The river at the border was a scrawny, unimpressive thing, barely more than a series of streams like the spreading roots of some cherry tree torn from the soil by storms. Ise wondered which of the streams, in particur, marked the threshold between the Rose’s neutral demesne and Locin to the north. In the isnd of Tawarasato there were no doubts as to where the kingdom came to an end. Here, though, it seemed entirely arbitrary. Perhaps the streams ran high when the rainy seasons came, but thus far not one drop had fallen on the traveling Blossoms. There was little change in elevation, and the waters ran sluggish. Upstream, supposedly the river widened, but here the fords were shallow enough that the crossing was effortless. They needed only to find sturdier ground for the pachidons to cross without the risk of their weight sinking into the soft muddy soil and getting stuck.

  That much was easy enough, following the tracks left by the refugees headed south. Such a flow of humanity left footprints and marks, be they hoofs or wheels. Ise located them in two separate points, and Triel, too, not far downstream where a low bridge worn by time was practically fused with the ground, with little distinction between wood and mud. Sturdy enough, they agreed, as though they had any insight on how to bring elephants across a bridge. If they got all the way from Biratgar to here, it couldn’t be that difficult.

  The crossing was slow, and difficult—but not because of the pachidons, so Ise figured she was not actually mistaken. Their carts were heavier than those of starving, miserable refugees, and too wide to comfortably traverse the narrow bridge, leading to the humiliating predicament of their group becoming temporarily stuck unable to cross a stream so shallow you couldn’t use it to drown a rat. It took a brief mantling, the transformation granting Triel, Erika, Prishia and Millicent the strength to lift the onerous burden.

  Afterwards they faced no impediments, the road ahead of them clear, if well-trod. Road was a generous word for the dirt paths that seemed to have been made naturally by many years of journeys than deliberately pnned. Here the woods grew sparser, the terrain ft grassnds of fading colors. Here and there tall hedges grew in clusters before suddenly disappearing not two hours further north. The shifting environs made the journey appear far lengthier than it was in truth, but that was simply the y of Locin. By dusk they ought to be seeing the jagged hills of Locin in the distance, like a many-pronged crown bathed in a st golden glow before the sun set. And then, at st, they’d be no more than one day from Agaepsonia.

  They made good time in an uneventful morning, and by midday had well earned repose and a meal. These were not yet the nds threatened by the Gairning Host, not with Agaepsonia standing between them, so it was curious that they’d come across no settlements yet, not even the smallest of hamlets. While sharing bread and pork, Stelmaria told her that anyone who felt pressed to pass through Agaepsonia to safety might as well continue their journey towards Cartasinde. These nds were not a pce for building a life, merely a shroud of liminality, where life was found only as a fading smoke behind those fleeing their homes.

  “In spite of present circumstances,” Stel said, “I feel a strange sort of relief to be journeying towards Locin rather than away from it. My entire life I’ve trod the opposite path. Always leaving things behind. People and pces and memories.”

  “We will do everything we can,” Ise promised. She was, in truth, not particurly familiar with Stelmaria, though they did spar quite often, as she was a formidable swordswoman. Seeing the warmth of Stel’s smile, Ise thought that perhaps, to her, that had indeed made the two of them friends. “We shan’t have to run away again.”

  Those words satisfied Stel, who proceeded to finish her meal with haste, before excusing herself. Ise, in turn, always did her utmost to avoid having to hurry as she ate. Even when, against her best efforts, she found herself recalling dinners with her sisters, with Mother, she ate patiently, whispering soft thanks when she was finished, though every part of her wished to run so as to escape such memories.

  A scion of the House of Ubami did not run. She let the pain wash over her, closed her eyes, then let the feeling go. When she opened her eyes she saw that she had shattered her pte in her nervous grip. Blood dripped slowly down her palms before falling onto the grass. She picked up the pieces, uttered a quick apology, and went back on her way, gd to be alone again. In such moods she did not wish for company, least of all company she had to make an effort to tolerate. My sisters, she thought bitterly as she walked past Erika squatting and groaning over a hole and Prishia spilling bacon grease on her own coat.

  From then on the road rarely turned, and of nature naught but weeds and heather shrubs encroached from the sides. The trees grew rarer and smaller the further north they proceeded, and most of Ise’s scouting duty was purposeless, with no trace nearby of any spots to conceal an ambush. But it was not in her nature to be careless, so she kept watch, traveling ahead of her companions and ready to alert them of any dangers.

