“What triggered it?”Nadiyah asked.
“He knew my face,” I whispered.“He was there the night of the attack.”
“How can you be sure?”
I closed my eyes, willing the images flashing in my mind to stop.“Because I never forget a face.He was there that night in the stairwell.He tried to grab me, and I threw the oil lamp at his face.He bore the scars.Herecognizedme.After all this time, he knew who I was.”I met their eyes.“Someone else might too.”
None of us said anything, the implication weighing down the conversation.
“I can’t do it,” I said.“Not like this.It’s too risky if someone recognizes us while we’re there like this guard did.”I swallowed.“I have to go to her.”
A rare spark of fear lit my brother’s eyes.“Analleia, no.”
“I made a promise, and I swore an oath,” I stated.“If I want to keep it, and we want to pull off this assassination, then I have to go to her.”I unsheathed my dagger, staring down at the face reflecting back at me in the metal.“I have to change my face.”
Chapter One
Analleia
Inever understoodwhy legend called it the dark wood.
Sunlight burst through the trees, illuminating the forest with a glow that permeated everything it touched.Dust glittered like sparkles in the beams of light shining through the interwoven branches.Nothing about the wood was dark or imposing.It was like a grand hall created for fairies—yet few dared to enter.
My leather boots pressed into the soft moss weaving a trail through the woods that created a carpet of green leading to the cottage.A shiver crawled its way down my spine at the mere thought.The cottage.Such a basic name for a terrifying concept.A nightmare, as legend called it.The path shifted to an incline, and I hiked up the skirts of my lilac dress, bunching the velvet fabric in my hands to keep it from dragging on the ground.My white-blond hair cascaded down my back in waves, pale like moonlight.My preference would have been to come in black, to come as who I really was while protected by the cover of darkness, but I didn’t know ifshewould appreciate that.
Fear crept in at the thought.
A leather bag of gold coins jingled at my side, a heavy reminder of the weight of this task’s importance.I could do this.The shuddering breath that escaped my lips spoke otherwise.I reassured myself that I had nothing to fear, but it didn’t work, unease rising to power within me.Hundreds of stories about the old crone who lived in the dark woods of Kader had been recounted by the superstitious, and I’d heard nearly every single one.They were told in closed circles in the taverns, whispered into the ears of disobedient children, and recounted in hushed voices around vagabonds’ campfires.
The Enchantress, they called her.
Some claimed she was nothing more than an old woman who had given in to senility.Others swore she was the most powerful sorcerer to ever live.
The endless tales swirled around me.
If you touched her house, you would turn to dust.
