Keep Your Enemies Closer

An Identity of White and Crimson

"The perception of beauty is a moral test." - Henry David Thoreau

It took another two days to travel back through the woods. In that time, she had not uttered a word to herself as she made her way as quietly as she could back to Muri. On the way, she had stopped at  a small settlement that had been off the path she and Fabian had taken. It was called Ceartas, and there Reyna had bought supplies and made a rough plan in her head.

It wasn't enough to kill the Prince - not when she would be branded the Monster and him as a noble hero. He would still get away with what he had done and she decided she couldn't let that happen. So here was the task of exposing him as the murderer of these girls. In Ceartas, she had visited a Cosmetician's, keeping her eyes averted the whole time so she wouldn't be recognised. With Fabian's coin, her hair had been dyed a white blonde, so unlike her natural hair colour she hoped it would keep her from recognition a little longer. She had sent Fabian a letter while she was there, a quick scribble telling him she was okay. 

With some new clothes she had bought - replacing her old dirty ones - she had joined a more busy path to Muiri that consisted of vendors, wagons and travellers all on their way to the capital city. Reyna brushed down her crimson skirt which matched her cloak and avoided eye contact. It had been a bold choice, the skirt, cloak and bodice a stunning shade of blood but Reyna was conforming to hiding in plain sight. So she ambled her way down the road, the dirt scuffing her brand new boots and kept walking until the city was visible in the distance. It was still a couple hours off at most - and once she was at the entrance, she would have no choice but to be examined more thoroughly and executed soon thereafter. Reyna had to find another way in and she glanced to the city walls that were no doubt patrolled by guards.

She sighed deeply, pinching her nose as a horse trotted past, stinking of hay and sweat. The summer sun was as sweltering as ever, even more so out in the country and not the comforts of a palace and with all these other travellers as hot and dirty as her, together they had created a particularly awful reek. Reyna continued to watch the horse amble past, driving a cart loaded with hay and wheat. Her eyes snagged on that, those piles of hay that reached far past its borders, tufts falling out as it carried on. Surely, it wouldn't be too hard to hide in? As Reyna considered it, she felt another pair of eyes on her and unflinchingly met them. 

Reyna had noticed the man watching her these past days on the road but if he knew who she was, he hadn't said a word. So neither had she, though she gripped her dagger tighter from where it lay in the folds of her dress, strapped to her thigh. He was perhaps a few years older than she was, with golden brown hair and deep blue eyes that looked like you could drown in if you lingered too long. His face was sharp, not from some natural bone structure but a sort of gauntness, like his life had made him that way, had dragged its knife along the cruel cut edges of his face. Intelligence gleamed in his eyes as he refused to break her stare, only looked back unblinkingly. His face was sculpted with confidence and entitlement, something Reyna had found to be a common recurring feature in attractive young men. 

She had spent time when he was slightly ahead of her to assess who he was, marking his worn tunic and boots, his pack slung over his shoulder. She had noticed the scar first, across his right cheek, so faint you could barely see it but there it was. His fingernails too, she had saw, were black with dried blood and his whole attire was black like he wanted to fade into the background, be forgotten just how she wanted to. But this time, neither of them looked away, daring the other to speak. 

"That would have been a stupid idea." He spoke finally, his voice rough and low as he held her gaze. "What would have been?" She replied easily, her hand going again to the dagger strapped to her thigh. Its coolness was a reminder, a blessing as she ran a hand along it through the red cotton fabric. The stranger smiled then in a sort of amusement as he took her in. "What's your name?" He asked.