Alize’s rush to remount her horse mirrored the soldiers’ rapid response to the appearance of the Western Clan. But while she turned Josoun towards her sisters, the soldiers followed the curve of the valley back towards the road.

They did not yet know that it left them more exposed.

As Alize directed Josoun along the ridge, the trees signaled that an arrow had been fired. It missed. The second missed too, but the third, fourth and fifth all struck soldiers. The men slowed and the Hrumi collided with them, the trees shuddering to alert Alize that one of her sisters had taken a strike, probably from a sword. Alize’s mind flashed to the slender scar on her elbow. She directed Josoun downwards.

The Hrumi clan women darted from the forest, moving with disciplined precision to pivot their torsos and dodge the soldiers’ strikes and pull them from their horses. Their daggers clanged against the soldiers’ curved swords, punctuated by a constant stream of warning shouts and throaty shouts.

For the first time in recent history, the Hrumi Western Clan traveled east together. No soldier alive had ever faced an entire Hrumi clan.

Alize did not pray for her sisters. Even when Hrumi were heavily outnumbered, their convictions gave them power no soldier could ever wield. The outcome of this skirmish was already assured.

Alize launched from Josoun as a soldier rushed towards her. His blade swoop obliged her to twist sidedways, then dodge his second jab. His sword smashed a treetrunk, exploding wood chips into the air. Alize’s elbow found the man’s face.

He swung at her again, grunting. But he was wild in his attack and painfully slow. Alize blocked his strike and twisted his wrist to disarm him. Her kick to his knees sent him sprawling to the ground.

He would not take any sister to the Sargons today. Another reprieve from a High Prince’s condemnation.

No Hrumi survived Sargon capture. Not whole. The Sargons served the princes with the fanaticism of a firestorm. They wore their armor as a second skin, their eyes murky behind the slits in their wrought iron helmets. The princes demanded Hrumi souls, and the Sargons obliged.

After immobilizing the soldier, Alize surveyed the scene. Already several soldiers bent to the ground in surrender. Though some Hrumi still engaged with the curved swords, their bearers were retreating. A few fled into into the forest as if they believed the trees would grant them refuge. They could not know that the trees were Alize’s guardians. They would never conceal her enemies.

Across the tumult, Alize caught a metallic flicker. Celillie had donned her headdress of ribbons made from hammered gold in the pattern of swooping spirals and triangular blossoms. Its ornate rendering contrasted against Celillie’s taut skin, which seemed to bury the soft sunlight strucking her face. She walked with rigid steps and wore her fury with ease. Grimacing, she wrenched a soldier’s helmet from his head.

Alize flushed cold to see cobalt feathers scatter in the air.

Celillie reached for her dagger and Alize’s stomach dropped.

“Celillie wait!” Alize resisted the urge to immediately clamp her hand over her mouth. She had breached sacred decorum. Celillie’s rebukes rang familiar her mind. You never learned how to behave. The fault of your mentor, no doubt.

Though Alize’s cry scarcely carried across the clamor, it slowed Celilie’s movement. For an instant her sickle dagger remained raised like the moon, but she lowered it as her gaze found Alize. The sides of her mouth rose in a smile that did not reach her eyes.

“Sister,” Celillie’s voice dripped with indulgence as she bid Alize approach, “You arrive only now from my summons?”

Alize forced herself forward, towards Celillie. Feign the courage you do not feel, Hesna instructed, though Alize doubted she had meant it for this context. Arriving before Celillie, Alize kneeled with her eyes lowered and crossed her palms upwards in the ceremonial sign of subordination. She anticipated Celillie’s critical gaze, her judgment lurking like an unknown creature cresting under dark water. But Alize’s mind raced over the information Celillie did not have.

On her knees, Alize found herself at the same level as the subdued province commander. The Hrumi sister Essa held him immobile, her own hawk-eyed gaze steady on Celillie.

Alize forced her words out. “It was not our path that drew the soldiers here, but the road east. We may learn something from their motives?” The end of her sentence rose in a question, lest Celillie think Alize meant to direct the leader of the Hrumi Western Clan.

Celillie shook slightly and Alize could not tell if she suppressed amusement or displeasure. Her blue eyes held Alize’s, clear as the sky, and just as distant. “This was an ambush. That fact suffices.”

“Not if they behave inconsistently.” Alize hoped her words would rouse Celillie to realize than an army contingent of this size was unprecedented in the mountain forest. Almost as unprecedented as an entire Hrumi clan. And both heading east. Perhaps it would mean something to Celillie, enough for her to reconsider her intentions. That would be preferable than Alize revealing the soldiers’ strange leniency towards her. Alize could not recount that story without admitting her brief moment of exposure, and Alize needed no further opportunities to incense Celillie.

