Chương 73: CHAPTER 70 – Into the Light

Before Saphienne and Hyacinth hid the tracks left by the goblins, they took their time meticulously studying the scene. Any mistake that made the Wardens of the Wilds suspicious could have dire consequences, and Saphienne refused to be caught through another careless oversight — never again. Fortunately, though goblins were denser than elves, they weighed so little that they only left footprints when rushing.

While there were countless impressions on the grass around the offering trees, the sole trail led away from the shrine.

"That, I can cover." Hyacinth was confident.

"Elsewhere, what needs done?" Careful not to leave any tracks of her own, Saphienne followed the goblins, noticing strands of yellow cloth caught on the underside of a briar. She retrieved it and continued further on — then laughed, immediately finding an entire square of the same fabric discarded on the dry grass. She carried both scraps back to the icon, there to stare up into the golden eyes that watched her expectantly.

"Hyacinth," she silently asked, "are you still able to shape the flowers that are on my head? Could you grow a body from them?"

"A body small?" The bloomkith giggled.

"You would make me a running goblin, short and fierce and sharp of tooth?" Saphienne snorted.

"Not quite. I just need something that can leave an impression like their footprints." Ponderous uncertainty rippled out from Hyacinth and through Saphienne.

"…Perhaps I could bend wood…"

"I thought you could only shape hyacinth flowers?""'Tis hard, in truth. The less alike my blooms, the harder done…" The spirit tilted Saphienne's head to survey the area around the icon, parting her lips in a smile.

"But lie we do within a shrine, 'neath sun! Repair the bounds, and here I may then find the magic, pure, that nourishes my kind." Nudging Hyacinth, Saphienne reasserted control of her body.

"You're supposed to ask my permission — this hardly counts as protecting me." In the field of their minds the flowers blushed pink.

"Has danger not drawn near?"

"You're forgiven." Saphienne wondered if other elves who often shared their bodies with woodland spirits slid into such easy familiarity… Hyacinth was sharing her thoughts.

"Holly says so; much trust is needed. Priests sometimes let go of formal rite, when friendly spirits ask."

"She and Nelathiel did seem close…" She cast her eye over the sacred grounds, seeking the means by which a circle had been made before the icon.

"Hyacinth? I don't see the boundary." Mischievously, the spirit pressed forward in reply — pointedly asking permission to move her head. Saphienne rolled her glowing eyes before she let the bloomkith refocus them, whereupon she was made to look up at the boughs of the offering trees surrounding the shrine, seeing there the intertwined limbs that formed the circle she sought.

"…I thought it had it to be made on the ground." Her gaze travelled from branch to branch, each tied to the next with loops of amber ribbon.

"That was a foolish assumption, now that I think about it. I'm guessing the goblins broke it when they–" Near where a corner of the canopy had been cut down, one of the thinnest branches had snapped — and was now dangling from the ribbon tied to its neighbour.

"…Fuck me." She glanced down at the impractical gown she was wearing.

"It'll be a miracle if I don't tear this while climbing." She felt the spirit's amusement.

"Take care you must… or naked do the task?" Already unclasping her cloak, Saphienne paused to consider–"I jest!" Hyacinth guffawed and hugged her.

"You are too young to wildling walk." She tossed her cloak onto the grass and muttered as she rolled back her long sleeves and knotted up her hem.

"It's not like you don't know how I look without clothes on…" But the Hyacinth who mirrored Saphienne only stuck her tongue out, changing her petals to blend into the melting snow. * Balancing precariously, Saphienne held the broken branch in place to complete the circle while Hyacinth retreated into her floral crown. She felt the blooms stir, another blossom budding off and tumbling twenty feet down to the forest floor — where Hyacinth quickly took root, planting nourishing bulbs in the soil.

The spirit extended her tendrils to the base of the tree on which Saphienne perched, unnatural hyacinth vines twining up and around the bark as she sought purchase. A moment later Saphienne wobbled as the bough beneath her feet creaked, and she nearly fell as it rapidly grew green wood around the break — grafting the limb back together. Then an overhead branch twisted with a groan, and Saphienne grinned at the incongruous, footed walking stick that the spirit had shaped for her.

