Chapter 4
On the fifth day of the trip, tragedy befell the pair.
Otonokizaka was, generally speaking, a sparsely populated kingdom. Compared to the great cities of Rossiya Eli’s grandmother spoke fondly of, Otonokizaka boasted only one truly large city around the castle. Towns clustered around that heart of their nation, growing less and less common the further out one went. It wouldn’t be long before Eli and Kotori reached the stretches of countryside where there were no inns, only kind farmsteads and soft hay to sleep on.
Of course, the further out they were, the less well-maintained the roads were, and the more loose cobbles there were as stone turned to dirt under their feet.
No wonder someone whose usual method of travel was flying would sprain their ankle on such poor footing.
Kotori was pale as her white feathers. “Ouch,” she whimpered when Eli gingerly touched her ankle, stretched out before her on the roadside. Eli whipped back as if burned.
“I’m so sorry,” she said frantically, digging through the saddlebags for their medicinal supplies. “I should have found us a better road, or kept a closer eye on you - “
Kotori offered her a strained smile. “It’s not your fault,” she reassured Eli. “How could you have known? I should be able to fix it easily. Look, Eli.”
Eli looked.
Cupped between Kotori’s hands was a small sun. That was all Eli could think; it hurt to look directly at the golden glow that spilled between Kotori’s fingers. But she couldn’t look away.
She might be the first human in nine centuries to witness the magic of the gods.
In an impressive display of flexibility, Kotori stretched her hands out to her straight leg, the magic helpd just over the sprained ankle.
“Heal,” she murmured, and let the gold fall over the skin.
When it left her hands, it coalesced, oddly solid, like thick ink; it pooled against the dips of her tendons and trickled slow as honey down the bumps of her fine bones until it soaked into the earth, slow as the setting sun.
Eli held her breath until the last trace of gold was gone. “Did it work?” she whispered.
Kotori flexed her ankle experimentally, and made a sound like a strangled goose. “No,” she bit out. Her hands shook as she held them out and summoned the magic again.
Two more tries later, Kotori was looking more grey than white. She tried to muster a glare when Eli caught her hands, but Eli held firm against the furrow of Kotori’s slim eyebrows. “You’re exhausting yourself,” Eli chided. “Even I can see that. Won’t it be pointless to try further?”
There was a stubborn jut to Kotori’s jaw that Eli hadn’t noticed before, but when Kotori looked at her hands, trembling like a leaf in a thin breeze, she sighed and let herself go limp in Eli’s grip. “It should work,” she insisted. “I’ve used it before, I know it works…”
“What was it?” Eli tried to distract Kotori as she went back to the medicinal supplies. They’d have to do this the simple human way of going to a doctor or a healer.
“A simple healing spell for lower angels.” Kotori watched Eli approach with bandages, discontent writ in her tight mouth, but she allowed Eli to gently take her foot. “I don’t know much, just that and some basic attack spells. We don’t do anything except carry messages, so that’s all we learnt.”
“But you could learn anything you wanted?”
“I could. I’d need somebody to teach me, though.” Kotori‘s usual cheer was obviously dampened by the pain; the flicker of her eyelids every time Eli moved her foot made Eli want to wince too.
Eli heaved a breath as she sat back on her heels. “There, done.” The bandaging was asymmetrical, and without clips, Eli had clumsily tied it off with a lopsided bow. Medicine wasn’t one of her skills.
Kotori smoothed the bow between her fingers. “Cute,” she teased, winking at Eli. Eli laughed.
“It’s not the best job, but you’ll have to put up with it until we get to a healer,” she said. “Can you stay here while I have a look around, get our bearings? The nearest village shouldn’t be too far.”
Kotori cast an apprehensive look at their packhorse. “Okay…” Spica, as she had dubbed him, stayed at the farthest end of his lead away from Kotori. Gingerly, Kotori accepted the lead from Eli, holding it as if she held a snake ready to bite.
At the top of the hill Kotori had skidded down, Eli shaded her eyes against the bright spring green. The land rolled out before her in strangely familiar stretches of grass and cobbled road, speckled with copses of trees.
There was a small cluster of roofs along their road. Eli counted: two, four, eight, twelve… surely there would be a healer among them, or at least a village herbalist.
Another though struck her. What if the healer touched Kotori and knew her to be something not human? If Eli revealed herself, would she be able to swear the healer to silence? Eli bit her lip. No, probably not - country folk thrived off gossip.
Worst come to worst, they’d have to wait for a city, one with a healer’s guild Eli could bargain with.
But there isn’t going to be one nearby, Eli thought without knowing why; and then it clicked. She’d been here before. Several times, at that.
