The White Sheep's Disguise ✓

Chapter 16

For all the servants, guards, and royal members of the palace, each stretch of clean stone and barred windows remains empty. Perhaps it's the ghostly nature of the palace attendants; the way they flutter past without a word that makes it so easy to believe I'm alone in one of the largest structures known to Rivian culture.

Cloak is nowhere to be found when I depart his chambers, quietly shutting the door behind me as to not stir the guards. They don't acknowledge my presence, and it becomes increasingly easy to ignore them altogether. As I walk away, their stares remain on my back, but my Luminary abilities cannot detect their thoughts or feelings towards the supposed healer that can't do her job without facing difficulties first.

Every guard I pass maintains the same stoic expression towards whatever they're facing. The liveried servants don't bow down to me, they hardly acknowledge my attendance in the corridors or down empty stairways, but I'm easier to recognize as one of them. I don't take their harsh stares personally; at least I don't possess the possible nature of being cruel without reason. Like I imagine the Raven Queen to be.

I don't know who to ask directions from. I can find my way around Gudgeon Docks with a hand over my eyes; the only questions I ask are whether strangers know where they're going. If they don't, I direct them. Now I'm the one that's lost.

I'm—

Rounding a corner, too sharp and too distracted by incoherent thoughts, I slam directly into something solid. A resounding smash hits the floor, glass shattering, and a wooden crate fumbles in the arms of a creamy blue cervielk. When she stumbles back, attempting to avoid the glass shards littering the stone floor, her droopy, wide ears dance against the sides of her head.

I reach forward, scrambling for something to hold on to and dig my nails into the wooden crate overflowing with empty glass bottles. Similar to the one in pieces on the floor. My boots scrape on the shards.

The young woman steadies herself and blows back a strand of loose, midnight painted hair from where it fell out of the braided crown circling her scalp. Another bottle begins to slip from the rim of the wooden crate and our hands claw for it, fingers slamming together, nails sinking into flesh.

It's not until we find the bottle in both of our grasps that she meets my stare, her thin and twinkling eyes resembling a cut of meadow through a distant tree line.

"Sorry," I blurt to avoid an awkward silence. I pry my hand from the bottle and she sets it neatly back in the crate.

"That's quite all right," she squeaks in a too quiet voice. The smooshed nose on her face is sprinkled with a darker shade of night's freckles, the opposition to stars. Despite her masculine attire—a pair of baggy trousers and a shirt that hangs too loose off her shoulders—she is attractive in an innocent way.

Her broad face counters a small and thin build, like that of a mouse, and the high-bone structure of her face casts a similar shadow to what I've looked at in the mirror all these years. We're two different species, but the similarities extend past the blotchy blue hues.

"I—I should really look where I'm going next time." I extend my apology with words that stop short of being effective. "I'm still new to this palace; I don't know the rules."

She furrows her dark brows at me but paints on a smile for my sake. The same way I would try to make someone else feel comfortable in a new environment.

"Are you a new servant? If so, I can guide you to the passageways."

"No, I'm not a servant." I expose my hands. "I'm a healer, on duty by the queen's orders to heal Jett Terravale."