Chapter Fifty-Two

Nencarion the Spy

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"I wanna know everything about everything! That's why I'm going to be a spy..."

-Harriet the Spy

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Nencarion has never had to play the spy in his own home before. But he loves his sisters- his own dear twin, Nimlothel, and his gentle, elder sister Anoreloth. He loves his distant, absent minded, petting mother, and even his six brothers.

But not his father. He hates his father with a passion. And it is on his father that he must spy, because he does not know where his sister is.

So when his father, the King, carefully tucks a great ball of thread like peach sunrise and crimson dusk, dawn fire and morning embers and twilight coals, away in the cupboard only he- and of course, his young, lock picking son- can get into, Nencarion knows to take it, and tuck it into his favorite jacket, freshly dyed with the blood of a wild boar that attacked him at the castle gates. It rests safely beside the star bottle meant for his sister.

Then he goes, and sees his sister chained to the dungeon wall. His twin, bleeding from the stripes her father has give her, so that her lily white skin and ivory curls are stiff and tacky with maroon blood, and her pretty, cream colored dress is torn and bloody, fills the boy with a deep hatred.

But for now, he will let it lie. He will go to his sister with the ball of thread and the bottle of starlight.