* As Hyacinth departed upon the wind and went sweeping through the woods, Saphienne slid down the trunk and sat heavily — spitting out the stick she had held between her teeth. On closer examination? The foot was a poor likeness. Although the right size, the webbed toes were improperly spaced apart and too symmetrical; there was no way a Warden of the Wilds would be deceived by its prints. Not unless… She closed her eyes.

"Fuck me." By the time Saphienne was done with her craft singing, not a single bird remained within two hundred yards. Eventually a very large badger lumbered into the glade, thoroughly confused to be awake during the daytime. The beast stared mutely at Saphienne with yellow eyes before rearing up and waving its claws, then sank down and snuffled northward, beginning the tedious work of digging up the tracks the goblins had left behind. She took this to mean Hyacinth had matters in hand — or at least in paw.

With thread, cloth, and retrieved shards of honeycomb in hers, Saphienne hefted the resculpted walking stick and went westward. She gauged the stride of a sprinting goblin and made partial impressions in the dirt, careful to leave only single toes and scuffed markings so as not to reveal that all were made by the same foot. When she was a little way outside the shrine, she scattered the honeycomb. When she encountered a thicket, she snapped twigs and caught the thread on them.

When she was all the way down the slope, she dropped the cloth into the stream. Then she waded through the water for a quarter of a mile, picturing how the phantom goblins had swam and scrambled so as to leave intermittent marks along the banks wherever they went, until she was confident the false trail was made. She signed her work with a single, perfect footprint in the mud.

* A doe was foraging next to the shrine when Saphienne sloshed her way back to the crest of the hill, and the deer watched her until she was sure the elf was hornless, at which point she went back to grazing. Hyacinth had added hoofprints to the scene.

Taking her shoes off and laying them out to dry, Saphienne borrowed the sickle from the icon to hack apart the incriminating end of the walking stick; she concealed the pieces in her cloak's pocket and hurled the remainder as far into the southern bushes as she could. This accomplished, she smoothed out her dress and sat cross-legged before the shrine to think very hard about exactly what she would say. Before long, a fox came to lope back and forth around her.

* Once they were reunited in her body before the icon, Saphienne wasted no time laying out her lies to Hyacinth.

"We need to coordinate our story about what happened when we got here, and what we did afterward. I've gone over events in detail."

"Then I shall listen close," replied the bloomkith, "and you shall talk."

"We should change as little as possible. Everything happened exactly as it happened — right up until I startled the goblins. That was when you took control, and you grabbed the sickle that was lying on the grass to our left; but the goblins were already fleeing back the way we came from."

"And what about your ring? What happened there?" She sighed aloud as she replied within.

"A lie would be too risky: we have to admit they took it. One of the goblins was carrying off the scales; I dropped the sickle to give chase, and ended up holding one end while the goblin clung on to the other. The ring slipped free when I fell into the stream — and the goblin ran off with it." Where they sat side-by-side on the library steps the bloomkith hugged her.

"Your dignity is offering most fair."

"It explains how I got soaked. Anyway," she pressed on, "I cleaned the implements and returned them to the icon, and then we fixed the broken boundary. You found shaping the tree far more difficult than you expected, and mending the branch took until now." Hyacinth deflated against her.

"Teased I will be, for artless shall I look."

"Didn't you just say that dignity is a sacrifice worth making?"

"Did I complain?" The bloomkith tutted, mild ire expressed in her near-rhyme.

"Away with your rebuke." Saphienne knew she was only anxious.

"Have I missed anything?"

"Their scent," Hyacinth noted, less testily, "which musk of beast has covered well."

"Then now…" They gazed as one beyond the goddess, to where the protectorate awaited.

"…There's nothing else for us to do but find the wardens, and tell our lie." She felt daunted by the challenge — and thrilled.

"We better hope we're convincing enough that they don't call upon a diviner to examine what happened."

"My faith in us is strong," Hyacinth reassured them both.

"We left no tell." Saphienne wryly smiled up at Our Lady of the Balanced Scales.

