towards the men, a soft noise had the two of us halting our footsteps. Conjuring a ball of fire, Roan turned back and froze, his eyes widening. I followed his gaze until my own landed on the small upturned face of a pale human child. Her hair hung in flat strands around her rounded cheeks, and in her left fist she held the paw of a stuffed animal creature—sewn together with what looked to be different colors of patchwork cloth.
Her little nightgown was at least a size or two too large for her tiny frame. Big blue eyes blinked up at us and she lifted her free hand to rub at her eyes as if trying to understand what she was seeing. A servant's child. That was the only thing that made sense. As far down in the castle as we were, the servants’ quarters were likely not far from the storage chambers we were after.
Roan and I exchanged a look. "What are you doing?" the small child inquired, sounding both sleepy and confused.
"Orion," Roan hissed. I knew what he wanted, an illusion, but human children were far less susceptible to our powers than their elders—a fact I doubted any human realized.
I ground my teeth together. No, an illusion may not work, but there was no way we would kill this innocent child. It was the one sin none of us were willing to commit. Soldiers and adults were fair game, but children knew not of their parents’ and elders' hatred. Children still had the opportunity to overcome that tainted bile.
It appeared that both of us were hesitating far too long for the child's attention because after a moment more, she toddled forward, eyes wide as she reached for the leather encasing the boots that reached up to my knees.
"Whoa," she muttered. "I can see myself." She turned her face upward—so trusting it made my chest ache. The child's golden hair reminded me of Cress and all at once, I wondered if this was how our Changeling had seemed as a child. Youthful. Vibrant. Innocent. Loving. I tried to picture it and the image that came to my mind was so very easy to form. "Who are you, sir?" the small girl inquired again.
Her little chin twitched and just before I was set to answer her, she reared back and sneezed. Roan grimaced, but I didn't mind. It was cute. I reached down and with gentle hands, I lifted the child into my arms. As she slipped her slender, frail hands around my neck, she released her grip on her stuffed toy. Without being asked, Roan dipped down and retrieved it, handing it back to the girl.
"Take care of her," he ordered quietly. "And meet us at the room."
I nodded my understanding and was relieved when he marched off, though he left a hovering orb of fire nearby so that the child and I weren't in complete darkness. "Where'd he go?” the girl asked.
"Never mind him, darling," I said. "You're lost, aren't you?"
Her blue eyes lifted and met mine and I stilled as I felt one of her tiny hands touch my chin, her soft fingers smoothing against the unshaven bits of my jawline. "You're prickly," she said with a high pitched giggle.
Holding her in my arms lit a craving within me. To see Cress as a girl, or perhaps to see her hold her own child in her arms—our child.
"Are you lost, sweetheart?" I asked again.
The girl tilted her face up and nodded. "I had to go potty," she confessed quietly, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment. Even as young as this child was, I understood. Such things were private, especially for little girls.
"That's alright," I told her. "I'm here to lead you back. If I take you to the main part of the castle, can you find your way back to your chambers on your own?" She considered my request for a moment before nodding. "Good, then let us be on our way. Can you tell me which way you came from?"
She pointed into the darkness and I began walking. As I strode down the corridor, I kept the cloaking spell up and lifted a palm to cup the back of her head. Though it would be far more difficult for a child to believe a full fledged illusion, it wouldn't be that hard to settle her into a light sleep and put the thought into her head that our meeting had been nothing but a strange dream.
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