Because this was the Nishikino’s county.
Eli scrambled back down the hill. “I know where to go,” she told Kotori.
In a few words, she outlined her history with the Nishikinos. “We can trust them to keep a secret. Maki’s a good friend,” she said. If that was the right word. Friends were something the Nishikino heiress had little of; the only other friend Eli knew was Nico.
If nothing else, they had a healthy amount of mutual respect, thanks to years of negotiations between the Nishikino’s massive merchant empire and Otonokizaka’s sovereign authority.
(Though in her most insecure moments, Eli envied Maki’s ability to carry her family legacy without falter, and sometimes, even with relish.)
Kotori hummed in consent, trusting as always in Eli’s judgment. “How far is it?”
Oh, damn.
“At least a few hours’ walk,” Eli conceded. “I could carry you, but not that far, or we won’t make it there till nightfall.” Her mind raced. Would Spica allow Kotori on his back? But then, Eli would have to carry their supplies, and that had the same result. A makeshift litter made from branches? That would take time, too…
“That’s okay,” Kotori said, unruffled. “I’ll just fly.”
Sometimes, Eli just wanted to sink deep into the earth, where the infinitely wiser gazes of divine beings couldn’t reach her.
“You could,” Eli admitted. “But wouldn’t it hurt?”
“I sprained my ankle, not my wing joints. It’s sweet of you to worry, but you’ll get wrinkles.” Kotori smoothed a thumb impishly over said creased forehead. Eli forgot how to use language.
Before she could remember, Kotori was carefully tying her cloak and bag to Spica. Spica rolled his eyes but allowed this intrusion. Then her wings were out, white and bright, stark and strange against the mundane countryside.
“I’ll come down when you stop, okay? So we don’t scare your friend,” Kotori said. At Eli’s dumb nod, she grinned.
Oh, this was not a human at all. How could Eli forget?
The great wings rose, arched like cathedral doors. Kotori crouched. The wings came down, and she kicked off with her good foot.
The wind sent Eli’s hair into a frenzy. When she swiped it out of her face and reopened her eyes, Kotori was scarcely bigger than a bird. She tilted sideways, and was lost into a cloud.
As she walked alone, Eli thought of these things, in no particular order: the glint of Kotori’s wings in the sunlight. The speed with which she climbed the sky. The size of Otonokizaka, and the chances of finding a single person in it. Eli, earthbound, looking up into the deep, deep sky.
As the road widened, the trees parted and made way for the Nishikino mansion. It crouched, huge and hunchbacked, over the land; the road wound its way under the iron gates and disappeared into its maw.
A childhood memory: Eli cringing away from the mansion even as her grandmother held her hand firmly. “The Nishikinos are good people, and important ones, who you have to know well,” she had said, steel in her voice. “Behave.”
At Eli’s tearful nod, her grandmother had given her a proud smile. “And they import your chocolates too,” she had tacked on, and chuckled at the way Eli’s face lifted.
Eli felt a little like that furtive child again when she glanced left and right for witnesses, waved to the sky, and hurried back around the road’s bend to where the trees shielded her from the mansion’s gaze.
She didn’t have to wait long. Like a comet, Kotori dropped out of the sky, hurtling towards the ground so fast that an onlooker wouldn’t be able to say what they’d seen. Her wings flared as she brought herself to a stop in front of Eli.
“Hello,” Kotori said breathlessly, and keeled over.
Eli hissed a curse and caught her. Her skin was cold; little drops of condensation clung to her hair. “Kotori?” she said with a shake. “Are you alright? Kotori, what’s wrong?”
“Sorry… C-c-cold…” Kotori made a indeterminate sound of complaint and burrowed against Eli. Her head butted up against Eli’s chin; her skinny elbows jabbed against the insides of Eli’s arms.
Eli gathered her in carefully. She had heard of this before; the few mages capable of flight had described in their memoirs how the higher they went, the colder it became, until clouds froze on their clothes and they fell with blue lips. She just hadn’t expected Kotori to be subject to the same mortal constraints.
“I’m just getting your cloak,” Eli soothed when she moved and Kotori clung tighter with a whine. With her own cloak, Eli dabbed at Kotori’s face and bare arms until the fabric was dark with cloud-moisture. Satisfied Kotori wasn’t about to catch cold from the damp, Eli bundled her up.
Kotori sneezed. It was absurdly cute. “Sorry,” she said thickly, and sneezed again. Eli patted her back soothingly and tried not to hope for a third.
“Can you climb on my back?” Eli asked instead. Kotori nodded into Eli’s collarbones, and almost kept nodding off, had Eli not gently prodded her sides to make her squirm towards the best carrying position.