  Instead she alerted them to the inn ahead. An empty structure, Ise guessed, with no smoke rising, but the sound of footsteps and voices soon gave evidence to the mistake in her assumption. Just as they noticed the figures inside the inn, they would not avoid their notice, not when such a rge convoy of wayns and beasts of burden made itself so amply perceptible.

  “I know of this inn,” said Sieglinde. “It was prosperous, once, when Agaepsonia saw more frequent comings and goings of travelers headed to and from Locin. I believe it’s fallen on hard times as of te, but our Rose has quietly offered some support on account of its usefulness for our Blossoms traveling towards Agaepsonia.”

  “But now even that won’t suffice,” said Stelmaria. “Those fleeing from war and devastation tend not to have much coin to carry in their pockets. And theirs is thin patronage, no more than a night’s rest, and so eager to put distance between themselves and Locin that they’ll return to the road without breaking their fast. It’s not the old innskeep in there, that much I’m certain of.”

  “Refugees, then?” Millicent proposed, but Erika shook her head.

  “Too small a group for that, and too many horses,” she said.

  “I see no horses,” said Triel.

  “I see mounds of horseshit,” Erika pointed at the trails of droppings. “No riders crossed paths with us, so they did not head south. I’d say they scattered into the woods, like leaves blown in the wind.”

  “If they were fleeing from Locin,” said Stel, “they would be foolish to remain in Locin, no? Ordinary travelers would have lit some fires, if they were simply staying for the night. Could be brigands. Whether here to extract a toll or sheltering between hunts, I mislike the sight of them. They must have taken this pce recently, for the refugees headed south made no mention of them.”

  “What should we do, then?” Millicent asked. “Our duty demands we deal with any who threaten the peace, great or small.”

  “Brigands might well be Gairnites,” Stelmaria said. “I say we put them all to the sword.”

  “Without even meeting with them?” Cecilia was shocked. “That is but an assumption, one which we shall have no certainty of unless we see the truth for ourselves.”

  “That is well enough if they prove not to be of the Host,” said Erika, “but if they are? Most of these Gairnites look like any other man, until they open the gates of a city to let their comrades in for their fill of rape and plunder. And if they’re common criminals, they too forfeit their lives when breaking the ws of the Rose and her allies.”

  “You speak freely of killing as though you’ve ever done it,” Cecilia remarked. “Let us attempt to treat with them before we shed any blood, shall we?”

  “Kleinfeld has the right of it,” said Millicent. “We know far too little to reach any conclusions. If we can avoid a fight, all the better.”

  After that, their course was decided. Ise sighed, knowing that Millicent and Cecilia were correct, that it would not do for them to simply decree the deaths of people they hadn’t even yet seen; but, correct as they were, that did not change the pin truth that the odds were better of this turning bloody than not. War did not grant the privilege of deciding when to spill blood.

  Ise stepped gingerly over the droppings, wielding her spear. The others, save for Erika, sheathed their weapons, though Stel’s hand rested on the pommel of her bde. Best if they needn’t use these arms, but wiser to be prepared. As they neared the inn, Ise wished that more of her companions were steeled for battle. Passing by the small stable, a lone pony was precariously tied to a post, with thin rope that would not prevent it from escaping. The inn itself looked better from up close than from the distance, not nearly in such dire disrepair as it initially appeared. The whitewashed walls were adorned with patches of ivy, an arrangement that almost struck Ise as intentional until she caught sight of the moss creeping along the stone. According to Stel and Sieglinde, this establishment would not have been abandoned for that long; truly it had been facing hard times for some years now.

  Through the windows Ise caught glimpses of movement within, but inside it was too dark to be certain. Whoever it was, they were in hiding, but not very well. Whether it was an attempt at an ambush or their own fear of pursuers remained to be seen. None called out to them before they entered, so Sieglinde rapped on the front door, sturdy old oak, before pushing it open.

  That she was met with a loaded crossbow pointed towards her was not a surprise, but the size of the scrawny boy holding it certainly was. That’s a child, Ise thought. He struggled to carry his weapon, but to his credit, he did not falter. There were more crossbows, too, and spears, and clubs of rough wood, little better than sticks.

  “No closer,” said one of the few adult men inside. “M’dies of the Rose, I must beg you t’leave. We are sheltered here and ‘ave little space for guests. Be on your way.”

  “Where is the innkeep?” Stel asked.

  “We found this pce abandoned,” he replied. “We’re only leaving Locin, same as every person with good sense.”

  “You are very well-armed for travelers,” said Sieglinde. “Lower your weapons and we shall lower ours, in turn.”

