The day had an odd feel after that. Mother went back to the library for a few final checks and then to the market for some fish and Kyomi was working on schoolwork, her playdate long forgotten, but I had nothing I felt the need to do. I had no school to practice for and I didn’t know where to start preparing for leaving, so instead I milled about the house idle in a way never had really been before. It didn’t last long before the tears threatened to return. Instead of wallowing, I took a rag in hand and set about idly cleaning the kitchen between helping Kyomi with her brushwork like I would have done any other day.

  Kyomi’s spacing was atrocious, her hands having trouble staying still. But we didn’t talk about that, instead I would take her kimono hand and in my gentlest voice instructed her on how to adequately space her characters so they didn’t bleed into each other. They weren’t the words that sat in the back of my mind, the things I felt that wanted to pour out, but I didn’t have the words or the will to even try and discuss the enormity of what happened. And if I, her elder sister, didn’t have the words how could she?

  So instead, we filled the afternoon with words of instruction that she didn’t really need so we could spend the time together in a way that made sense. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a routine, and the normalcy I needed.

  When Mother came home, we wordlessly cleared the table and moved into preparation, the only sounds being the click and scrape of knives as we sliced and moved about the kitchen. It was only once the food had been set and there was nothing else to do that Mother finally broke the silence.

  “Do you need anything else before you leave?” she asked without turning from the stove as if she couldn’t meet my eyes. If there were tears instead of the sweat of working over a stove, I didn’t say and didn’t push to find out. I, however, didn’t trust my voice not to betray the emotions roiling within and reflexively shook my head before pausing and switching to a nod.

  It was only after another beat of silence that I belatedly realized she couldn’t see me and instead spoke.

  “Yes, I, uh don’t know what to take with me. Or how to pack it.”

  She hummed in thought before nodding. “It’s been a while since I’ve traveled far enough that it mattered, but I still remember some of the advice I got from the Elder at the time. We can pack together.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said before pausing. I hadn’t known my Mother had traveled before, but I supposed it made sense. The library was for the local lord and if he had questions, why would he come here when the historians could come to him.

  Dinner was close to normal, conversations about our day, or at least the parts from before I had died. Time at the academy. Lessons. Small gossip. It was a welcome balm and it helped loosen me up enough that by the time we went to pack I was cognizant enough to remember that I had a question I was supposed to ask her.

  “One of the things that the Outsider spoke of was that I would have ‘an opportunity to be what I was meant to be.’ The elders suggested you might be able to advise me on the abilities that were implied.

  She hummed again before nodding.

  “I know of a few, but there are some scrolls we can consult. We can look at them tomorrow.”

  I smiled for a moment, imagining indulging in the time before my lips twisted in pain.

  “And, uh, if I leave in the morning?”

  She paused in her folding of my formal kimono and steadied herself before resuming.

  “Well, then we go to the library tonight.”

  The rest of the packing went in silence. It wasn’t long after that there was a knock at the door. I excused myself to open it but found no one there. Instead a traveling pack had been left at the door as if I had simply forgotten it outside. It was a deeply considerate act, avoiding the necessity of reciprocity and leaving us to our last evening together as a family. I quietly picked it up and made my way back into my room where I found that there was a note inside. The merchant was leaving tomorrow morning and I would be going with him. Wordlessly I handed my mother the note and set to fitting the folded clothes into the sack. It filled up unfortunately quickly. My kimono fit, as did my single spare general kimono. A simple bowl and pair of traveling chopsticks were safely tucked inside a pouch clearly set aside for them.

  The rest of the pack was largely already filled. Blanket, bedroll, trail rations, a waterskin, all newer. A small fortune just given to me. I felt uncomfortable with such wealth, but I managed to push it aside, my thoughts turning cold. Even if I wanted to repay the village for this, I didn’t have the funds and couldn’t truly refuse. I didn’t know what the road would bring, but traveling without these basic necessities was something I couldn’t truly do.

  So instead I set about fitting what little else I could into the few small spots left. A few scrolls of notes. The older cooking knife that Mother had insisted she could do without. A smattering of herbs that we had sitting in excess within the house. That filled the pack to the near brim. Anything else I wanted to bring, I’d have to carry by hand. Or in my kimono.

  I looked around the room, trying to find something that would fit in one of my kimono pockets and sighed when I realized that there really was nothing I could take. Most of my possessions were either practical items that Kyomi would need in town or too large for such a small bag. Dejected, I took the bag and placed it by the door for a quick departure tomorrow morning.

