and boned panels of pale pink. And neither did the simple, embroidered ribbons she used as garters.
Inquisitor Velten shook his head, then looked away, ears flushing. “No. We need speed. A carriage would slow us down too much. Find me outside once you are done, and hurry. We leave within the hour.” Before she could react, Inquisitor Velten walked toward the doorway. “That goes for you too, Venators. Fix the door and leave the witch alone to pack. Do not approach her, or you shall answer to me.”
Semras blinked, watching him leave with growing perplexity. The skin of his nape had turned red—a remnant of his previous anger at his men, perhaps.
Inquisitor Velten disappeared outside, and she looked down at her stays. Frowning, she returned them inside the drawer. She was a poor rider, and the rigid support garment only made her even worse. Then she’d forgo them, she decided, and make the ride a little easier.
By the time Semras was done packing her bag with clothes, it had just enough space left for her tools. Just the bare minimum, she thought: an alembic or two, a magnifying glass and measuring tools, some glassware …
She paused, brow creasing, then added two more dresses to the bag—just in case it rained or winter came earlier than expected. That meant matching the number of shifts and smaller garments, too. They filled the bag until she struggled to close it.
A second bag, retrieved from the bottom of a drawer, joined the first. Within, she placed what she’d need to analyze the poison, along with some useful herbs and remedies. Just in case, once again.
Semras looked down at her working smock and winced. Unwashable stains had long since smeared the brown cotton, but now she could see the dress she wore beneath it sported a new tear, too—a parting gift from the briars, no doubt. With a sigh, she undressed and discarded the clothes on the floor, keeping only her white shift on.
“Radiant Lord above, look at—”
Semras whipped her gaze toward the sword-bearers.
The three of them had finished cleaning up the floor and piling her books and jars onto the dining table for her to sort through later. Now they huddled around the fallen door. One of them looked at her, mouth hanging, until another guard smacked him behind the head.
“Ow! I’m not approaching! What was that—”
Another smack shut him up for good, and Semras shook her head with a huff.
The Deprived always had obscure reactions to the most curious of things. It’d be a waste of time trying to understand them, she mused as she slipped on a travelling gown of dark purple and silver threads. Once done, she took out her shawls, displayed them on her bed, and selected the nicest one to wear around her shoulders.
The black wool felt warm around her shoulders. With its beads of iolite stones knit within like scintillating stars, it was a little too precious for travelling, but she refused to look scraggly in front of the well-dressed inquisitor. The sneer he’d worn while looking at her home still lingered in her mind.
Done at last, Semras sat on her bed and trailed her gaze around, reluctant to step outside just yet. Her small hut might not have much more than a single round room and a few pieces of rickety furniture, but it was hers. After growing up under the strict gaze of her former Coven, her little house felt like well-earned freedom, away from the burdening expectations of her previous Elders. Albeit a bit too far from the Coven, it was all a witch could want … except that she had no one to share it with.
All her friends had long since found their Paths and mentors to guide them along the way. One by one, they had all left their childhood Coven to live their lives. And now so had she—except she, the motherless daughter, had no mentor of her own.
So, a year ago, she had settled here alone, at the edge of the Vedwoods near the hamlet of Bevenna. This quiet, peaceful corner of the forest abounded with medicinal plants, making it perfect for an herbalist like her.
She hadn’t left yet, and already she yearned to be back.
Semras glanced at the men remounting the front door on its repaired hinges. The three Venator guards had finally figuredout how to hang it back on the frame and were now hammering down the final nail. It was time to leave.
After a last glance around, she grabbed her bags and walked past them, barely registering the guards’ lingering eyes on her. She had long grown used to the impolite stares that came from being part of the Fair Folk.
Semras stepped outside.
And then froze in place.
Dozens of horses and men trampled over her serene forest of autumn gold, turning the soil upside down until the carpet of orange and red leaves disappeared beneath the mud. Only her small garden, leaning against her hut and protected between its wall of round stones and the small tributary of a northern creek, had been spared from the massacre.
Her hands curled into fists. Swallowing back a bitter curse, Semras searched for Inquisitor Velten among the sea of sword-bearers and horses.
Standing a few steps away from the chaos, he was deep in conversation with his knight at the side of an elegant blood bay horse. The towering, broad-shouldered steed gave her pause. With its feathered feet and long black mane, it looked like a mix of draft horse and purebred Vandalesian. Or so it would appear to the untrained eyes of the Deprived—men and women blind to the Unseen Arras, unfamiliar with what lurked between the threads of the world.
For the witch, the coat’s purplish sheen and unnervingly inert stance betrayed something far more vicious than a simple horse: a kelpie, an Unseelie fey. Or rather, half of one, if its short ears were anything to go by. Like all Fair Folk, it possessed an ethereal, entrancing beauty—the kind that disturbed as much as it attracted. The horses near the stallion pawed at the ground, uncertain if they wanted to get closer or farther from the half-fey.
She couldn’t blame them. The Unseelie were opportunistic predators, endlessly on the hunt for prey, and their beauty was a difficult lure to resist.
It turned its black, void-like gaze toward her, sending a shiver down her spine. Old Crone help her; she hoped the ominous creature would stay away from her. The witch felt at ease with neither horses nor the Fey, and that one was both at once—her own personal nightmare.
Shuddering, Semras turned her attention toward Inquisitor Velten instead.