“Sorry,” Kotori said for the third time behind Eli’s earlobe. Her warm breath sent a shiver down Eli’s spine. “Making you carry me…”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Eli leaned forwards carefully, balancing the new weight on her back, then stood straight. Kotori weighed alarmingly little, even dripping with water. It was as if her bones were brittle as a bird’s. “Are you comfortable?”
“Very,” sighed Kotori. Her chin came to rest on Eli’s shoulder as Eli started walking. “Eli, you’re so warm.”
“Probably because I haven’t been freezing myself in extreme altitudes.” Eli tried for dry. It came out as worry instead. “Next time, you don’t have to go so high. I could barely tell you weren’t just a bird even before you went into the clouds.”
Kotori mumbled into Eli’s neck, “I don’t want a next time. It’s lonely.”
Eli tipped her head back to stare at the sky. The sky stared back down, vast and impossibly blue. Where did it end? “I can see why,” Eli murmured.
How did Kotori carry her messages? Did she go alone, or were there other messengers for the gods? Did she have friends in the heavens?
Before Eli could muster the courage to ask any of these questions, they were at the front gate of the Nishikino mansion.
The gatekeeper eyed them suspiciously from his little hut. They made a strange-looking pair: one traveller piggybacking another, while a horse with flattened ears trailed reluctantly behind them.
Eli kept silent and returned his stare. Her station was higher; she refused to address him first. “No visitors without appointment,” the gatekeeper said at last with a distasteful curl to his voice.
“Is Maki Nishikino here?” Eli asked instead, ignoring his rudeness.
The gatekeeper sniffed. “That’s of no importance to you.”
Which meant yes, or he would have told Eli no and begone already. “I’ll see her immediately.”
“Lady, she hasn’t got time for the likes of you.” Sometimes Eli really hated the airs the Nishkinos and their servants put on. Kotori stirred on her back, anxious.
Eli straightened as best she could and lifted her chin. “Tell her the Ayases have a request to make of her. I haven’t got time for the likes of you either.”
Cold, arrogant, quite presumptuous; exactly the kind of air a noble would put on. That, coupled with Eli’s name-dropping, had the gatekeeper sulkily disappearing into the Nishikino grounds.
It wasn’t long before Maki herself came striding out of the doors, healer robes billowing intimidatingly behind her. She must’ve been testing potions, and had come out in a hurry. The gatekeeper, scurrying behind her, gave an obsequious and unseen bow before he disappeared into his hut again. From its relative safety, he glared at the stranger that his mistress had abandoned her work for.
To her credit, Maki didn’t unmask Eli. Her eyes widened, but she only cast a glance up and down their strange procession before she let out a put-open sigh and said brusquely, “Come on, then. I’ll hear your message inside.”
Kotori propped her chin up to watch Maki intently as they were led inside. Eli glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. Why was she so piqued all of a sudden?
“How long have you known each other for?” Kotori whispered.
“Since we were old enough to bring to court,” Eli whispered back. “At least fifteen years?”
“Hmm,” murmured Kotori, and said no more; but her eyes tracked Maki like a bird-of-prey.
At length, Maki brought them into a small parlour and dismissed the servants with a quick word. Alone at last, she offered Eli a curt bow, a shallow courtesy; Eli returned it. Then Maki said without preamble, “What do you need? Who’s that? And why are you in disguise?”
“I need you to heal Kotori’s ankle, and I need you to not say a word to anybody else about this. I don’t know how many of your questions I can answer, but that can wait until after this is done,” Eli said calmly.
The gods knew how much trouble Maki’s parents had had trying to drill court manners into the girl. Eli, though, appreciated Maki’s bluntness; it was nice not having to pick through simpered sentences for hidden nuances. And Eli did her best to return the favour whenever they spoke.
“Please,” tacked on Kotori with an uncertain smile.
Maki visibly struggled with the urge to fire off another round of questions, but she eventually nodded. “Up on the table,” she instructed, slipping into her professional healer persona. “What happened?”
Maki ran through a series of well-practiced questions, then ordered them to stay as she went to fetch her supplies. Eli remembered when Maki’s healing talent had first been discovered in true, carelessly attention-garnering Maki style.
They were at court. Maki had just turned seven, Eli nine; Eli knew enough to be kind but carefully distant from other noble children, knowing how their parents would try to use friendships with the Seneschals to their advantage. Maki, on the other hand, knew but didn’t care enough to be anything but carelessly distant.
Which meant that when she went wandering through the gardens by herself and was bitten by a snake, only the guards were around to hear her shriek, and see the twin holes scab over faster than they could call for bandages.