It does not matter that it was the earthquake that cost me my advantage. I should have been prepared. And then the thought that stung the most. Hesna would forgive my mistake.

Alize could expect no such charity from Celilie. Celilie still wore Hesna’s rune disc on her belt, while the round divet in Alize’s dagger remained hollow. This marked the fourth year that an Eastern Clan sister would serve salt duty for both clans while Alize was permitted only to watch.

Around her, the defeated soldiers remained silent. Alize tugged her cap down on her forehead. The thought of them recognizing her, the recipient of their mercy, felt wrong when so many daggers pressed to their backs.

Under the soldiers’ stiff armor and the cold sweat of defeat, they held their breaths.

They could not know that Alize mirrored their fear. Celillie’s many strengths did not include forgiveness.

After a pause, Celillie smirked. “If you’re so interested in their intentions, then, by all means, ask them.”

Heat flushed through Alize. This she had not anticipated. Celilie’s request deviated from Hrumi custom, but to refuse would be a far greater violation. After the briefest pause, Alize rose from her kneeling position. Her gaze flickered to Essa, who still restrained the army commander in his kneeled position. His regal helmet lay trampled under Essa’s feet.

The commander regarded Alize with his mouth sealed, eyes unyielding.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Revulsion flashed through Alize. The province people did not cherish the mountain forests so far from their oases in the steppes. They came and slashed trees for lumber, whetted their greedy fingers the earth’s precious riches and left the remains mangled and lifeless. They never saw the delicate fibers that stretched across the leaf skins, or the sweet red berries that clustered between thorns.

Still, the commander had held Alize’s life in his elegant white gloves and he had let her live. Now that she stood over him, the memory of his mercy clouded the choices she gave herself.

Beside her, Celillie directed Alize forward with an exaggerated flourish of her hand.

Alize drew a breath that felt too large in her lungs. To stand before these soldiers, these barbarians of the cities, felt wrong in her bones. And she alone heard the trees shuddering with apprehension.

For strength, she thought of her sisters, letting her Hrumi heritage fill her, reassure her, ground her. To live as a Hrumi meant to fulfill Rehsan’s most precious wish, to redeem a darkened world. She and her sisters were the stalwart guardians of integrity, of kindness. She evoked the children they saved, all the lives now flourishing due to Hrumi care. She felt a calm settled over her.

When Alize spoke, her voice was perfectly steady.

“Who are you then?”

“I am Tamer, general to the Kanarbha prince,” the man rumbled. The precariousness of his situation did not mask the pride in his voice. Even kneeling, he held his head high and squared his shoulders. As if he could ignore the death everywhere around them. Celillie would say that his life was a small concern in the forest greenery, where a million lives nestled, jostling against each other.

“We recognize no princes.” Alize sneered, but she groaned inwardly. Of the eleven steppe princes, Kanarbha’s had the mildest approach to the Hrumi. Not if this goes badly.

“My service to the prince is rendered regardless of Hrumi recognition,” the leader replied.

Alize struggled to keep her chin as high as his even though she already towered over him. “And what is your charge here?”

To capture Hrumi, just as any other soldier. Once he confessed to his crimes, to his pitiless hunt, Alize could dismiss the mercy he had shown her.

The commander watched Alize even as she avoided his gaze. “That information is confidential.”

That answer drew hisses from Alize’s sisters. Her pulse roared in her ears and Alize could feel Celilie’s disapproval hovering like a clammy hand lightly clasping her throat.

“Let me rephrase that question.” Alize grasped the commander’s collar and twisted her dagger to press it against the commander’s throat. “Tell me why you are here.”

“That,” the commander clicked his tongue, “was not a question.”

Alize glanced behind her and saw only Celillie’s smug smile. How would Hesna satisfy Celillie?

“Take his shield,” Alize directed. She released the commander’s collar to allow Essa to comply.

The commander opened his mouth, and then closed it. An unfinished thought.

“And the sword.”

“My ladies-”

“There are no ladies here!” Alize spoke her words like a slap, but she withheld any true malice. Something had caused this man to yield that morning, to restrain his soldiers from capturing a Hrumi. Like the repeating earthquakes of the summer, such an action corrupted the world’s natural order. And, try as she might, Alize could not shake the conviction that his reason might signify something important.

“However you call yourselves,” the man rumbled, “let the record show that the Hrumi attacked us! Our only crime was to cross your path!”

Celillie shoved Alize aside. “You brought the violence!” Around Celillie, Hrumi voices bellowed their disgust. All except Alize.

“You must know our destination,” the commander conceded, “east, to the Sun Temple. Surely the Hrumi have also felt the earthquakes, heard the same call from the Priestess-”

“We share nothing with creatures of war!” Celillie roared. She struck the commander with her fist. Alize cringed to see him buckle under the blow. “We know your true errand! Your princes permit our sisters only two existences: dead or soulless!”