"I pray you're right." Yet the snowfall upon the bloomkith's field increased as she shifted away, eyeing Saphienne as the flakes settled all across her flowers. She said nothing; she withheld herself. Being unable to fully discern what her friend was thinking or feeling made Saphienne apprehensive.

"Are you worried we'll be found out?" There was vulnerability in what Hyacinth shared.

"Never again might I depart these lands.

'Tis rare for blooms like I to be allowed. I would that we should touch the earth with hand," she admitted, "and go into the light with heads unbowed." A delicate, sentimental smile had crept onto Saphienne's lips.

"You want to walk with me again… in case we never get another chance…" Hyacinth looked down. What else was there to say? Saphienne physically thrust her feet into her still-wet shoes, and as she stood in body she grasped in mind the spirit she had come to care for, and fell into springtime as she strolled toward the fields. * There is a poem my father wrote, a poem that I believe captures in full what Saphienne-Hyacinth felt as she emerged from the woodlands.

I will quote this fragment from memory: Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much? Have you practiced so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun… Do not ask me to explain it to you. He has long gone along the ruddy shore, and elves leave no footprints to follow.

* Through a field of winter barley that stood on the threshold of summer gold she roved wordless and wistful and wise to the currents of herself. The long green grain swept back and forth across her shins in sensual caress, while the wind that willed it move carried clouds in procession with her footfalls. Though the earth was dry the air was moist and rich upon her tongue, and she breathed free of the pollen that had poured out the boughs across all the springs she had lived.

The heavens in her eyes were more than clear. And though the day was alive with the rustle of the crop and the moan of the wind there was a silence upon her unlike any she had ever heard, shapeless where it spread out around her, vast and unfamiliar. Saphienne-Hyacinth knew then what was meant by open sky, for she had at last beheld the world unshaped by the echoes of the woodlands. So onward she went, and went on forever, until arose the sight of a hill and a tree.

* Saphienne wished she could have ignored the figures she saw — yearned to keep on walking with Hyacinth. And even without the unity of thought and feeling they had just shared, she still would have known that the bloomkith felt the same way.

"… Humans…" They both said the word at the same time; and both with the same groan; and both shared the same laughter at each other, along with themselves. Neither held anything against the girls sitting up ahead. They were only sad that encountering other people had brought their communion to an end, forcing them to face the world apart. For all the elf and the spirit were still shallowly touching, they were now individuals once more. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road.

If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Hyacinth stretched toward her flowers.

"Take off the choker golden, if you please."

"Must I?" Her fingers brushed the metal.

"And must you go? Wouldn't it be fun to amaze them a little?"

"Do not make them afraid," the bloomkith urged her.

"Set them at ease."

"I won't…" She nevertheless pried the jewellery from her neck and slipped it into her pocket beside the chunks of wood.

"I don't intend to scare them. I want to talk."

"Then to your brow I shall depart, mellow…" Hyacinth withdrew into the flower crown with a parting verse.

"… To trade out clashing blue — for kind yellow." While she was unable to see them change, Saphienne was pleased to feel the petals shiver as they altered their hue. She had been dismayed by how the blue might look with the forest greens and silver she was dressed in, having wanted to ask for a warmer colour against her brown hair. Again she wished that she had a mirror, and resolved that she would ask Hyacinth to bestow another crown on her when the festival arrived…

assuming they hadn't been declared apostates by the time of the summer solstice. She tried not to think about that as she went up the hill. The humans she'd seen were sat under a rowan tree, the younger girls gathered in a semicircle around the eldest, who was reading to them in another language that Saphienne hadn't encountered. As she approached them she listened and let herself be lulled, enjoying the heady consonance that sounded so different from Elfish.

"… Je ne suis pas fier, mais je suis heureux, et le bonheur aveugle, je crois, encore plus que la fierté…" Though she only had Felipe to reference, Saphienne estimated that the girl reading was older than her — perhaps Celaena's age.