The Nishikino’s were delighted. Who wouldn’t be, to have such a gifted child? Their trading empire reoriented itself, focusing on the already profitable trade of medicines, and Maki found herself neck deep in medical studies as she was prepared to become the head of their most ambitious business venture yet.
Maki thrived under pressure like a precious gemstone. Every challenge she met, she overcame with a dismissive toss of her hair. Precious few knew when she struggled, which was just the way she liked it.
For instance, Eli had been subject to Maki’s awful bedside manner more than once, and viciously sworn to secrecy many times more.
“It’s just a simple dislocation,” Maki concluded. “I’ll cast a realignment spell, and give you some pain-numbing potions. It might hurt. Are you ready?”
Despite her brusque words, Maki handled Kotori’s ankle gently in her slender hands; it was a far cry from her snippy “hold still”s when Eli had come to her after weapons training. If it meant Kotori now didn’t have to suffer Maki’s barbed treatments, Eli was glad she’d been one of Maki’s first patients.
The familiar green fire lit at the tips of Maki’s fingers. Eli held her breath as the flames crawled over Kotori’s skin. Animal healing spells couldn’t be applied to humans, and vice versa; they were about to find out if the same principle applied to gods and humans.
Kotori flinched, and flinched again as the green fire flickered higher. Eli wanted to knock Maki’s hands away. But then Kotori’s face smoothed out, and she let out a sigh of relief. The flames died away to reveal unswollen skin.
“Rotate,” Maki ordered, and watched Kotori roll her foot around with a critical eye. “Looks good. How does it feel?”
“A little sore but okay.” Kotori favored Maki with a clasp of her hand and a smile that crinkled at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Maki!”
Maki stared, then let go to twirl her hair with a finger. “It was nothing,” she muttered, glancing around the room. “I need to. Tidy up, and then you’ll answer my questions?”
The question was expectant, barely a question. Maki glanced up long enough to see Eli’s nod before she was off, gathering away unused jars and bandages.
“It feels alright?” Eli murmured, coming over to Kotori. She touched the ankle lightly, trying to imagine how it felt to Kotori.
“Almost like new,” Kotori assured her, laying her own hand over Eli’s. “This was a good idea. Maki’s a nice person, isn’t she?”
“She doesn’t like admitting it much,” Eli said, “but yes. She’s a good friend.”
And again, that interest. “Do you have many stories of each other?”
“Stories..?”
“Of when you were - fledglings? Babies!”
“Children,” Eli corrected with a grin.
“What’s this about stories?” Maki asked, coming back into the room barehanded. Kotori slid off the table to take a seat directly opposite Maki. She leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Of you and Eli when you were children,” Kotori said, rolling the word ‘children’ with anticipatory delight. Baffled, Maki looked at Eli for guidance.
“Maki, no,” said Eli. It was the worst thing she could have said. Maki Nishikino did not enjoy being told ‘no’.
“Once I saw Eli get stuck in a tree because she climbed up after the castle cat and couldn’t figure out how to get down, and she wouldn’t let me call the guards. So she jumped and I had to heal her fractured arm and I was unconscious for half a day because it was beyond my level at that time. She still has the scar,” Maki rattled off with a smug flourish.
“Maki.”
Kotori clapped her hands together, trying to cover her giggle with them. “Can I see?” she asked Eli.
“Definitely not,” Eli said, tugging her long sleeve lower self-consciously, and glowered at Maki’s smirk.
“Can I have some answers now?” asked Maki, foot tapping against her chair.
“Wait,” said Kotori. “I have a question for you first, if that’s all right, Maki. Was there anything… strange with the healing? Will there be, um, complications?”
Maki’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re normal as normal can be. And my healing doesn’t have complications.”
“Oh. That’s good to know,” said Kotori, deflating a little. Her eyes flicked to Eli, and she gave a little shrug.
To distract Maki, whose eyes were narrowing at Kotori, Eli quickly said, “I wanted to keep my pilgrimage quiet, so I’ve been going in disguise. It helps me see more, hear more. Kotori’s… a seer who I brought from the castle with me. She’s going to the Seer’s Mountain and I’m stopping by anyway, so I thought we’d travel together. Let her see more of the world, you know.”
“You’re going to the Seer’s Mountain?” Maki repeated, brightening. Distracted just as Eli had hoped. She coughed into her fist to hide her sudden interest. “I just realised I haven’t talked to Nozomi for a while. Would you mind delivering a letter?”
“Of course - we can wait, if you write it right now,” offered Eli.
