Towards the west of the castle-town, there rose the hill on which the great keep perched. A lone and winding pathway led in a zig-zag pattern from the hill base to its top, exposing would-be assailants to the flanking of battlements full of manned arrow slits. The castle walls converged on the further side of this hill, joined by a sheer cliff no human foe may hope to scale. The whole structure of ragged outline was of a surety not built with beauty in mind but the sheer purpose of fortification. And yet even these physical architectures were but the surface of its defense.

As she walked the uphill path parallel to the ramparts, Cordelia studied with all her keen senses activated. And to be sure, there was a barrier erected, a ward against her kind. It pressed against Cordelia’s steps the higher she ascended, flexible like a mesh or some yielding material, without being a solid wall invisible to the eyes. It was simple to deduce from her first contact with this barrier that the final tier, where the keep’s gate and surrounding walls’ foundation lay, would be as far as she could approach. And yet this line of defense was imperfect.

The mechanism of which she could not fully comprehend, but there would be time upon her path where the resisting sensation would yield and diminish to nigh-nothing, while at others mount to an unbearable degree, pressing upon her lungs and depriving them of air as though she hiked a peak higher than clouds. At places where the barrier yielded, she would take a thistle from her basket and toss it to the ground. The first few times, she was afraid someone would take notice of this strange behavior, but afterward, it settled into a predictable pattern, so that she seemed at intervals to offer a flower to the earth and to the gods of earth.

And as expected, this languid trek uphill had attracted some attention, and at the gatehouse, some guards had gathered with a look of curiosity at her approach and strange ritual. There was little traffic to the keep in the afternoon, and in the while she ascended there had only been a boy on some errand to town come dashing back, who upon seeing her had halted as abruptly as having beheld a sudden monster or wonder, before dashing away again.

At the gate, she greeted the sentries - three men, all told, had gathered in wait for her. Something lurched in her stomach as she sculpted her smile to be something natural. Her last encounter with a guard had been unpleasant, its lasting memory a permanent mark in her psyche.

“How do, missus?” said the oldest looking of them. His head of gray and wrinkled face unhelmed. Unlike his other companions who tried and failed to conceal their unmannered stares, this man in his middle years studied her with languid carelessness. These eyes only subtly betrayed also his distrust, a scrutiny that, to a less keen observant, would appear a flattering thing, as merely a man dazzled by beauty, naught more than his companions. But Cordelia did not fail to notice his evaluating of the basket in her hand, an attempt to gauge whether the way she carried it should imply something hidden therein.

“A fine day to blossom the earth of my lord’s home, I do not doubt,” said he, surprisingly courtly. “Yet methinks you’re on some pagan spring goddess’s business much too late into the year, or a few months short.”

“ ‘Tis too kind of you, sir,” she smiled pleasantly, “Mine business is mine own, and my praises are not bidden by a goddess but my mortal lady.”

“Is not your lady the spring goddess?” he laughed. His eyes studying still, she noted. “For I can’t find a finer thing to describe her. Nor can my mind conceive such a being as to command a superior beauty than she who stands now within my sight.”

“How gently you speak, sir. And how glib your lord must be to employ a man as you for gatekeeping. Must I debate my lady’s words to your lord’s ears then, for it seems earnest entreaties cannot suffice?”

“They suffice, fair lady, for a fact. I am a man to be commanded and not pleaded. But even a king’s word must come through me to reach my lord-knight, and that your plea has done. I am seneschal to Sir Kamaric. His worldlier affairs are my charge as well as his guests.”

Cordelia did not bother to pretend astonishment. He would see through it; she could not afford aught but a neutral expression.

“Very well. My lord seneschal, I have here in this letter my lady’s humble needs for your lord’s ears.” And she presented the letter to the man. His hand had hardly moved from the hilt of his sword for it that she withdrew the letter suddenly. “And too happily I would entrust it in your hand, if not for a certain rumor - if you will pardon a woman’s foolish worries - a quite strange and bizarre rumor indeed, that your lord does not receive letters.”

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“Forsooth, that is a strange rumor, and assuredly without the truth. Missus, you but name your lady’s house and, upon my honor, I shall deliver it to my lord’s hand post haste.”

“Ah, there’s the rub, sir. My lady does not wish to divulge her name to aught but Sir Kamaric himself.”