The double-layered dresses that the dozen girls were wearing struck Saphienne as modest, too heavy for the heat outside the shade, and the speaker had covered her hair with a mantle that draped down across her shoulders in woad blue, matched to the long sleeves and hem beneath her outer, dull red fabric. The youngest of the girls was perhaps seven or eight years old, and the way she hung on every word told Saphienne she was listening to a story.

The others ranged in age between her and the storyteller, and the older girls took more enjoyment from lazing in the sunshine than from the tale. One of them rolled her head toward Saphienne — and sat up in a hurry.

"Une elfe!" In an instant the spell cast by the narrative was broken, and the human girls all leapt to their feet and spun toward Saphienne, instinctually crowding together as though to seek safety in numbers. Yet their expressions were not fearful, only astonished, tinged with worry as they glanced back and forth between her and each other. Arriving before them, Saphienne brought her hands together– And was surprised when the girls all bowed. The eldest stepped forward, coughing nervously.

"We are sorry for intruding," she said in slightly mispronounced Elfish.

"We did not know we were too close to the forest." Saphienne studied her wide, blue eyes, which were far less clear and colourful than the gazes of elves. The others were blue or grey, or brown like Felipe; she saw no green to pair with her own.

"Good afternoon; your Elfish is very good." She smiled what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

"Thank you." Being complimented had the opposite effect than intended, and the girl clutched the book against her chest.

"I brought the others here. Please do not be angry with them — the mistake was mine." Saphienne decided then and there that she would make the girls relax and smile, whatever she had to do.

"You are not too close to the forest," she promised as she walked toward the tree.

"I'm not here because you have done something wrong. I'm here because something strange has happened, and I need your help." The group had backed away from her as she drew near, and turned as one to watch her sit on the roots where the eldest among them had been sitting. Not all were confident with Elfish, and a shorter girl whispered an urgent question, to which two others replied with what Saphienne assumed was a translation. Having digested the news, the eldest girl took a wary step toward Saphienne.

"I would be happy to help you…"

"Good." Saphienne unclasped her cloak and let it fall back.

"You can answer some simple questions. You have a home not far from here?" A nod, and the girl pointed over the fields toward what Saphienne belatedly recognised as a human settlement — she had been expecting buildings formed from trees. Her elven eyes saw the distant, squat structures in detail, charmed by the bright paints that decorated their exteriors below their arched roofs.

"That is further away than I expected."

"This is a rest day–""I'm not criticising you!" Saphienne laughed lightly.

"I have never been outside the woodlands before. What's your name?" The girl lowered the book.

"…Elisanna."

"I'm happy to meet you, Elisanna; my name is Saphienne." Telling them her name made the small crowd murmur, and Elisanna appeared as though Hyacinth could have blown her over.

"Kind elf," she said, retreating into formality, "what help do you require from me?"

"Your protectorate," Saphienne supposed, "is guarded by elves like myself? What do you call them?" Behind Elisanna, the girls were talking animatedly to each other in their own language, but their spokeswoman didn't hush them as she paced closer to Saphienne.

"I do not know if they are much like you… we rarely see any of them in the village… but they are called the Watchers of the Wilds." They were almost certainly the Wardens of the Wilds.

"When you need their attention, how do you signal them?"

"I do not." She bit her lip.

"…The headman of our village can call for them." That was perfect!

"Good enough." Saphienne turned her gaze to the other girls.

"Who of you is best at memorising words and following instructions?" A pale girl who was about the same age as Saphienne pushed her way forward and bowed, overconfidence showing in her freckled smile.

"I can be helping you, kind elf." Elisanna suppressed a sigh as she addressed the younger girl without looking.

"Tomidia, tais-toi! C'est sérieux."

"Je suis sérieuse!" Saphienne didn't have to be fluent in their language to recognise herself in the tone of their exchange.

"Your name is… Tomidia?" The young girl swelled with pride at being recognised.

"Oui– yes!"

"Then you can help me if you choose, Tomidia." As much as she disliked the way they were treating her, and what it implied about their relationship with elves, Saphienne enjoyed being the centre of their attention.

"Listen very carefully: I want you to walk – not run – back to your village. Tell the… head man? Tell him than an elf has come out of the forest and needs the watchers to come to her right away. Tell him that she said the shrine has been dese– has been disturbed."

