Chapter 2
It had taken far longer than expected to navigate the treacherous woodland and stay ahead of Kiran.
Flying gave him speed, but the Draswood gave her somewhere to disappear.
From above, the Draswood was an endless black canopy, broken by cliffs, mist, and overlapping branches.
Every time she slipped through a ravine or doubled beneath a wall of roots, Kiran had to decide where to go next.
Imani had grown up beneath these trees and knew how the forest broke into ravines, root-choked hollows, narrow game trails, and stretches of canopy dense enough to hide her completely from the sky.
Kiran could cover more ground, but he did not know which routes doubled back, where the terrain forced a landing, or which parts of the forest would close around a Norn and resist an intruder.
Her shadows hid her and masked her scent for the most part, she hoped, while the sheer size of the Draswood kept forcing him to search rather than simply follow.
By the time Imani reached the town’s outskirts at dawn, exhaustion dragged at her limbs.
She stopped beneath the last line of trees long enough to listen behind her.
No wings disturbed the canopy. No roar followed her through the gray morning.
For the first time in hours, Kiran was not immediately behind her.
Imani bent forward, braced one hand on her thigh, and dragged several breaths into aching lungs before forcing herself upright again.
Her calves burned from climbing ravines, pine needles clung to the hem of her dress, and dried mud stiffened a side of her boot.
Wiping sweat from her brow and kneading her leg muscles, she prepared to keep going.
Then, with a deep breath, she stood and started walking again.
As she approached the village, she squinted, taking in the ruined appearance.
It was as if the earth itself had tried to swallow it.
Glass glittered across cobblestones. Buildings leaned at unnatural angles, and violent fissures had split the ground, cutting through stone and timber alike.
There was no ash, no soot, or any other signs of fire, but the air was thick with the acrid, metallic tang of residual magic.
A Fabric event had occurred here. And someone had forced it. Kiran came to mind immediately, but the damage did not fit him. He was destructive when violence bought him an advantage, but this looked as if the destruction had been intentionally stopped midway through.
Her heartmate did nothing halfway.
Imani stood at the edge, tracking the fractures, noting the direction of the splits and how the ground had buckled upward rather than collapsing inward.
It wasn’t random. It wasn’t the uncontrolled unraveling she remembered from the groundquale in Stralas all those months ago. Another force had driven this.
An unwelcome memory tried to surface. The slip that had taken her parents had torn the world open like a starving beast, wild and unstable even as it devoured. This didn’t feel the same. No, this situation spoke of terrible surgical discipline.
The conclusion made her stomach drop. And the longer she studied it, the more certain she became that whatever had happened here was incomplete. This looked like a prelude to something worse.
Shouts carried from the square ahead. Smoke drifted between the leaning buildings. Imani had grown up among enough Norn to know how rarely they rioted. The damage here had cracked deeper than stone.
Lowering her hood, Imani moved forward carefully.
Beneath it, there was nothing forgettable about her.
Imani carried the High-Bred Norn traits in their clearest form: pale skin, large blue eyes, a refined nose, and long silver hair she usually kept braided away from her face.
The delicate points of her ears marked her as elven, though that trait belonged to every elf breed rather than the Norn alone.
Her glamour softened all of it. The silver of her hair dulled toward an ordinary ash-blond, the striking blue of her eyes faded, and the refined symmetry of her features became plainer and less memorable.
The illusion laid another appearance over what was already there, and any witch weaker than Imani would accept the false version as truth.
Only someone whose magic exceeded hers could see through it completely.
Kiran could. Ellisar, too, if he was a twelve-mark like Kiran.
Esa might have been able to with a Drasil in hand.
Everyone else in this square should see only the woman Imani wanted them to see.
The crowd thickened as she neared the center of town. Elves shoved against one another, fists raised, their voices ragged with fury.
“He protects the Crown but not us!”
“Where is the aid?”
“Find the false heir!”
The words struck like physical blows, and Imani wanted to flinch.
A flash of silver hair caught her eye. Parchments were plastered across the intact storefront window.
Several people had already curled at the corners from weather and handling, and one had been torn through the middle.
