***
“Why did he do that?” Neven asks, pacing the ground by the river where they had played that morning. It seems an age ago, back before any betrothal, before any soldiers. “I would have gone. I’m not craven. I’m not!”
Bonnie bends to dig in the hollow of the tree, trying to hide how much her hands are shaking. Her fingers graze cloth. She pulls out one pack and then another. They hadn’t been there this morning. Which means Mr Moore must have put them there, perhaps between the time the soldiers rode to the village and before they gathered everyone in the food store. But why? Could he think so little of Neven’s ability in battle to sacrifice his life?
Whatever the case they need to get out of here fast. The village is small, consisting of only four roundhouses with people, the food store, and a couple more houses long abandoned. The area by the river is out of sight of the buildings mostly due to hills, but it won’t take long to find, and if someone tells them the way then it could take no time at all.
“Here,” she says, tossing him one of the packs. “He packed this one for you.”
Neven peeks in the top of the pack. His face falls. “He packed my invention, and all my scrap.”
Bonnie tosses her pack over one shoulder, the small wooden shield Neven had made for her over the other. In a free hand she carries her father’s sword. Although large, it’s not as heavy as most broadswords. A special metal, her father had said. One harvested in the north beyond the circle where he was born. Forged with dragon fire he had told her. She’s not sure about that last part. Getting a dragon to help forge a sword without getting burned at the same time seems an impossible task. Everyone says dragons are mindless, and know nothing but killing.
The metal is a strange dark colour. It never seems to rust, so maybe there’s something to the stories of it being special. She likes to think so. Her thumb traces the carved dragon winding itself around the hilt. It grounds her.
Maybe Mr Moore had been a knight like her father. It seems unlikely.
“Come on,” she says. “We have to get to the woods before they come looking.”
He drags his feet and looks like he’s on the verge of crying, but he follows. That’s all she can ask.
Once they’re deep enough in the woods she stops, taking his pack from his shoulder. He doesn’t protest, instead crouching by a small stream to wash his face. He keeps his eye on his reflection in the water, like he’s waiting for it to tell him something. Maybe it will. They say water is the doorway between this world and the next. Sometimes when she looks at her reflection she fancies it must be someone else looking up at her from the other side. After all, her reflection has never looked like someone she recognises. It makes sense to think the pale girl with white blond hair and big blue eyes is a stranger.
“Don’t look,” she says. He doesn’t even seem to hear her.
She dresses hurriedly, hoping that her cheeks aren’t burning. All that has happened hasn’t been enough to take every stupid weak feeling it seems. Her foster father is dead. The woman she came to know as a mother is likely dead as well. The King’s soldiers are after Neven, and though she knows she has to protect him, she doesn’t know why. Yet here she is acting the woman. Her father would be ashamed.
“What do you think?” She asks, not able to stop herself from plucking the fabric self-consciously.
His eyes widen as he turns to look at her. “Take that off Bonnie! If someone sees you…”
She looks down at her thin body in his spare pair of clothing. Part of her wants to do just that. A girl in boys’ clothing. It’s not done. She thinks back to the senile woman burned for wearing her husband’s clothes. It’s hard, but she fights down the urge to shudder.
“No,” she says, hoping her voice sounds stronger than it does in her head. “I have to protect you, and we’ll have to travel far. A girl will attract too much notice.”
“Protect me?” His face screws up into a mixture of grief and anger. “You’re a girl Bonnie. You won’t even be able to protect yourself. You have to go back. I have to go back. I’m not afraid to serve.”
She goes to crouch by the stream, her sword balanced carefully on her knees. She may have only had chance to use it for practice, but she keeps it sharp anyway. Another thing her father had taught her. Her jaw clenches against Neven’s words. She’s been given a mission, like her father got his from the King. She doesn’t know the reasons why, but that is not always for a knight to know. A knight must do their duty.
A knight sounds a lot better than a pig farmer’s wife.
“We can’t go back. Your father gave his life for us not to.” She raises the sword, the edge glinting sharper than most weapons. The metal has a red hint, like it’s still hot from the fires that made it all these years later. She touches the broad side carefully, its surface cool beneath her fingers. She would have to be the same; different on the outside than she was on the inside. Or maybe this new identity would suit her better, and she would finally feel herself instead of an impostor. “And I’m not a girl any longer.”
She pulls the blade through her hair. It cuts the strands like a heated knife through butter, and she’s left with a fistful of white blond hair that trails down to curl around her feet. Her head feels lighter without it. “Help me with the rest.”
Neven digs in his pack, pulling out a small blade. He steps toward her hesitantly. “I hope you’re sure about this.”
So does she. She drops the handful of hair into the stream. An offering. It feels strange, like she’s cut off a limb.
“Gods give us luck,” Neven murmurs behind her.
“Gods give us luck,” she echoes the prayer. They’re going to need it.