"…Yes." Tomidia failed to hide the fact that she hadn't understood what she had been told to do. Saphienne giggled as she glanced to Elisanna.

"Did you understand what I said?" Elisanna bowed and turned toward the village.

"I will go–""Wait." Saphienne gestured to Tomidia.

"Translate what I said to her, and make her repeat it back to you. And tell her she should take her time walking back to the village — it's very important." Perplexed at why she was not being sent, Elisanna nevertheless had a short and hurried conversation with Tomidia, the girls around them growing more excited as they heard what was going on. Tomidia bowed low, then turned and ran down the hill.

"Elisanna," Saphienne asked, "how do you say 'slow down' in your tongue?"

"Ralentis?" Saphienne rose to shout the word after the girl, who stumbled, and turned in surprise, shouting back an affirmation before she began to walk sedately through the next field. There were smothered laughs among some of the girls; Elisanna had half-folded her arms, and pressed one hand to her cheek in exasperation as she stared across the barley. She remembered herself and promptly dipped her head to Saphienne.

"How else may we help you, kind elf?" Satisfied, Saphienne reclaimed her seat.

"You can help me pass the time," she said with a winning smile, "by telling me all about what life is like for you, out here in the protectorate." Now Elisanna peered over her shoulder to the slowly receding figure of Tomidia, and her subtly narrowing eyes gave away that she knew what had just happened.

"…I see…"

"You aren't in any trouble." She debated whether to say more.

"…I might be, a little. But you won't be. Do you understand?" In charge but out of her depth, Elisanna fidgeted with her mantle, then ducked down in a movement that Saphienne didn't yet recognise.

"Please excuse me…" With growing delight, the elf watched the human girls huddle together, listening to their voices rising and then being shushed, pretending not to see the eager way they kept eyeing her as they argued among themselves about what to do — and then what in the world to say. *"You don't choose your own… what did you say… husband?" Sitting on the ground by her feet, Elisanna suppressed her mirth at Saphienne.

"We do; she only meant that we are given a list to choose from." The girl who had tried to explain it was named Ysole, and she was passing sunflower seeds from her pocket to one of the smallest girls.

"A big list! There is man from other village."

"She means there are men from other villages on the list, as well as our own." Saphienne nodded along, eyebrows raising as she watched the seeds being eaten.

"And are you forced to marry?" Multiple younger girls answered at once, "No!" She couldn't help but smile at their giggles.

"Then why the list?" A rapid exchange in their language – which she had learned was Aiglantois – led Elisanna to shake her head.

"We do not know the word in Elfish… it is bad to marry someone who is too closely related?" For a moment, Saphienne almost asked if they were talking about their brothers or fathers, but she dismissed the notion as foolish.

"I am unfamiliar with what you mean. What would happen if you did?"

"If it kept happening," Elisanna hazarded, "the children would be… born unwell?" She clicked her tongue.

"Consanguinity! I read about this. When–" She caught herself before mentioning the animals in her books.

"–When human generations are not spread out, the offspring start to show congenital weaknesses?"

"…I think so?" Elisanna struggled with her vocabulary.

"My Elfish is not–""You're fine." Saphienne was again distracted by the seeds, having only ever seen birds eat them. She found the spectacle quite odd. But then, was eating them really so different from eating nuts? Ysole was regarding her with concern.

"Do you marry your brother?" Saphienne blinked.

"What? No…" The girl relaxed.

"… We don't marry at all." In retrospect, that was exactly the wrong thing to say. * By the end of the first hour, Saphienne had managed to settle the cultural misunderstanding that had made the girls aghast at her, having reluctantly conceded to them that elves had very complicated relationships involving forest spirits that were far too otherworldly for her to relate in full; but elves did have arrangements like marriage, only that it involved growing horns. She was thankful for having skimmed Felipe's book.

She was also sad that she couldn't be as honest with the girls as she wanted, knowing that they would be questioned by the Wardens – or Watchers – of the Wilds. Saphienne was already taking a significant risk by entering the protectorate without permission, albeit with a reason she was confident would be excused; too much truth could be dangerous to everyone. But by the end of the second hour, she had a much better understanding of conditions in the protectorate.

