Chapter 2
The grass in the village square was so springy that Naia’s feet bounced with every step.
In the center, a wagon awaited, piled high with copper pots and spools of thread, with harps and pails and things Naia had no names for.
A man clambered from one side of the wagon to the other, dispensing wares to the crowd that surged at his feet.
Naia hardly noticed the chaos. She scanned each new face, anticipation flaring in her chest. Would she know her prince on sight?
Probably, and she doubted it was the trader. He looked sweaty and overheated, and not particularly friendly. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, his sleeves extended all the way to his wrists.
“Blasted summer,” he said, mopping at his brow. Beneath his flush, his skin was as pale as a day-old fish’s. That pallor looked strange amid this sea of sun-tanned faces, but maybe he’d been ill recently.
“And in the middle of winter, no less,” he muttered. “It’s bloody unnatural.”
Naia frowned. The middle of winter?
She knew that word from her fairytales—had seen pictures of bare branches and white flakes that drifted from the sky.
But she’d never experienced those things herself, and before she could ask what the trader meant, her mother arrowed away, a coin purse brandished overhead.
When she reached the trader and handed up her offering, he weighed it in a palm and shook his head.
Naia tried to follow, but a wall of elbows and shoulders blocked her way. She caught at the person in front of her, trying to edge past. He turned.
She froze. The whole world held its breath.
In the fairytales, there was always a moment. The heroine would lay eyes on her prince, and all else would fade.
This was Naia’s moment.
Nothing else existed. Not the trader or the wagon, not the village, not any of it. Reality shrank to the man before her, who looked exactly as the storybook described, with hair like sunshine and eyes of laughing periwinkle. His features were so harmonious they threatened to break her heart.
He smiled. “Hello. Who’re you?”
“I’m Naia,” she said, with a gasp. How miraculous that she could speak at all. “Who’re you?”
“The name’s Elias. I don’t think we’ve met, have we?” He studied the uncovered half of her face, violet fire in his eyes. “I’d definitely remember.”
Naia shivered, though she’d never come so close to melting before. “No, we haven’t met. I don’t live here in town.”
“Where’s home for you, then?” he said.
She gestured vaguely toward the road she’d come in on, trusting it was still there. “Out past the valley and up the hill. But this is my first time in the village.”
He looked startled. “Your first time ever?”
“Ever.” She smiled, but the gesture felt far too small to mark the enormity of the moment. The sky should have broken open. Trumpets should have sounded. Something should have commemorated the tectonic shift taking place within her.
Elias watched her for a handful of heartbeats. “Did you come to buy something special, then? You must have, if you came down your hill for the first time.”
“I...think so,” Naia said. Had she come for something special? She probably should have asked her mother for details. “I couldn’t tell you what, though. How about you?”
Elias’s lips flicked downward, which did nothing to diminish his beauty.
Or the charged hum heating the air between them.
“We came to buy medicine. My brother’s sick, and the village healer hasn’t found a cure yet.
We’re hoping the trader might have one. This is our last chance, really.
Our last...” He trailed off with a hard swallow.
Naia’s heart leapt as if trying to fling itself into his arms. This was her chance. The thread that would stitch them together. “I could probably help you. I nurse sick animals all the time. I know every herb in the forest. Every curative that grows in those woods.”
Keen hope shone in his eyes. “Really? You’d do that? You’d help us?”
“Of course.” For him, she’d do anything.
“Thank you.” Elias held her gaze for long, combustive moments, then leaned closer. “But...why don’t you take that scarf off? Let me see your face? I swear you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She hesitated. But surely her prince would love her butterflies the same way her parents did. And Elias was her prince, she could feel it. Trust it the same way she trusted the breath in her lungs.
She tugged. The scarf fell away.
Elias’s face crumpled. He stepped back. “Oh. I see.”
His withdrawal lanced into her like an arrow. Too late, Naia lifted a hand, trying to hide the red splotches that littered her temple and cheek. Her mother had always said the birthmarks looked like butterflies—beautiful ones—but apparently, Elias didn’t agree.
He stared at her like she’d offered something precious, then stolen it away. “I’m...sorry,” he said. “I ought to go help my family. I’ll find you again soon, all right?” He walked off.
When Naia glanced around, some of the villagers were staring. A few whispered behind their hands.
Heat seared her throat. She wished the ground would swallow her whole.
But nothing happened, and a minute later, her mother appeared, her face like a thundercloud. “What’re you doing? Why’d you take off your scarf?”
Naia shrank. “I thought...” When the silence grew thick enough to choke on, her mother’s expression softened.
“Never mind,” her mother said. “Let’s just go. The trader wants more than I have, and he refuses to negotiate. Which means this place has nothing to offer us. Not this year, anyway.”