The crisp forest air filled with steam as Genista let out wild, exhilarated breaths.
She had just fended off an intrusion into her people’s home by the plains raiders. As she clutched the bark and climbed to the treetop with her sticky, bloodied hands, her mind was filled with the image of the man she had just maimed. His red hair dripping with sweat as she pursued him from above, easily noticeable amongst the bushes and mud. His bright blue eyes wide with terror as she swung at him from the vines, like a rabbit locking eyes with a hawk. And of course his dark face, now open from a kiss from her knife. Multiple, passionate, decisive kisses.
Her only regret was that she hadn’t finished the job before that filthy plains man had scurried to the edge of the forest. There was no way Genista was stepping out from the tree shade, in fear of breaking the fragile covenant that dictated that the plains and forest people kept to their own lands. And she lamented that she wasn’t able to catch his companion. A two-for-one would have put her in good stead with her father, but coming home empty-handed? Genista didn’t want to think about that.
She hoisted herself onto the branches. Her bare toes locked in between the cracks of the bark, and she took off. Like the roots, the branches of the forest were twisted and interconnected, forming an extensive network throughout the woods. She ran down the route to her home tree as if it were like breathing, her legs and arms pumping and carrying her through the air as if she were air herself.
“Genista!” The shout from the ground below caused her to miss the vine she had just jumped to catch. Genista screamed as she fell through the air a few meters and slammed into a thick branch. Instinctively, she caught her bloodied dagger just before it slipped from her grasp, almost falling into her brother’s white locks below.
“God damn you, Brama,” she yelled.
Her brother’s pearly white teeth shone up at her as he chuckled. He must’ve been out hunting, as he was hauling something quite heavy behind him, an animal perhaps? Despite that, he was crystal clean, with not a speck of dirt or blood on him. “What a pretentious prick,” Genista thought to herself.
“I’ve got a gift for you, sister.” Brama threw his trophy against the trunk of the tree. Genista dropped down from the branch to take a closer look - it wasn’t an animal, it was a person. Bright red locks fell across the man’s dark face as Brama pulled the hood off of him. “I think you missed this one,” he said mockingly.
Genista’s eyes widened. This was the other man she was hunting earlier. “Hey! He’s mine,” she yelled, pushing Brama away from the captive.
Brama barely moved, but giggled and shrugged his shoulders. “He’s yours if you can catch me.” He let out a sharp whistle, and a horse whinnied nearby. “Father won’t care though. First come, first served.” The horse ran up to him out of the darkness of the trees, with another dashing white-haired man on it. He pulled the reins to draw the horse to a stop. “Come help me out, Ifor.”
Ifor gave the barely conscious hostage a glance, and grimaced. His eyes shot to Genista. She signed to him silently in shadowlanguage to leave and not help Brama, but he shrugged and went to help anyway. He didn’t want to get involved in their sibling rivalry.
The two men approached their hostage. “Up you get now lad,” Brama said as he reached around him. The man resisted his grip, weakly. Ifor reluctantly helped Brama by grabbing the man’s other arm. As they hoisted him up, the man sucker punched Brama in the stomach and spat a mix of blood and mud onto his beautiful face. Genista could barely contain her laughter as Brama stumbled over and collapsed onto the ground with a squeal.
Ifor restrained the man’s hands and forced him to his knees. Brama pushed himself back up and wiped his face clean, regaining his composure. He approached the man and cupped his face in his hands. “There’s no need for that, love.” He stroked the captive’s cheekbone with his thumb, and Ifor glanced at him - Genista wondered whether it was out of worry, or jealousy. “It’s pointless to resist. You’re powerless here, in our world. My world.”
Brama pulled a handful of purple herbs from the tree bark and crushed them in his hands. Rather than glowing purple, they instead glowed a bright, light yellow. He sprinkled them over the man’s face, his bright blue eyes wide with fear, before the herbs caused him to fall unconscious and collapse onto the forest floor.
Ifor hoisted the man onto the back of horse while Brama brushed off his shirt. Genista teasingly signed to Brama in shadowlanguage. “You should do it yourself brother, rather than relying on your boyfriend to do the heavy lifting for you.”
Brama smirked as Ifor jumped onto the horse. “I’ve already done the heavy lifting sister,” he said verbally, pointing to his captive. “This one and his friend have been raiding the forest for months now. Father will take great solace in the fact that I’ve delivered the forest’s justice.” Ifor held out a hand to help Brama onto the horse. Brama looked around at the trees. “And he’ll have some strong words for you, for having failed to deliver on your end. Perhaps you’d be a better hunter if you spent less time swinging on vines and miming your stupid shadowlanguage.”
Genista felt a rush of blood to her head. She yelled and ran at the men and their horse, punching Brama’s thigh several times. Brama laughed and kicked her square in the chest, causing her to collapse to the ground. “Save your energy for a more useful fight sister. Not that you’ll have many more opportunities.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out a bundle of herbs. “Here, this might help you rest.” He pulled the purple herbs to his mouth. They started to glow yellow as he blew them towards Genista with a kiss, attempting to incapacitate her.
