One More Scar

Beneath My Skin

~𝕶𝖎𝖈𝖍𝖎~

𝕷𝖊𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖇𝖗𝖔𝖜𝖓 and the palest yellow crunch beneath heavy drops of red. Crimson rivulets slither over dirt and debris, steam rising in their wake. It smells of metal and burnt hair.

I cannot breathe.

"Do we need to break, Lady Kichi?"

I blink, a deep breath sinking into me, and the scene reverts. The leaves glow scarlet, lime, and lemon, soggy with mid-autumn dew and sticking to my sandals. No blood spills here now, but this place remembers. It was or will be. We need to get away from here.

My traveling companion slips one strap of his pack off his shoulder, and his dark hair spills across his collar. It fails to hide the raw slice weeping beneath his chin.

"Keep going." I place one shaky foot in front of the other. Any tap falls beneath the sound of rustling feathers as my ravens flit from twig to sky. "This place wants us not."

The leaves whisper as I stride past him. His eyes, white like the hottest flames with the sparsest hint of purple, dance between bare branches, piercing the shadows in every direction. Night will rise soon.

"Do the trees speak to you?" He trails me. A tremor pitches the end of the query too high, and I turn to him.

"Do I detect fear in you, skilled warrior?" I keep my voice light to match the buoyancy of my grin and footfalls. A lady should not worry her companions. She is to be a moonbeam spearing the darkness, a ray of sun despite the tempest.

My affected gaiety cracks against his sardonic smirk.

"Fear?" He scoffs. "Don't I rightly fear anything that can tell what it sees? I'm a dead man, remember?"

As he glides past, my gaze again falls to the wound on his neck, and a chill ripples across my skin. They hanged him, and when the rope failed, they cast him into the cove of the Kraken. All because someone had to take the blame for my death.

No one can learn we both still live.

I quicken my pace. "If the trees whisper only to me, why would that be a problem? Would it be that horrid for me to know your secrets?"

His eyes are a forge, ablaze and evocative of hard, sharp weapons. Too much like my father's.

I look to my feet. The path's slimness renders it difficult to walk side by side. Bushes and brambles scrape my ankles even through my tabi socks. These zori sandals offer no protection, and I curse my decision not to steal a pair of my father's luxurious boots. Even the wide hakama trousers like my companion wears would have been better.

"It is unfair," I chatter, chancing a glance at him, "to ask about my Affinity when I have never seen yours in action."

He halts, one arm stretched before me, focus on the path ahead. My sightline follows his, running over thorny trees and jagged limestone to where land rises to cold, pewter heavens. Beyond our mountain is another mountain.

His voice floats into my ear like a dandelion on the breeze. "What do your birds say is ahead?"

I wish I knew. If my Affinity were as everyone believes, then I would not have to pretend.

Why do I still pretend? Lady Kichi is dead. I am free to go wherever I will, be whomever I choose. The only one who knows otherwise is this servant boy, Jōzu, son of a maid, and also officially dead.

My fingers tangle in the skirt of my kimono. If I must fight him, I will have to do it without an Affinity. The one I have is useless. They say his can command hurricanes.