Slowly, the commander raise his head. His expression bore a self-certainty that disturbed Alize for how much it reminded her of Hesna. As Celillie continued yelling obscenities, a stream of blood trickled from his nose to his chin. He blinked his eyes to Alize.

This time she did not break from his gaze.

Alize drew a deep breath. She stepped past Celillie, her heart hammering. “They forfeited their defenses in this foolish provocation.” Alize deliberately matched Celillie’s disparaging tone, but she would not match her message. “Bind every one of these men!”

She expected Celillie’s objection but the clan leader once again regarded Alize with a patronizing smile.

She wants me to fail. And she wants everyone to see it.

Alize faced the commander once more. While he watched her, she placed his wooden shield on the ground, emblem skyward.

She grasped his blade and raised it above the shield.

His soldiers erupted in protest when Alize drove the sword through the center of the emblazoned horse.

The commander’s face blotted red as his eyes played over the ruins of his armor. “Omurtak help us,” he murmured.

“Know this dishonor is Hrumi mercy,” Alize responded. She kept her tone harsh, and the commander glanced at her one last time.

She saw his rebuff. He had not humiliated her before releasing her.

That was your choice, she wanted to shout, Your cruelty built this world. I don’t owe you anything. Yet, by destroying his armor, his symbol of power, Alize hoped to deflect Celillie’s more dangerous rage.

Alize called to her sisters, “Get our wounded sisters and-”

“I want every shield destroyed. And take their horses!” Celillie shouted in Alize’s ear. As if she had not noticed Alize speaking at all.

The Hrumi hastened to obey. The bound soldiers could only watch while the clanging and scraping rang through the forest.

Alize, listening, heard the trees ease their tension. They sensed what the soldiers did not. There would be no further bloodshed today. The forest’s hum of approval helped steady Alize’s wild heartbeat.

She was following Celillie when the commander yelled after her, “This is no mercy! You know death will find us before moonrise if we sit here waiting for it!”

Alize did not hear Celilie’s retort, but felt the sinking in her stomach all the same.

The commander heaved his chest but said no more.

As her sisters spurred their horses away, Alize found she not catch her breath. Over and over again her fingers fumbled Josoun’s reins. Almost unwittingly she found herself watching her last sister move out of sight, until she stood as a lone Hrumi surrounded by silent seething soldiers. Not one had gotten loose. Together they glared at Alize with dark gazes and sneering lips.

But despite her dread, the trees exuded quietude. This was Alize’s only reassurance and she listened closely. The trees bolstered her courage as she dismounted Josoun, then stepped amongst the men. She returned to face the commander once more. Something felt unresolved.

He spoke of traveling to the Temple. Are the earthquakes so serious? Alize wondered. Serious enough to warrant a province commander sparing a Hrumi?

The commander kept his pointed glare on the trees beyond Alize even as she arrived before him.

“The earthquakes,” she rasped, “what do they mean?”

The man shifted to stare at her, his mouth twitching. Another unfinished thought. “Untie me.”

“You’re in no position to make demands.” Except he made none of you. But Alize shrugged off her remorse before it could fully coalesce.

The commander inhaled through his nose and spit blood. “For some, the earthquakes come with summons from the Sun Temple,” he muttered, “We make our pilgrimage, for good or ill. I know no more.”

Concentrate. Hesna would say. Patterns are truer than any truth spoken.

But Alize could discern nothing.

Hrumi decorum dictated that she should leave. The commander’s fate was not her concern, no matter his strange choice about her own.

Yet his danger was real. Since Alize had entered the forest, the trees had hinted at shadowy threats stalking human prey. She knew too that the Hrumi might be blamed for any corpses found bound in their coarse jute rope. An enraged prince might send Sargons in retribution.

Slowly, Alize crouched beside the commander. “Stay still,” she warned him. He flinched at her drawn dagger, but Alize slipped the blade under the bindings around his wrist, careful to shred the rope’s tendrils without breaking his skin.

With his hands free, the commander would be able to release his soldiers. They could never catch up to her clan without horses and without shields they would hesitate before challenging another opponent, especially a Hrumi. But they would not be left to the whims of the forest.

Celillie, if she ever found out, would bring this transgression before the gods for judgment. Alize forced that unease into the recesses of her mind.

There it found ample other thoughts for company.

The commander studied her, questions etched along the deep lines in his skin.

To him, Alize only muttered, “Do not follow us.”

She did not dare breathe until she was far away, and then it came in gasps. But over everything else, she heard the trees. The forest rustled, relaxed, contented. They soothed her churning emotions and muted the sounds of the whistle commands that fell further and further behind her.

Ahead, the road pressed eastwards.