  “Forgive me, but no,” said a boy, tall and burly but smooth-faced, and grasping his spear as a trained soldier would. “Blossoms need no weapons to sughter us. We cannot trust your word when your magic could kill us easy.”

  “We are not wielding magic,” said Cecilia, undoing the csp on her belt like a damned fool, letting her sword fall, “and we mean no harm. We have no cause to take up arms against you, unless…?”

  “Unless they’re deserters,” Stelmaria hissed. “Fled from Locin, have I the right of it?”

  “Some of us, aye. Some had less righteous paths in life. Some of them kids are just that, kids, with nowhere to go. Life’s not kind for orphans with no prospects, not even a begging bowl to their names.”

  “Adversity does not excuse betrayal,” Stel did not relent. “Some of you are not soldiers, I’ll grant you that. A soldier would know how to handle a sword, a spear. So, deserters and brigands. Is that the truth of it?”

  “Call it what you will,” the first man said. “We only wish to be left alone. They would hang us for oathbreakers if we headed south, no? We’ve nowhere to go. Brigands, aye, if you would so brand a man who does not wish to starve. You would damn us for the crime of eating?”

  “I would damn you for what’s been done to the innkeeper's family,” said Ise. “Were we to dig behind the stables, would we find bodies recently buried? Speak truth.”

  The boy holding the crossbow briefly twitched his finger. Ise raised her spear, but was held back by Sieglinde just as the boy had his weapon taken by a peer with less fickle a temperament. I would not have attacked him, Ise thought, but did not believe it herself. A crossbow bolt to the heart or head could kill even a Blossom; even a meek boy could commit murder with such a weapon, and with little effort.

  “Peace,” the older man said, quivering. They could kill a Blossom or two, perhaps, but never win. He had to know it. “We did not kill the owners of this pce, I swear,” he said, as though his word had any worth. “They left some time ago, or headed south with that great mass of folks leaving this nd. ‘Tis the truth.”

  “We’ve done them no harm, neither,” said a boy growing some thin wisps of hair on his cheeks. “We let ‘em go untroubled. We’s just staying here, is all.”

  “And your companions?” Stel asked. “The ones on horseback?”

  “Foraging,” he replied. “Not robbing. There’s nothing here to rob.”

  If there were, then their foraging would be of a different nature entirely. At least they did not lie wholly to cim virtue. They missed their chance with the earlier refugees, but this could be a fine position to extract tolls from travelers, as though desperate folk fleeing from demon-haunted nds had much to relinquish.

  The bloom-sisters behind her suddenly turned as clops neared from the woods surrounding the inn. Ise counted six men on horses, but she looked away from the squatters inside the inn only briefly. The horsemen approached with weapons sheathed, the foremost of them showing an open palm as a sign of peace. He dismounted to approach the Blossoms, but his companions remained on horseback, watching from a distance.

  “Was your foraging successful?” Stel asked. “As that the first prey you chance upon would be capable of fighting back.”

  “We don’t want a fight,” the chief said. That was wise of him, but it was hardly the matter here. The Blossoms could not allow brigands to remain undisturbed in their irs. “It would be costly for all of us.”

  “More costly for you,” said Ise. Even so, she could not lie and say that she did not worry about those crossbows, and how one lucky thrust of a spear could kill her or her companions. And Cecilia wasn’t wrong that it was no easy thing, to take a life for the first time…

  “Peace, Ubami,” Sieglinde told her. “You understand,” she told the leader, “that we cannot have you robbing anyone. We’re not robbers, you’ll say, but let us not be dishonest. Not all among you know how to wield their weapons, so I’m willing to believe that you’ve not engaged in much banditry. You’re afraid, desperate… We’ve no desire to sy such as you.”

  “We don’t have to,” said Cecilia. “Let us make an exchange. A fair bargain, you’ll find it. Give up your weapons and swear to leave this inn, and we can offer you supplies to make it to Cartasinde. Food, funds, spare horses. What you do when you get to Cartasinde shall be your own business. Work honestly, if you’d like. Continue on this path and be hanged, if that is more agreeable. We’ll give you a chance, if you’ll accept it.”

  They did not respond. It was true that these were most generous terms when most ws decreed deserters as worthy of death, championed by not the slightest legal protections. Relief brightened their dour expressions, but doubt and concern as well. Their arms relinquished, they would be utterly helpless, clinging to the Rose’s word.

