Maple
Wearing Alphonse’s coat, face and body washed of blood in Alphonse’s home, Elias walked back into town and checked himself into an inn.
He sat down on his borrowed bed, sleepless until sunrise. In this quiet private space, still he felt as though he were being watched.
So fresh from retribution, he had nothing to say.
When the sun from the window hit his face, he blinked and came alive again. Stood up, joints creaking from a few hours of disuse, and began to strip.
This room had a mirror. It was small and oval, tacked against the wall above the bathing tub and ringed with painted holly. Elias closed his eyes hard, then stepped before it.
He looked.
Hm.
The scars from his burns had well faded, but the blade paths and dots from the needle were hard dimpled lines.
They ringed his eyes, nose, and mouth, bisected his cheeks beneath his cheekbones, and carved the line of his jaw.
The path went down his chest and over his belly to his groin.
Each limb was circled like the joining parts of a wooden doll.
Wounds given to him before the night he woke seemed to heal at double the speed of normal wounds but ten times the speed Elias was used to. He was usually a slow healer, worse than the rest of his family—he paid close attention to such things.
But it appeared that wounds sustained to him after the curse disappeared even quicker than that. He knew his hands should be callused after days of riding and over a week without the fatty soaps and oils he normally used. But his palms were as soft as they had ever been.
Elias skated a touch across where his skull should be split. There was nothing but warm flesh and hair. It chilled him, made him shake and grip the wall.
Was he human anymore? He didn’t feel like it.
It was vain, but Elias also missed his face. He had been told often of his sad smile and doe eyes. He missed the way women’s and young men’s gazes would soften when he turned to them.
But now, he looked so hard. Elias understood now why people were so ready to believe he was a soldier.
What a waste to cry for beauty when there was still blood beneath his nails. But Elias did.
Then he dressed again, drank his pine tea, ate eggs and mutton downstairs, and headed off to buy his ticket to France.