To both her relief and petty chagrin, the girls' accounts revealed that Almon hadn't lied when he described how well they lived — nor were they anywhere near as constrained in behaviour as girls in their parents' and grandparents' homeland. All of their families had come from the same territory, the kingdom of Aiglant, having been accepted into the protectorate across the last three quarters of a century.

That was why the girls were together, and why they were making an effort to keep the Aiglantois language alive, despite being taught in Elfish and conducting their daily affairs in the common trade tongue. Yet everywhere, Saphienne noticed the constraints placed on the humans – and some dwarves, and even a single family of what the common trade tongue called lizardfolk – by their elven masters.

Excluding numerous festivals, healthy adults were made to work for four days out of seven, between six and eight hours each; they were not free to request whatever they wanted, but always had to justify what they required beyond their base allotment; and they had very little say in the laws that governed their communities. What disquieted her most was that, ultimately? They were content. And they were so desperate to remain in the protectorate, they were emphatic in making sure she knew.

* In an ironic twist, the humans saw wardens before Saphienne did, for they all recoiled and leapt to their feet when the elves appeared behind her. A gloved hand fell upon her shoulder.

"We will talk elsewhere," said a man's voice she didn't know. Saphienne stood and inclined her head to the girls.

"Thank you for assisting me; you have been very helpful. I wish you all many years of health, and hope you will have happy marriages, should you choose husbands." Elisanna, Ysole, Robine, Felise, and all the others whose names she hadn't been told gave respectful bows to her; the eldest girl was distressed at the way the wardens had apprehended Saphienne.

"Children," said another man, "you will all wait here. We will return for you." Accepting that she had a lot of explaining to do, Saphienne went quietly down the hillside toward the woodlands. * When the elves were a thousand feet from the hilltop, the warden holding Saphienne let go with a brusque command.

"Put on your ring." Steeling herself, Saphienne turned around with her lips pursed.

"I don't have one." The elves were dressed differently to the Wardens of the Wilds she knew, their outfits darker and more elaborate, wearing horned masks with severe countenance. Had she not been absolutely convinced that there were elves underneath, she would have been more troubled by the sight.

"What do you mean you don't have one?" demanded the closest warden, his partner's arms folding where he stood behind him.

"You must have one, if you're dressed like that."

"It was taken from me." She refused to say it was stolen.

"Did they tell you why Hyacinth and I came all the way out here? Why we were waiting for you?" An inscrutable look passed between the two impassive masks.

"You're not supposed to be here. You don't have permission." From his answer she deduced that they hadn't heard what had happened, and Saphienne loosed a little of the anger that had been raging inside her ever since she saw the starving goblins.

"Of course I'm not supposed to be out here! And the shrine to Our Lady of the Balanced Scales isn't supposed to be ransacked, either, but here we are–" The other warden uncrossed his arms as he interrupted.

"Pardon?" She exhaled as she shook her head.

"I sent the girl with a message — the head man must not have told you." More likely, the elves hadn't stood still long enough to listen.

"I was visiting the shrine with Hyacinth to leave some offerings. We found it desecrated. There were still goblins there when–""Oh fuck!" The man who had grabbed her took off, sprinting toward the treeline. The other warden adjusted the ring finger of his glove, then lifted away his imposing mask to reveal his lightly perspiring, faintly flushed face. His lips were downturned.

"Let's start this conversation over: I'm Danyn. That was Myrinel. Why were you talking to the humans?"

"I didn't know how else to get word to you — I didn't think it would take this long." She forced a flush she didn't feel.

"…And I only asked them what their lives were like. I told them nothing but nonsense. I was just passing the time." He shrugged.

"You're not the first; sounds like you have a better excuse than most. Are the goblins still at the shrine?"

"No." She folded her arms.

"I was going to say they were still there when we arrived. We chased them off, returned Her sickle and scales, and then we took the time to fix the boundary around the sacred space before–""You should have gone straight for help."

"And leave Her shrine in disarray?" Saphienne pretended she was outraged.

