Page 109 of Drawn in Blood
Ball gowns and diamond encrusted tiaras, fancy lunches and hedges shaped like unicorns. This wasn’t who she was, not any of it. What if she couldn’t get the children out? What if she failed and was forced to stay here? Her palms began to sweat as she shed her coat and draped it over her arm.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” A woman peeked out from the back room, tall with white hair and skin so bronze that she almost shined in the sunlight coming through the window. There was something eerily familiar about her—the tilt of herhead, the cadence of her voice, the way she seemed to stare right through them.
The fact that she only had one eye.
Ember tried not to gape, tried to avert her eyes and look anywhere else. The woman chuckled as she walked toward them, almost like she was floating.
“It is far more offensive totry notto stare, than to actually look, Princess.” She smiled.
Ember cringed. “My name is Ember.” She tried to sound more confident than she felt.
“I know what your name is.” The woman’s smile grew.
“Elowyn! We’re looking for dresses for the Ostara ball.” Rowan smiled, twirling through the shop as she ran her hand down the plethora of fabrics. “Something that will turn heads.”
“Orjust something normal,” Ember eyed her friend, “ordinary.”
“There is nothing ordinary about you, Princess.” Elowyn replied, eyeing her curiously.
“Ember—please call me Ember,” she whispered. Not a command—a plea.
“As you wish.” Elowyn nodded and made her way to the back of the shop, carrying back handfuls of gorgeous dresses for the girls. They tried them all on, oohing and ahhing and putting on quite the show for anyone passing by the large windows at the front of the shop. Ember was completely out of her element, but she decided it was best to grin and bear it.
To fake it.
“Were you born with only one eye?” Ember asked, plucking up the courage to learn more about the woman. There was a reason she was in the journal, and she was going to figure out what it was.
“My mother always said seers need one eye on each side of the veil.” Elowyn smiled. “The gods saw fit to take care of that for me.”
“You’re a seer?” Ember asked, as Elowyn took some measurements.
The woman nodded. “Among other things. It runs in my family, both a blessing and a curse.”
“Do you have children?” Ember asked. Something gnawed at the inside of her brain, right behind her eyes, like she was trying to focus on something that wasn’t actually there. Something about the way the woman?—
White hair. Bronze skin. Otherworldly features that just didn’t quite fit.
“What is your daughter’s name?” Ember asked.
Rowan gave her a confused glance—the woman had never mentioned she had a daughter.
But Ember knew.
“Odette,” Elowyn whispered, like it was a prayer she said every night, “her name is Odette.”
Tears pricked the corner of Ember’s eyes. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you home with her?”
“Because some things are bigger than us,” Elowyn replied. “Change requires sacrifice, and I will carry mine with me to the end of my days.”
Elowyn stepped back, and Ember got a look at herself in the mirror, and the sight took her breath away.
A ball gown worthy of a princess—no, a queen. Navy blue fabric trimmed with onyx around the wide sleeves and plunging neckline. Gold was woven into the blue, like stars burning brightly in the heavens. She could almost picture herself walking into the grand ballroom, a pale haired boy on her arm next to her.
“My father…” Ember swallowed, as tears pricked her eyes. “He had a journal he kept. I found a list in it with a picture of a crow drawn next to it. Your name was on that list, and that crow is on your shop.” She took a steadying breath as she gently brushed the fabric of the gown. “There is a map next to them, and I was wondering if you could tell me about it, what all of it means.”
Rowan had been standing back, giving Ember space. She stepped up beside her and put on her prettiest smile.
“It would really help us out, Elowyn.” She smiled.