Genista grabbed her dagger and sliced through the yellow cloud with a grunt as Brama and Ifor galloped away with their captive. She coughed as she inhaled some of the herbs, and pulled her shirt over her mouth. She growled. If she could make it back to their home tree first, maybe she could convince her father that this captive was her trophy, not Brama’s. She sneezed to get the herbs out of her nose, then scrambled back to the top of the trees.
Genista moved swiftly through the branches, determined to make it back home before Brama did. The branches grew thicker and denser as she navigated her way to the core of the forest. Above her, villagers moved between trees on branches that had been specifically cultivated over decades to provide durable pathways. Purple and blue herbs dripped from them, surrounded by glowworms. Although the herbs looked parched - the forest’s thirst for blood and water was insatiable, and the river that ran through their forest had been drying up for a few months now. Surely the plains raiders had something to do with it, she thought.
In only a short time, Genista made out the unmistakable glow of the campfire of her home, high up in the tallest branches of her home tree. As she quickly ascended the branches - choosing to take a quicker route rather than use the pathway branches so as to outmaneuver Brama - she landed squarely in front of her father, a stocky, domineering figure. He was sitting in front of the campfire with an elderly woman and several other hunters. Panting, she quickly looked around to see if Brama was there. He was nowhere to be seen. Exhilarated, she regained her composure, got on one knee and bowed. “Father.”
The man rose from beside the campfire, the firelight from below glistening off his pure white beard, and the moonlight above shining off his thick, straight hair. “Rise Genista.” She got to her feet, her head still bowed out of respect. “Tell me why you are here.”
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She pulled her dagger out. “There have been reports of raiders from the plains village entering our land to steal herbs. I found one tonight and attacked him.” She twisted her dagger, the blood glistening in the moonlight. She neglected to mention the other raider that Brama had captured.
Her father approached her silently. He took the blade from her and scraped the blood off onto the rim of a cauldron bubbling over the campfire. The blood dripped into the liquid, which turned from an uneasy yellow into a vibrant bright blue. Confident, Genista approached the cauldron too and wiped the blood off her hands into the liquid. “I’m proud of you Genista.” She allowed herself a slight grin. “You’re proving yourself.”
Her grin faded and her jaw clenched. Proving, not proven. Genista’s heart raced, but not from the rapid ascent up the trees or her hunt. She knew it was best not to talk back to her father, especially around others, but she couldn’t help herself. “What would it take to actually prove myself to you, Father?” she growled, then gulped.
Her father exhaled. The hunters around them looked at them both in shock. “You don’t have to prove yourself to me. You have to prove yourself to the gods,” he said in a low, resonant voice. He sat down, pulling up his axe that was resting against the tree trunk. “Tonight you’ve helped quench the forest’s thirst for blood, but the forest demands more than that. It demands justice.” The hunters let out chants of “hear hear!” Her father continued. “Do you think blood alone amounts to justice? No. We need flesh and food. Flesh will satiate the gods, food will satiate our people. Those are the expectations you must meet, not mine.”
Genista glared at them all, and then at the elderly woman to her left. She was deaf and blind, so could not possibly be involved in this conversation. This had been the woman who’d mentored Genista in shadowlanguage. Despite being unable to hear or see, and perhaps unwilling to speak, she’d shown Genista how to communicate using her hands. How she could mimic the movement of the leaves and branches to send signals between trees. How the shadows cast from her hands mirrored the shadows cast by the moonlight shining through the canopies. While she felt confident in using shadowlanguage, Genista always felt like there was a deeper meaning to this woman’s gestures, a spiritual meaning perhaps, that she could not yet fully understand. Brama had never taken a liking to this frail old woman, in fact he found her a bit loopy. As such, he was not nearly as fluent as her in shadowlanguage, a point Genista was deeply proud of.
Her moment of pride was shattered by a horse’s whinny. Brama and Ifor swaggered up along the pathway branch with their hooded captive in tow. Brama pulled the captive off the horse and approached the campfire with him, casting a side eye and smug smile at Genista as he did.
“What’s this, Brama?” their father asked.
“The plains raider that’s been pillaging our lands.” He yanked the hood off the captive, who was still drowsy from Brama’s magic. “I understand Genista had failed to capture him earlier,” he said with a smirk.
Genista exhaled sharply. “That’s not true! There were two of them. I attacked his friend but he got away!”
Brama tsk’ed. “Admitting to more failures of your own accord. I wouldn’t know how that feels,” he looked to Ifor, who rolled his eyes.
Their father approached them silently. His looming presence exuded a degree of might and prestige that spoke for itself. His children went silent as he crossed his arms and glanced at both of them.
“Good job Brama. What will you do with him?”
Brama beamed. “I will hand him over to the village to face the forest’s justice. They will know best what to do with him.”
Their father’s brow furrowed. “You must decide his fate. He is your captive. You must speak the forest’s justice with your own blade.”