They had clearly been hanging there long enough to become part of the village’s scenery rather than fresh news.
Then Imani saw the face printed across them.
The likeness was immediate and merciless. Her profile. Her braid. The silver freckles scattered across her cheeks. It was far too accurate.
Without thinking, she stepped closer and tore one down. The paper ripped louder than she intended, and a woman arguing several feet away glanced toward the sound.
Imani lowered the parchment immediately, but the sound had already drawn attention. The woman’s focus passed from the torn notice to Imani’s face, then back again, brow furrowed in concentration as she gave Imani a once-over.
Imani’s stomach dropped.
“Wait,” the woman said, grabbing the sleeve of the elf beside her. “Look at that poster.”
He barely glanced at it. “What about it? We’ve all seen ’em.”
“Look at her, though.” She jerked her chin at Imani.
A third person leaned closer to one of the notices still fixed to the window. Another elf stopped shouting about the Crown long enough to read over his shoulder.
Glancing around, Imani’s trembling mouth fell open as other Norn villagers took notice.
One man leaned into the poster, then looked back at Imani. The elf beside him did the same. More faces turned to the storefront, then to Imani, then back to the likeness printed there.
Murmurs spread through the nearest edge of the crowd first, conversation breaking apart as people began comparing the woman in front of them to the fugitive on the wall.
Then someone in the crowd pointed at the boldest line. “One thousand royal coins,” he read aloud. He tore another poster free and raised his voice.
“IMANI AOWYN. WANTED FUGITIVE AND MURDERER. ONE THOUSAND ROYAL COINS. WANTED ALIVE.”
The crowd rumbled and murmured, as if shifting direction when they realized what one thousand royal coins meant for their purses.
“She could be her.”
“Check illusions!”
A crude disruption spell pulsed outward from the square’s center. She tucked her head into her shoulder, but the glamour shuddered, flickering violently.
The glamour could not erase what lay beneath it. Imani had only laid another appearance over the truth, and enough opposing magic, or one violent surge of her own emotion, could make that illusion ripple. Her fingers gripped her wand tighter in her pocket.
A boy near the storefront squinted. “There—”
Imani pulled herself into full invisibility, but she was half a second too late.
“She’s here!”
The square fractured into chaos. Wands ignited, and spells flashed blindly, scorching the morning air. The riot had lost its aim and found its target. One thousand royal coins were more than most of these people would ever see in a lifetime.
Imani slipped between bodies as the crowd tightened, but the search was already becoming systematic. Elves fanned outward. More disruption pulses surged through the square, pressing against her magic. Her invisibility strained, its edges thinning as she forced it to hold.
A hand caught her wrist.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She twisted hard, shadow snapping to her fingertips before she wrestled it down, wrenching free as a second spell cracked through the space she’d occupied. Heat blistered the air beside her cheek.
“Block the streets!”
“Check every door!”
Her intended sanctuary had become a trap. Reaching a quieter stretch of alley, she dropped her failing invisibility and quickly waved her wand over her face, reshaping her glamour into the plain, weathered features of a Norn traveler.
This time she made the disguise more specific.
Her long silver braid became a shorter, dull-gray plait tucked beneath her hood.
She roughened the smooth planes of her face, deepened faint lines around her mouth and brow, muted her blue eyes toward a washed-out gray, and darkened her pale skin with the uneven wrinkling of an elf who spent most of her life on the road.
She left the delicate points of her ears unchanged.
There was no reason to hide that she was an elf here, only which elf she was.
Her pulse quickened in her ears, but she forced herself to walk steadily. Panic drew attention. She needed to buy some seconds.
An inn stood near the end of the road. It was weathered but intact, with a thin plume of smoke curling from its chimney. She ducked inside, letting several silver coins clatter on the counter before the door had fully closed behind her.
“A room,” she demanded.
The older Norn elf behind the desk did not reach for the money as she’d anticipated. Instead, he glanced from her hood to the door, where the shouting drew closer with every heartbeat.
“You’re early for travelers,” he murmured.
Outside, a mass of boots pounded over the cobblestones. “Search the inns!”