Page 46 of The Heartless Archer

“It looks like snow.”

“I know,” Noora said. Why was she here?

The sun was already setting and despite Noora’s objections to sleep in this fancy room, she found she was exhausted. Her bones were aching and her mind reeling from all the events that happened that day.

“It is because of my heritage.” Without wanting to Noora was speaking, gaining the curious look of the princess.

“The magic in my veins manifests in many ways, it needs an outlet and it marks me.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“It is very pretty.”

Noora blanched at her words. “It’s a curse and nothing more. My enemies can see me from a mile away like a beacon,” she said.

Tyra furrowed her brows, taking a few steps towards her. “Does it? I think it blends you in with the kingdom’s landscape.”

She motioned toward the window and the snowy landscape residing behind the thick glass.

She was right, in the snow, Noora was practically invisible, but in town, her hair was a target, an open invitation for people like Isak to exploit her.

“The people you lived with...my brother said you grew up as an orphan.”

Noora looked at her suspicious of the change of topic.

They bathed in silence before Tyra spoke up again. “What? No answer?”

“I don’t recall there being a question.”

The princess’s lips twitched at the corners.

“Would it be improper to ask you about your parents?”

“It would,” Noora said.

“I am asking anyway. Did you know them?”

She did not owe her an answer and Noora could tell that if she refused the answer, the princess would oblige her. But since this was the first time Noora had a similar-aged girl talking to her she talked, though cautiously.

“I did not. The matron said they found me in the woods, my lips blue with the cold, my body encased with all kinds of vines and foliage.”

Noora believed it was nature’s way of trying to protect her, unsuccessfully.

Tyra drew closer and sat down on the mattress of the bed. “How old were you?”

“Six maybe seven.”

Tyra’s brows drew towards her hairline.

“But how did you end up there? They could not just leave you all alone!”

Noora smiled, though it felt bitter to do so. “I do not remember. It could’ve been from the cold but I do not remember anything from before that time. They said a little longer and I might’ve froze to death but...”

Noora hesitated before drawing her blouse up to reveal a brutish scar across the left side of her stomach.

A strangled gasp dove past the princess’s lips.

“Looks worse than it is,” Noora told her. The princess reached out with her hand but Noora let the blouse fall back quickly into its place. “Whoever left me there took a souvenir with them. They took my left kidney for whatever reason.”

She rolled her eyes since it sounded so silly. Who would take someone’s kidney and then let them freeze to death in the woods? At least, take all the vital organs if you want to sell them on the dubious market.

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