  A crossbow fell to the floor. After that, more and more cngs as weapons were abandoned. There was no need for commands to be given. Ise and Erika id low their weapons as well, though Stel continued to grip hers, eyes full of suspicion, loathing, disdain. Nevertheless, she allowed them to pass by, before Cecilia, Millicent and Sieglinde guided them to their carts, making good on their promise. Kleinfeld should not have had the authority to make such an offer, in truth, but Sieglinde appeared pleased at her initiative. And, no doubt, the result was more welcome than sughter. Given full, bountiful bushels, and a small purse of ryals, they could depart in peace, and, one could dare hope, abide by ws and construct their own lives at the capital, or elsewhere. Ise rather doubted it, but it was out of her hands now. She helped Triel gather the discarded weapons, then brought them back to their carts.

  “You could have stayed in Agaepsonia,” Ise overheard Millicent suggest to one of the band’s horsemen. “There are soldiers of Locin among you; you would have been welcomed there. It’s not bountiful nd, but fertile enough to support a small garrison in the outer fort.”

  “One day it might have been safer, aye,” he replied, “but not anymore. The Blossom that now reigns there is no friend to us. She already judged us deserters for not dying in battle with the Gairning Host, and would hang us dead had we remained much longer. We ain’t deserters, or t’least we weren’t before she made to kill us all. Deserters and highwaymen and comrades to such dregs, she called us, and denied entry to a great many women she misliked, on account of being, says she, camp followers. We departed during one of her fell moods, when she retreated to the main keep for days and suffered no intruders.”

  “And who is this Blossom?” Sieglinde asked. “It beggars belief that one of our bloom-sisters would behave thusly.”

  “Believe it or not, m’dy, I speak true. Her name I don’t know, she scarcely felt the need to share such details with us scum. But she is not of this nd, I can tell you that much. Her traits are those of distant nds, eyes of sunrisers if I may call ‘em such. Yet pale, so pale, her cold eyes and her skin so pale,” he shivered. “She shan’t hold, I don’t expect. Might be that one night her underlings slit her throat as she sleeps. If she sleeps.”

  “I see,” Millicent replied. “No Blossom that I know of matches such description, but there were a myriad magical girls in Locin. Linde?”

  “I know that some Amilrans were given offices and tasks in Locin, but can say no more with certainty. Many who hail from Siodrune’s heartnds were assigned to Amilra, when our Ruby Blossom prized the forging of bonds between nations.”

  Or ensured that Blossoms would not unduly influence the political ndscapes of their homends, Ise thought to herself. Kept in unfamiliar realms with no contacts but fellow magical girls, they would be loyal to their Order rather than their nation.

  Not long after, all matters resolved, she watched the southbound band disappear towards the horizon, as the sun began to set, leaving the inn entirely for the Blossoms alone. It was simple enough, though comfortable and spacious, fit for a great covey. Ise found herself wondering how many magical girls had slept beneath this roof on their way to and from Locin. It was an old structure, sturdy in its thick oaken foundations, hints of more recent expansions in the changing colors; older wood here, darkened and worn by years, newer and pristine there, traces of repairs made with yew, perhaps brought from afar. As her companions settled within the dining halls or searched for quarters for themselves, or made their way to the kitchen, Ise ran her fingers along the walls, feeling their roughness.

  Was it true what those men said, that this establishment’s owners had merely departed? Noting how old this inn was, it seemed unlikely that those had been its first proprietors. A family property passed through the centuries…? Even hundreds of years ago, people were always leaving these dangerous nds, but returned in times of peace and plenty, however brief they could be. The Lorne Quarter in Cartasinde became home to those who did not return, who now lived in squalor. Perhaps that would be the fate of these refugees: choosing between war and birthright, or peace and paucity.

  Tawarasato was oft dangerous, too, she thought. These years of peace I’ve known from birth were never assured, even though to me they appear eternal… Her mother lived in times of peace, too, and her mother in turn, so it was easy to see Tawarasato as a peaceable kingdom, but ossuaries and temples to ancestors were at the heart of every vilge. There was a time where Tawarasato, too, seemed fated to be a nd of war eternal, but none who had known those days yet lived. She wondered if she would have faulted her ancestors and their kin for not leaving such a violent country. Ise suddenly felt mencholy, and foolish as well, like a child. I should not have judged them so harshly, it occurred to her now, too te. This is a pce of profound, understated sorrow. How many had slept beneath this roof without knowing if they’d ever see their home again…?

  Her home in Tawarasato remained, her family’s ample estate. When she had st been there, it was full of life. Now… Now she tried to think of it as home, to imagine herself returning to emptiness and silence, and she felt hollow, cold, alone.