Brama hesitated and stuttered. Genista giggled - it wasn’t like him to face anything but unconditional praise from their father.
He hesitated for just a moment too long, and one of the hunters spoke up. “We should check with her. Let’s see what the gods want us to do with him,” he said, pointing to the elderly woman.
“Her?!” Brama exclaimed. “What help would this old hag have to offer?”
Everybody gasped. A wild gust of wind cut through the tree line, extinguishing the fire. The elderly woman was the only one to retain her composure, either because she was oblivious to the conversation, or perhaps because she was simply detached from it.
Their father approached Brama and grabbed him by his neck. “Out,” he whispered in his ear.
Brama pouted and shoved himself free from his father’s grasp, cursing both Genista and the older woman. He stormed off down the pathway branch, with Ifor following closely behind with their horse, leaving the captive.
The elderly woman signed to Genista in shadowlanguage. “Bring him to me.”
The hunters looked at them both, bewildered. While they held this seer in reverence, they, like Brama, invested more in their brutal hunting abilities than their shadowlanguage training, and so perhaps did not understand what she was saying. “Typical, idiotic men,” Genista thought.
Genista did as she was told. She pulled the captive to his feet, struggling in the process as he was heavy and still drowsy from Brama’s magic. She went to place him gently in front of the woman, but lost her grip, and he ended up collapsing right in front of her. Again, the woman maintained her composure. The captive started to pant out of fear as he regained consciousness.
The seer closed her cloudy eyes and ran her hands along the floor, picking up loose traces of purple herbs and small blue mushrooms that had fallen from the branches above. She started to let out a low, rhythmic chant that resonated with both the wind and the heartbeat of the earth. Genista looked around her in awe - the herbs and glowworms all around the home tree started to shine and oscillate in tandem with the woman’s chant. The seer brought the herbs and mushrooms into her hands and crushed them, causing them to glow light blue, and she sprinkled them across the captive’s body.
Her incantation was interrupted by her sharp screech and the herbs exploding as they touched the captive. The woman reeled away from the captive, and the light from the herbs and glowworms went dark instantly, all across the forest. Genista rushed to help her up so that she didn’t fall off the home tree. Her body tensed and shook in unnatural ways. Her blind eyes were wide open, swirling with blue light. Her hands were shaking, but Genista made out the sure signs of broken shadowlanguage. “A child … ripped away from its mother … pain and sorrow and destruction upon all who stole him… this is it… he is the child…”
“I don’t understand,” Genista signed back. The woman continued to spasm in her arms before fainting.
Her father got up and approached them both. “This is a terrible omen, Genista. The gods are furious that we’ve brought him here. His presence will bring great pain upon our people. He must be eliminated.”
“No!” Genista shouted. While she didn’t understand the seer’s message, it was clear to her that the pain was caused by him not just being harmed, but by being taken captive. “No, he’s my captive. Brama was lying. He’s mine. I will deliver the forest’s justice.” She looked up at her father with determination, the seer still faint in her arms.
Her father grunted. One of the hunters spoke up. “These people have reneged on their part of our sacred covenant. They’re withholding food from our trade, and now they steal our herbs and hunt our animals. The forest’s justice must be served swiftly and decisively.”
Genista’s father raised his hand. “Genista is right. This is her captive. Our laws and customs dictate that she should determine and deliver the forest’s justice.” She grinned slightly. She was successful, even if the captive truly wasn’t hers. “What would you do with him, Genista?”
Her people’s desire for blood and absolute justice ran true throughout her veins. But the seer’s warning had shaken her, and she needed more time to truly understand it. “I will keep him imprisoned in the lower branches of home tree for a few nights. Once the seer is recovered, I will consult with her and the gods for further clarity.” The hunters murmured about her apparent indecisiveness. “The forest’s justice will be served,” she reassured them, “but I will make my decision with certainty about any possible repercussions.”
Her father was staunch, but nodded. “So be it. But you will have only one night to make your decision. Imprison him, and heal the seer so that she may guide your thinking.”
Genista wasted no time. She got up, hoisted the seer over her shoulders, and kicked the captive in the ribs. “Up you get.”
The captive moaned as her father pulled him to his feet. He followed Genista as she descended down the pathway branch with the seer, and whispered a groggy thanks for sparing him. She reminded him that he was only temporarily spared, and by the gods, not her.
As Genista left, her father turned back to the hunters. “Genista will deliver the forest’s justice for this one raider. But the plains village will face their justice in turn. You’re all right - they’ve withheld food and pillaged our land, in an overt breach of our decades long covenant with them. That covenant guaranteed peace and safety for us all, on the promise of the peaceful and trusting exchange of resources, and staying in our own lands. This promise has now been broken. The forest senses this broken promise too, as the river is dying and his herbs are drying up as a result.”
He then signed in shadowlanguage. “We must collectively deliver the forest’s justice. All of them will pay.” The hunters roared and chanted in agreement.