“I’ll be quick,” Maki promised as she left the room.
They had been pretty tight, Maki and Nozomi; Nozomi could cut through Maki’s bluster with a few words and an easy smile, and after a morning ride by themselves, Maki had somehow accepted Nozomi as one of her confidantes. If you wanted Maki to do something, you asked Nozomi to ask her. (Or you asked Nico to challenge Maki, but Nozomi was a much easier way.)
“Who’s Nozomi?” asked Kotori, drawing Eli out of her thoughts.
“An old friend of ours. One of my closest,” Eli recalled. It had been a long time since she’d seen Nozomi, too… “She’s a seer, so she left to train at their retreat a few years ago. She’s the most talented mage I know.”
“Just a friend?” Kotori prodded. Eli startled.
“O-of course!” she said with a fake laugh she wanted to snatch back out of the air. “What, why would you think otherwise?”
Kotori studied her. “Hmmm… nothing, really,” she said with an innocent shrug, and went back to studying the room’s paintings.
Gods, why was Eli so bad at lying? And why did Kotori make her feel so bad about it too?
“She was my childhood crush,” Eli volunteered without altogether consenting to volunteer. “We were children. It’s embarrassing to think about it now. She - she’s still the person who knows the most about me, and I about her, but we’re not. Uh. Involved that way.”
“But was there someone you were involved with that way?” pressed Kotori.
Maki was surely the slowest letter writer in the country.
“No, I was too busy,” said Eli, and then in a desperate attempt to deflect, “You?”
“M-me?” Kotori looked taken aback. “I…”
And at that exact moment, Maki came sweeping back in.
“Here,” she said, thrusting a bundle of thick letters into Eli’s hands. At the look Eli gave them, she flushed. “Look, there was a bit of a backlog, okay? Were you going to stay the night or not?”
Eli looked out of the windows, measuring the sun with her hand. “We can still make it to the next village if we take the shortcut through the forest. That’s still there, isn’t it?”
“If you want,” Maki said. “Take some food, though. Mama and Papa will kill me if they find out I let Eli Ayase leave without gifts.”
“But they’re not going to find out,” said Eli.
“No, they’re not,” agreed Maki, “but the principle of the thing still stands. Take some fruit. First of the harvest.”
“But - “
“Take it, and I won’t give you anything else,” Maki said mildly. It was not quite a threat.
Eli tossed the orange peels onto the ground, peeling the pith away as they walked. Kotori had managed to squirt juice into her eyes twice before Eli gently but firmly confiscated the oranges. Her short mope cleared up the moment Eli handed her half a dozen orange segments, neatly peeled and sectioned.
The sun dipped towards the horizon as they wound their way along the narrow path between the trees. Clouds scudded across the sky, casting dappled light across their faces; it would rain that night, or maybe the next day. Eli watched them slide by.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Eli.
Kotori bit blissfully into her orange piece. “Hmm?”
“It would be so much faster for you to go alone without me.”
If she left it as a statement, if she didn’t push further, Kotori would stay. Eli could feel it - though she still didn’t understand why, the reasoning behind heavensent creatures’ thought processes.
Then again, Eli was not a heavensent creature.
Kotori licked the juice off her fingers thoughtfully. Eli did not stare. When she was finished, she said, “I think it’d be even lonelier if you weren’t there to come back down to. I think…”
She trailed off. Encouraging, wordless, Eli peeled orange slices and held them in reserve, waiting for Kotori to find her words.
Kotori nibbled on her lip, then said in a rush, “To answer your question, no. I didn’t have anyone I was involved with. I was… too busy, too. Or maybe scared. I’m scared now, too. I don’t know anybody, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go - “ she cut herself off, ducking her head away from Eli.
Eli swallowed. The citrus tang was bright on her tongue, spurring her on. “Sometimes slow is better, I suppose,” she murmured, and tapped Kotori’s hand.
When Kotori looked up, Eli was holding an orange slice to her lips, as if they were children. A half-moon; a small, sweet smile. It surprised Kotori into a laugh, and another as Eli turned the orange into a frown, squinting exaggeratedly.
“It’s okay,” Eli said, dropping the orange slice, leaving her with her own smile. “I’m here. We can discover things at our own pace. There’s no rush.”
Kotori considered this. Then she stole the orange slice from Eli’s hand neatly and popped it into her mouth. Eli had had her lips pressed to that orange slice. This was fine and normal.
“Well, I think we should rush at least a little bit now, or we won’t get there before sundown,” she informed Eli pompously, mimicking the Nishikino’s gatekeeper. Eli snorted and quickened her pace.
“We’ll make a traveller out of you yet.”