Arinel's heavy green fur-lined cloak joined the tottering pile of glinting accessories on Meya's arms. The Lady was left wearing only her traveling attire, a simple white long-sleeved blouse tucked into Crosset Green trousers, cinched with a darker green leather belt. Meya wondered if the noble folk ever felt tired wearing the same color palette every day.

One's dress was a mark of one's status, but it was obvious swapping clothes wouldn't make her Lady Arinel. As the masked maid, Haselle, pointed out just as Arinel tossed her peridot-studded, snow-fern-shaped collar brooch on top of the pile,

"My lady, I admire your resolve, but I don't see how this could work. I'm sure we can do something with her hair, but her eyes will be a dead giveaway."

Haselle glanced at said eyes, which also called everyone's attention toward them. Meya saw her chance to back out, but Arinel's old nurse spoke before she could,

"She's hoodwinked us all the way here, hasn't she? She probably has her methods of hiding that monstrous light." The nurse, Gretella, glared at Meya out of the corner of her eye in distaste. Shrewd old bat, Meya cursed internally.

Sighing, she beckoned Haselle over with her head and heaved Arinel's belongings onto her arms. She trudged to the back of the supplies wagon and bent down to retrieve her collar, now hanging in two halves joined with a hinge, muttering under her breath. As if drinking poison and working with bandits to infiltrate a castle wasn't bad enough, she had to do it wearing the danged collar, too.

Meya strode back to the throng, clamping the ice-cold collar around her neck. The eyes pooled upon her filled with wonder and awe as her senses dull, her brain slowed, and her limbs weighed as if she was swimming through a pool of concentrated slime.

The head guard felt her forehead with his hand. He didn't jerk it away with a grimace as one would when burned by a scorching fever.

"I can wear this, but I assure you—'tis not gunna work." Meya sighed, "Lattis makes me slow and weak. I'm gunna need every morsel of me brain to convince Lord Coris I'm his betrothed. With this on, I wouldn't even be able to braid me hair."

"It's all in your head, lass. You look perfectly fine." Insisted the head guard, whose name was Sir Jerald Bayne. Meya growled in her throat in frustration. She eyed Gillian, who should care most about the success of this deluded scheme. He studied her for a moment, then motioned with his chin for her to follow and strode towards the forest.

Meya tilted her head, puzzled, but Gillian had disappeared into the tangled trees. Should she follow? On the one hand, she was sure he was a Greeneye, just like her, and she was dying to talk more. On the other hand, he was a bandit who had just murdered five guards. The remaining guards hadn't even finished digging the mass grave.

Meya glanced at the men digging a hole for the bloody corpses, whose faces were covered with white handkerchiefs, then spun around at the feel of a cold hand on her shoulder. It was Sir Jerald. His other hand was on his sword's pommel. The blood on the blade was still shining wet.

"I'll be right behind you, lass."

Meya shot him a look of thanks, then ventured after Gillian into the privacy of the trees. The sun had set, and darkness was falling fast. They followed the sound of Gillian's heavy footfalls crunching on leaves and earth. When it quieted, Jerald nodded reassuringly, and Meya emerged alone into a small clearing under a circular hole in the canopy.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Gillian was on his knees, a wooden bowl on the ground before him and a knife blade digging into his bloody palm. As Meya gawked, he squeezed his hand to hasten the flow.

"You're a woman of small build. That collar is too much Lattis for you. You keep wearing that much on your person, and you'll die young."

He reached out a gloved hand. Meya undid the clasp on her collar with numb fingers, handing the metal band over as if in a trance, her eyes bulging,

"D-die young, you say?" Her voice came out a strangled rasp. Gillian set the collar on a flat stone, then rummaged in his pocket, pulling out a length of clean white cloth.

"And I'd reckoned with your intellect, you would've figured it out long since." He wound the cloth over his bloody palm, tied it tight, then covered it with the leather glove, "Lattis is poison to the likes of us."

Meya's mouth fell open. All this was so new, so eye-opening, so assuring. Her whole life, she'd been the only Greeneye she knew. Nobody could give her any advice. No other Greeneye was around to let her know she was part of a group, even a group of freaks. Nobody believed she didn't imagine the cold, the heaviness of the Lattis collar. Then along came this man who helped her out with her lifelong difficulty. It was a bummer that he was a murderous bandit, though—typical Freda.

Meya watched, enraptured, as Gillian dipped the knife into the blood and touched it on the Lattis band. The blade sunk like a hot knife through butter, slicing off a small square from the edge of the collar.

It hit Meya then,

"And only our blood can destroy it?"

Gillian nodded. He picked up the Lattis piece and sanded off the sharp corners with his bloodstained knife.

"And vice versa."

Meya raised her eyebrows, hooked with curiosity. Gillian continued as if he could read her mind, still sanding the Lattis piece.

"Blood of a Greeneye is the only known method of refining Lattis. Lattis melts readily in it. If you were stabbed by a Lattis blade or pierced by a Lattis arrow, particles of it would mix with your blood and travel throughout your body, and it could kill you if left inside long enough."

Kill you? Strength left Meya's legs. All this time, she'd strapped the loathsome metal band over the biggest artery on her neck, not knowing one cut could kill her as surely as wolfsbane.

Gulping with difficulty through her constricted throat, Meya looked on as Gillian punched a small hole through the now rounded Lattis piece with a thin twig dipped in his blood.

"How did you know all this?"

"I live among my kind." Gillian looked up, eyebrows raised, "Considering the villagers and the lady recognized you, you're probably the only one in this area?"

Gillian's eyes, cold and unreadable as ever, contained a gleam of understanding. Meya found herself reluctantly trusting him more and more,

"I guess." She shrugged, "There was one in Noxx but he died five years ago. He gave me that."

Meya gestured at the bloodstained collar lying abandoned on the stone slab. For the first time, Gillian seemed interested.

"Do you know his name?"

Meya frowned as she tried to remember.

"Think it was Marsant?"

Gillian struck the same face as when Meya told him her name. At last, he nodded without a word. He handed the Lattis coin to Meya, and she felt no different as her fingers brushed its icy surface. She took out her necklace, slid the end of the thong through the hole, then tied it back around her neck.

Gillian rose to his feet, collecting the bowl, the knife and the Lattis band. Meya reached out to retrieve what was hers.

"Say, once this heist is over, can you take me to them? The Greeneyes you live with?" Gillian turned around, his hand still pouring the contents of the bowl onto the undergrowth. "They're in Latakia, right? You dun sound like a Latakian."

The falling darkness shrouded Gillian's eyes. Then, for the first time, he unfurled a smile bursting with a determination that bordered on fanatic.

"If we find that dowry, then we can be anywhere you want to be. Latakia. Nostra. Everglen. Take your pick."

With that, he strode into the trees, leaving Meya to rush after him, hoping he wouldn't notice Jerald hiding just out of earshot.