The horse knickers and walks beside me, ears pricked.

  I crouch and drop my head between my knees, breathing slowly, waiting for the light-headedness to pass. I huddle in the muddy ground, wrapping my arms around my knees, the shock of everything I’ve just been through hitting me. My teeth chatter in spite of the hot sun overhead.

  The horse whinnies behind me, and a branch snaps, giving me a two-second warning before a shadow looms over me. I stand a whirl around, my panic leaving me as my hand grapples for my dagger.

  “Whoa!” A farmer stands before me in homespun wool, a heavy pack and bedroll laid over his shoulders, a walking stick in one hand and the other on the horse, his eyes wide as they light on me. “Easy there, lad! I didn’t see you there!”

  His eyes move over me, and a frown mars his lined features. “Why are you dressed like a woman?”

  I’m too busy bringing myself down from high alert to process his words for a full minute. I breathe deeply, dagger at the ready, balancing from foot to foot, and then I hear him. “Woman?” I repeat.

  He arches an eyebrow. “Yes, laddie. Looks as if you’ve borrowed your sister’s garb.”

  “Laddie?” I whisper.

  What have I done?

  I tear away from him and run to the river’s edge.

  Even through the wrinkled effect created by the running water, a boy Terrant’s age stares back at me, with features so like his that I almost think it’s him. My own features have merged and taken on a masculine appearance. Smaller lips, higher forehead, thicker brows.

  Except Terrant has golden hair, and mine is the same dark color of our mother’s.

  I touch my face, stunned.

  Hide me.

  The magic didn’t just make me invisible from the soldiers.

  It’s hiding me from everyone I meet.

  How do I undo this? I tug at my hair, pull at my skin, until the man says, “Can I help you with anything, my boy? It looks as if you’ve been through something.”

  I turn back to him and see the kind, concerned look on his face. I glance down at my tunic, still covered in blood, and notice with alarm that my feminine shape is gone.

  And because of that, he’s not looking at me like someone he needs to protect.

  Or someone he can hurt.

  I slowly lift my face as the realization dawns on me.

  I’m safer as a boy.

  “My village was destroyed,” I say, and I flinch at the deeper, male tone exiting my mouth. “My clothes were ruined.”

  “I hope you didn’t steal the clothing off a young lass to get these,” he says, his tone playful but his eyes full of concern.

  I shake my head and go with his first assumption. “My sister put these on me. She hoped to—conceal me. And she put me on the horse and told me to run.” There’s enough truth to the story that my eyes well with tears.

  The old farmer crinkles his nose in sympathy. “I saw the fires. You’re fleeing from Caerfyrddin?”

  I nod.

  “Whose blood is it, lad?”

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  I hesitate. I can’t admit that. “I had to—I had to protect my sister.”

  The man nods. “Then you did right. A word of advice, boy. Don’t go back for her. I know you want to. But it’s gone. The village is gone. Do as she said and make a new life for yourself.”

  I press my hands over my mouth, and a sob escapes me. A very unmasculine sob.

  The farmer turns his face away and pretends to be fascinated by the horse’s mane. When I’ve gotten myself under control, he faces me again.

  “Here.” He pulls a roll and wrapped cheese from his tunic. “Take these for your journey. Keep going north. When the river forks, continue left until you find Buellt sitting along its banks. The town has an old hill fort and a thriving community. Lord Cynan keeps it fortified from intruders but the village is open during the day for travelers. You’ll be safe there.”

  I should refuse the food, but my stomach twists and growls loud enough I’m certain he heard it.

  “Thank you.” I nod as I take the bread.

  “And laddie? Lose the women’s garb. With that long hair, you almost look like a girl.” He winces as if he gave me a grave insult.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, looking down at the bread in my hand. “I suppose it’s time I grew up.”

  “I think you did that today, lad. Protect your horse. Someone might try to take it.”

  He wanders away from me, using his walking stick to step around the marshiest parts of the river.

  I wait until he’s gone before tearing into the food. I don’t worry about the horse, who already nibbles at the grasses with abandon.

  Taking the dagger again, I grasp clumps of my long dark hair and begin hacking through them.

  Hair the color of my mother’s.

  Tears fall from my eyes as I hack. Each tress that falls into the grasses stabs into my heart, a visceral reminder that Mam is gone.

  I creep to the river’s edge and peer into the surface. The screen didn’t mask the wound on my face, or erase Prince Madoc’s dried blood from my chest. I want to remove the tunic but can’t bring myself to walk around in nothing but my shift.

  Once again I put the dagger to use, slicing through the bottom edges of the shirt and shortening it to the length a young boy might wear.

  I changed my person, without even meaning to. My identity. No longer am I Amrys, daughter of Cadwaladr and Hiraeth of Caerfyrddin.

  Who am I?

  ***

  Night falls on our second day of travel, and my stomach feels as if it will eat through itself and start on my body next. I’ve taken the time to catch fish and gather berries when I find them, but the urgency to keep moving rushes through my veins and pushes me onward.

  Though winter is behind us, the nights are far from warm. I curl up beside the horse’s belly and pull my shortened tunic as low as I can. The night chills my bare legs, and I seek warmth from the horse’s hide, which smells of sweat and grass.

  But I can't shake the tremors no matter how close I get.

  Something has changed in me.

  The buzzing in my mind has become such a constant companion that I almost don’t notice it anymore. And the other colors have begun to appear in my peripheral vision, greens and yellows and purples. Pulsing like the stars in the night sky, making the plants and trees and wildlife more vibrant, more alive.

  It’s like another presence has joined me on my journey.

  The rush of energy that fueled my flight from Caerfyrddin has long since left me. I’m sluggish and feel like if I could just touch the flashing colors, I could replenish my soul.

  Replenish the magic.

  But they remain just out of reach, vanishing if I turn my head to focus on them.

  Even the stone at my hip has grown cold.

  I touch my face, but I can’t tell if the screen remains. I suspect it does. I feel this constant pull at the back of my head, like when my hair gets caught in the knot of my scarf and tugs at me no matter which way I turn.

  Maintaining the illusion is draining me.

  I don’t need it right now, hidden in the forest as night falls. But how do I remove it?

  “Unhide me,” I say.

  I don’t feel any change. Cursed magic. I close my eyes and will the screen to fall away. I try to put my heart into it, but compared to the raw anguish of emotion I felt the day before, my heart is dull and numb.

  “Dad,” I whisper.

  I’m not sure where the word comes from, but I recognize it from the old language. I’ve heard my father murmur it in the confines of his forge.

  Undo.

  The stone warms my thigh, and I fish it out of the layers of cloth to see it glowing, ever so gently, as if I held a piece of the moon in my palm.

  At the same time, the tugging at the back of my head ceases.

  The screen has been undone. A state of restful peace falls over me.

  But my mind keeps churning even when I close my eyes.

  I replay the morning with my mam in the kitchen: our one-room cottage, my mam kneading dough at the kitchen table, the fire steady in the hearth and adding to the heat of the day. We talked about the upcoming Calan Mai festival, the menfolk serving the king, and my expected marriage to Brenin. Then she sent me to the river to get my brother . . .

  Right before the raiders came.

  The voices. They spoke to me that morning. They’re coming, they said.

  What are they? Even since Anwen’s disappearance, the dark presence has stalked me.

  I glance down at my hand, with the rune tattooed across the skin, and I can no longer deny it.

  I have magic.

  Magic is forbidden in these lands.

  Do I learn to control it?

  Or shun it?

  I haven’t decided before sleep claims me.