"Someone has to balance the scales! If not us, then who? If not then, when would–" Her profession of faith had the desired effect: Danyn rubbed his forehead as he went by her toward the woodlands.

"We would've had an easier time catching them if they hadn't had a head start. How bad was the damage?" She kept her smile from her face as she caught up.

"You can see for yourself." He indicated her bare hand.

"And what about your ring?" Hyacinth twined against her scalp; Saphienne managed to look embarrassed again.

"Well, you have to understand: I didn't mean to drop it…" * Myrinel had scouted the area by the time Saphienne arrived at the shrine with Danyn, and was holding dripping fabric when he came over to them.

"They went–" Yet Danyn paused him; he beckoned Saphienne.

"Which way did they run off?" She pointed westward.

"That way — toward the Eastern Vale."

"That's where I found this," Myrinel confirmed.

"There's tracks down the hill into the stream. They were in a hurry."

"That's because she ran them off," Danyn explained as he surveyed the offerings that littered the ground. He moved to the tree near the flowers Hyacinth had grown, inspecting the dead and desiccated vines still clinging to it, then tugged them loose as he gazed overhead to spy the repair.

"Then the spirit she's with put the circle back together. How long ago?"

"Hours–""I was asking her." With a growing sense that Myrinel was much younger than Danyn, Saphienne saw an opportunity to win his favour.

"You're Myrinel? Well, you're right: it was hours ago. Hyacinth had trouble with the wood, and we were kept waiting on the hill–""Wonderful…" Danyn frowned at the northern edge of the glade.

"…More tracks?"

"Animals," Myrinel said.

"Recent. Probably wandered in while she was down–"" They were down." He pointed at her flower crown.

"–While they were down looking for us." A less capable liar would have let him explain it away, but Saphienne was committed to keeping her account as close to true as possible.

"No… they showed up after the goblins left. I think they might have smelled food. I was up in the tree holding the branch, but I saw a fox, and a deer, and there was even a badger–""Badger? Unusual." The elder of the wardens moved to the icon, where he ran a gloved fingertip over the inner edge of the sickle.

"What you don't know, Myrinel, is that the blessing keeps scavengers out while the boundary is intact…" He lifted the sickle and held it overhead.

"…Savages. They used this to hack down the canopy — probably to cut it up, too. Were they wearing it?" Saphienne didn't trust herself to speak, only nodded, goosebumps on her neck as she stared at the statue's other hand.

"Boldest they've been in a while." He returned the weapon and strolled away from the icon, sweeping his eyes across the ground once more.

"No doubt: it was goblins. I count three — an adult and two juveniles. Good thing they stole your ring." Fortunately, her pounding fear was easily to play off as choked embarrassment.

"…And why is that?"

"If we can't find them the old-fashioned way," Danyn explained as he pondered the trees to the west, "then we just need to wait for them to put it on. We have a rod back at camp that can track our rings when they're in use. One way or another, justice will catch up with them." Myrinel was eager to start.

"Are you going back? Shall I go on ahead, to intercept?"

"You may as well…" Danyn reconsidered the prospect.

"…But don't try to grab them on your own: the females can be vicious when they're with their spawn." He turned to Saphienne.

"Would you mind sitting around here until I get back? I'll be an hour, and then I'll walk you back to whomever you're travelling with."

"Filaurel," Saphienne said, trying to breathe normally.

"I'll tidy up."

"Good girl." Her shoulders untensed as the Wardens of the Wilds departed, one man going west while the other–"Oh," Danyn casually added, "and don't worry about the girls: even if you did tell them something you shouldn't have? None of their men ever take them seriously, anyway." She watched him vanish out of sight. For the next half hour, Saphienne meticulously picked up and resecured the offerings that weren't too damaged, collecting the rest in a pile before the statue.

She didn't dare to so much as glimpse the scales, not at first, not until she was reasonably certain the invisible wardens were long gone. Holding her nerve as she approached the icon was difficult, and she made a show of polishing the sickle before she moved to the scales… Where one pan hung a degree lower, her returned ring set upon it. End of Chapter 70