Hannah said, “It gets worse. After the king, in the Royal Line of Succession, there is his son, who they say is not interested in anything but other men. He wants no part of ruling a kingdom. He is followed by two old men, one deathly ill. I forget how we’re related, but they are both too old to rule and will decline the crown.”
“That leaves you to be queen?”
“And there’s the problem. My father was murdered so someone could move higher up the list, probably by the one directly behind my new position, or perhaps the one after that. I expect that either of them has offered enough gold to last a lifetime for my death. Unfortunately, there is more to the story.”
“More?” Sage groaned and appeared dazed. Her fingers wrapped around her bow tightly enough to turn her knuckles white. “How can there be more?”
“There is a movement to usurp the king and seize the throne, not even waiting for his natural death, probably by someone else, who is of lower rank. The younger mages in the kingdom are involved. One of them knows me by sight.”
“The young mage in the village where they took Evelyn prisoner.” It was not a question.
Hannah said, “I am almost twelve. I need to learn to read, write, and survive, for at least three or four years, until I’m old enough to take care of myself and claim my rightful place.”
“And then you will do what? Become the queen?”
Hannah looked back at the mountain pass without answering.
“How will you live until then?”
“I have gold. And I need help. They may not come for me today or tomorrow, but they will come. I need soldiers at my back, protection before me, and a hundred other things. I need to learn to read, most of all, and to acquire sorcery skills. Reading will tell me what I don’t know, and maybe provide some of those answers.”
“Hannah, you are so young and silly. They’ll find you in days and kill you. They are professionals. And they’ll kill me along with you.”
“I’ve got to try.” Hannah felt more tears gathering and ignored them. “All I have to do is disappear.”
“Not my point,” Sage said. “Listen, they probably don’t know about me, but we can’t be sure of that, so we plan for it. We may have been spotted, or the people back at the inn where we got the horses might be tortured until they tell stories of me. Besides, that young mage you spoke of can make them talk. He can make anybody speak with the right magic as punishment.”
“With spells?” Hannah asked.
“No, of course not. He controls the four elements, not spells. He can fill their bodies with so much water they burst, or their hair can catch on fire. He can suck the air from their lungs, or bury them in dirt until they talk. In the end, he will know everything they know. But, that may be harder than he thinks. We didn’t leave a lot of clues for him to follow.”
“Then what do we do?”
Sage said, “Well, here’s my basic plan that I just made up. We’ll change our names and appearance, and we will imitate other people. Become them. They are searching for you, but we’ll hide you behind me. I’ll take over and become your older sister.” She smiled for the first time in a full day.
“This is my problem, not yours. You should wait here and sneak home when you can.”
“You didn’t seek this trouble out any more than I did. Listen, I can’t go back, or they will capture and torture me, too. We’re in this together, like it or not. Now we have to make some choices so we can disappear.”
“Spells again?”
“Of course, not. They are too temporary, and I don’t know much more about sorcery than you, so we do it the old way. But, we’re lucky we stopped here before anyone on this side of the mountains saw us and can reveal our path to those who hunt us.”
“You sound like my mother did when she wanted me to do something,” Hannah said.
Sage said, “We need to change identities right now. We should make up a story to tell, beginning with your hair that used to be yellow and is now a silly-looking black that is, of course, dyed with ink. I don’t think I’m that much of a liar.”
“You can get this ink out?” Hannah asked, excited at the prospect of her hair returning to her natural golden color.
“Come over to the stream and lie down,” Sage said as she rummaged in her saddlebag. At the side of the creek, she held up a bar of soap and a small knife.
“I already cut my hair!”
Sage laughed softly, “Not all of it.”
When Sage finished cutting and shaving Hannah’s head until she was completely bald, Sage handed the soap and knife to Hannah. “Now do mine.”
“Are we trying to look like boys? Because with your hips and chest you’ll never seem like a boy with or without hair. Besides, your hair is so long and beautiful. It’s the first thing I noticed about you.”
Sage snorted as if that was funny. Then Hannah understood. If she noticed Sage’s long raven hair first, so would others. They were not going to look and act like boys because that would never work—but without hair, they might look as if they traveled from a strange land, and they would fit no descriptions anyone had.
Sage rolled onto her back, her long black hair flowing in the stream. “Cut it first, then shave it, like I did yours.”
When Hannah finished, she ran her hand over her scalp like she’d done a thousand times and froze. The prickly stubs felt alien. She watched Sage do the same, then their eyes met, and both laughed at the appearance of the other.
“Sage, you look awful,” Hannah said.
“Like someone from another land. But from now on my name is Sara. Not Sage, a name they might know.”
“Huh?”
“Sara, named after my mother. Enough like Sage when you say it that you can switch at the last moment and nobody will catch on. Now for you. Hannah means Princess in the old language, so you are now Prin. These are not the last changes we’ll make this day.”
“Let’s get the horses and find our new lives,” Prin said, feeling better and more confident than she had in days, despite the mental confusion of thinking of herself by another name. It would take time to get used to the name.
Sara said, “No, not yet, let’s remove the saddles and bridles and take what we want to carry with us. We’ll turn the horses loose. In our new lives, we don’t ride horses, and those following will be searching for a girl or two on horseback. If we’re going to do this, everything about us must change. Everything. We must be able to walk right past those chasing after you, and they’ll never suspect. If we do it right, we might even join in the search.”
It took a little time to hide the saddles and bridles in a shallow overhang of rock. Prin regretted not selling them, but realized it was too great a risk for little return. The buyers would remember her and tell the tale in exchange for a share of the hunter’s gold. She had two new dresses that had never been worn. She cut the expensive material of the skirts into wide strips, then wrapped one around her head, neck, and under her chin. At the questioning look from Sara, she said, “Sunburn. Our scalps are pure white.”
“Good idea. We’ll say it’s part of our culture from our homeland.”
They spread the remainder of the contents of her leather bag on a blanket. She placed a few items in the leather bag to carry. She took everything from her father’s study and bedroom, especially the painting of her mother and father.
Sara furrowed her eyebrows as Prin wrapped it before placing it in the leather satchel. “Can I look at that again?”
“You’ve seen it,” Prin said. “But, sure, you can look again.”
A more perplexed expression crossed Sara’s face. She said, “You look at it. Tell me what you see.”