He laughed. His guarded look entirely dropped. “Then it’s no fault of my lord’s he can’t receive the letter, missus. I fear these days such pleas of improvised nobles heaped far too high in my office to warrant their delivery. If your lady’s house is of aught significance, it would be sooner delivered, but not otherwise, and most uncertainly not without a name attached.”

As she had feared. Like as not he lied. There could not be enough inquiries a seneschal cannot go through in a morning. But without a title, Esme’s request would not be promptly heard. And they had not time.

“Do I leave this letter in your care then, will it ever get to your lord?”

“Weeks, months, mayhap. There is no promise I can make,” he shook his head. There was no great pity in the way he did. Cordelia knew what the seneschal was thinking, that she was no more than a harmless servant to a lady down on her luck looking to beg a fortune from his lord. Was he expecting her to get all teary pleading? Or to use somewhat else tactics?

Nay. She had entertained Esme’s naivete enough.

“Very well then, sir. Such is how far gentle words may go. Naught more of that.” She thrust the letter into the flower basket. Her voice changed now. So did her expression shift in its subtle way to bring chill down a man’s spine though he himself could not tell why. And she made sure that the self-assured man would be taken off-guard by this. Far from her attempt at first to appear friendly and harmless, she declared now in all but speech: beware.

“I shall return,” she said prickly, and held his gaze in her amaranthine eyes. “And next time not for all the world’s scruple shall my request be denied. You have been warned.”

It was paramount she should be taken seriously, not as a foolish woman throwing a tantrum at denial, but a real threat. The effect of her Silver Tongue more than sufficed this need. Unconscious understanding seized the man at once violently. And she could see the man’s hand tightened on the sword hilt. Yet he could not act. To his men with undiscerning eyes and uninfluenced by her malice, she was no more than a harmless if insolent woman. Nor should he be able to discern the reason for his sudden and insubstantial fear.

His crumbled face looked as though wanting to cry out: there’s a witch! But for which he would be laughed at, ridiculed for superstition and for being intimidated by a delicate girl. His reason battling his intuition. Cordelia could taste all this: the galling of his troubled mind, the check of his pride.

The seed was well placed, her escape well secured, she went away, knowing this meeting would go on to nag at the back of his mind. And it will brew like fear and shame. And when the time comes, the very pride checking him now would exclaim: I knew my fear was merited! My eyes did not deceive me! And such. That would suit her plan.

But not yet, she lacked still the plot’s main ingredient.

As she descended the hill, her dry lips parted. Her forked tongue tasted the air. All at once different scents surged and fed into her brain. The vibrations in the air of afternoon activities, the growing cold wind, the physical shape of the keep and its tower. But chief of all, which she picked out from all the noise, the fresh and delicious quality of flowers well laid along the pathway. Like as though a bird-eye image was forming in her mind, she saw the keep for what it was, and then all the places where there barriers were weak. A pattern, to be sure, emerged.

She stopped and turned her gaze to the hilltop keep. Of the towers there were four that faced the town, four away The gate was located near the tower furthest to the south. And it was from these towers that the barriers extended their greatest influence, so that a sort of overlapping half circles were centered upon each. And approaching the wall in the middle of two any given towers, the barriers grew yielding. This would not mean much to an invading army of humans, but one of feys would find it easiest to advance at a right angle to the wall towards its dead center. And it would be at the mercy of these flanking towers.

But, she squinted, even now she had no clue how these barriers work. Too many times she had penetrated those. First at the siblings’ shack in the woods, the second at the town gate, and then another into the church. Each time she had been accompanied by a human. But was this how it really worked? She had approached the gate of this keep alone, if with some physical strain. Did she have some innate ability other feys had not to penetrate these barriers? Unlikely, it would have been listed on the dark tablet if that had been the case. And yet they must be effective in some way to be put there. Too many uncertainties. She dared not risk.

Shaking her head, she went away. It was a foolish thought in the first place to think of storming this keep. She had other strengths, singular to her, even beyond the accursed gifts from the World Serpent. And that one was right, to prevail with her goal - with Esme’s destiny - she had to employ all means available.

Reaching into the basket, she found the soft texture of an object, even softer than that of flower petals. That of a silver feather.