Under Shadows and Bough
She will never know what warns her.
In one moment she is cheerily walking down the winding path the to city, the cloying pressure of the knowe lightening with each step she took away from the center of its power, and the next --
The next fear grips her, makes her rip at her bag, searching, searching --
She’s left it behind. Her mother’s journal.
It’s as if the trees have bent in to pick at her, dark shadows growing long over to loom, and -- and --
She trusts Zen, of course she does, and Kiki and Mitsuhide too, but --
But she knows it’s a mistake to leave it, to treat them as she might human companions and wait until the next time she’s summoned. A thing like that, steeped in the magics of not only her, but her mother, and her mother before her --
Zen would not force her to be put under geas, not ever, but she’s heard whispers of his brother, of the man who the knowe obeys, and she would have to be a fool to risk that falling into his hands, or the hands of one of his.
Like that man. Haruka. Oh god, that she has not left it within easy sight of Lord Haruka.
She runs back to the gates, and for once she wishes she did have a geas on her. She could be fleet as deer, covering miles in moments with barely a quickening of breath, but instead she’s merely human, left to sweat and gasp for breath like all mortals.
Her feet skid to a stop before she reaches them. Something in the air isn’t right; she should smell ancient ash and honey, but instead it is pine on the air, and a hint of copper.
She creeps forward, using the trees to cover her movements. There is a man standing before the sentinels, deep in conversation.
“Not allow Shirayuki in?” She cannot tell the sentinels apart by looks, not yet -- the bark makes their faces too similar, and she hasn’t gotten close enough to look at their trunks in depth -- but she can tell by voice. This one sounds younger, less raspy; it must be Kai. “But the Second Prince has told us.”
“The order has been changed,” the man says, dressed in the livery of Wistal, though she doesn’t think she’s seen a man like him before. She’s remember him, she’s sure: he’s tall, with a bristle of dark hair -- all common enough -- but there’s something about the way he stands that make him stand out, that makes her find his casual slouch menacing.
It’s Shiira’s groan she recognizes now. “That doesn’t --”
“I once knew a man with four daughters,” the man says, apropos to nothing, “four daughters and a wife had he.”
Pine pricks her, so sharp she’s sure it draws blood. Copper floods her senses, the cloying scent leaving her dizzy and disoriented.
Magic. He’s doing magic. He’s trying to bespell the sentinels.
“If each these daughters had a brother,” he continues, a chill cutting right through to her bones, “then how many members of this family do there be?”
It isn’t possible. The ash trees are as old as the knowe itself, impregnable --
“Ah,” Kai murmurs, “thatsh...that’s...ten. No?”
“No,” the man says, so kindly. “But do try again.”
“It don’t make no sensh -- sense. Doesn’t make any sense,” Shiira slurs. “It’s got to be ten.”
“It’s not,” the man assures him. “I could leave you to think on it, come back later?”
“Yeah.” Kai’s branches shiver. “Yeah, that’d -- that’d work! Come back later.”
Dear god, has he made the sentinels drunk?
“And the girl?” he prompts, so innocent.
“What girl?” the sentinels ask, their voices filling the wood.
“Ah.” He turns his head just so, and she sees a smile cut through shadow. “Perfect.”