  Mother gave me a wan smile and wordless led me to the kitchen. We cleaned the dishes together as we always did. It was only when I went to put the dishes away that I remembered that Kyomi would have trouble reaching that shelf and instead put the plate on a lower one where she could reach. That turned into a small project, reorganizing the kitchen so Kyomi could effectively work when she had to pick up my chores. It felt so inane, so pointless. Kyomi would grow and be able to reach the existing shelves soon enough, but it kept me moving.

  I only stopped when Kyomi’s bedtime came. Mother normally would tuck Kyomi in and give her a story when she couldn’t sleep, but she wordlessly gave me the permission to do so tonight. It was a short affair, Kyomi nearly falling asleep immediately, but it was a balm to my worries to have such a sweet punctuation.

  When I returned to the hall, Mother was standing at the door with a lantern. I nodded and followed her out the door and through the village. We walked in silence, nodding at passersbys and the occasional guard walking the street for yokai or other intruders from the Wood. The path we took was short and direct and it was only a few kedu later that we came to the library.

  In olden times one of Elder Takashi’s ancestors had distinguished himself to the family of the local lord and as such Imardos was entrusted with the maintenance of several important facilities, including the library. Originally built with sturdy oak and reinforced with magic, it was a historical archive for the Lord of the area, keeping required records that would have otherwise overflowed their personal estate. It also housed a large selection of magical treatises that we had used for education. Mother had worked in this library as a historian for all of her adult life and if I hadn’t demonstrated magical talent, or died a dispassionate part of my mind noted, I likely would have inherited her position.

  The library was old, old enough that several of the structural wards had been replaced with oak supports and imported metal brackets, and was typically closed once the sun went down to minimize the risk of errant flames catching one of the places where the flame prevention wards had faded. Fortunately, as one of the librarians, Mother was trusted enough to bring both me and a flame into the building well after sundown. The doors were sealed, but the wards opened smoothly to Mother’s badge of office.

  We closed the doors behind us and then moved between the burdened shelves with quick feet, passing through the public area and then down into the archives. First though the magic treatises and then even further down to the restricted section. Only Elders and librarians were supposed to walk these halls, but I sincerely doubted anyone would seriously consider denying Starborn access.

  The room was tightly packed with double loaded shelves. Journals of the Elders, meeting logs, and scrolls so magical that it made me tingle to walk past them. I wondered if they had kept their power because of some outside factor or if they had been even more powerful in years past.

  I didn’t have much time to wonder, as Mother lead me to a table comparable to our dinner table laden with scrolls, tied journals, and the occasional bound book separated into piles.

  “With the Elder’s permission, I had every document we had on kitsune prowess and history pulled, from Akari Nine-Tail’s memoirs to,” she paused gathering herself before continuing in clear disgust, “a copy of Myrna of Alfos’ documentation of the attempted colonization of our continent and her notes on the dangers of our people. It’s in Runna, but a translation has been made. They’re sorted by age.”

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  The fact that a translation had been made was curious. Most scholars, my mother included, looked down on any language that used an alphabet for writing. Reasonings varied, my mother was a large proponent of the belief that simplifying language to an alphabet simplified thought and thus magical ability. Which then led to an explanation of why other races were so magically inept. The cold and logical part of my mind wondered how that theory held up given our own declining magical abilities, but I didn’t want to get lectured over a topic I had heard her discuss at length.

  Which is why I grabbed one of the older, clearly Tho-myon, scrolls and gave her a smile.

  “Let’s get started then.”

  ***************************************************************

  The stirring upstairs finally broke me from my studies, though how long it had been I couldn’t say. Mother had fallen asleep at some point while I continued to read the scrolls. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I didn’t feel at all tired. I wasn’t sure if it was some new quirk of being Starborn or the fact that I had just gotten lost in a project. Regardless, I was now curious who was coming into the library in the presumable night. It would have to be someone with authority to be here given the wards. It was impossible to bypass those.

  Or was it? Wards had an upper limit to their strength and while it had been impossible for me to break through them, I wasn’t sure that was the case any more. It might have been, but there wasn’t a good quan…

  A quiet cough stirred me from my contemplation and I looked up to find Elder Yamamoto standing by the stairs.

  How long had he been waiting? Blushing, I bowed, “Ah, Elder Yamamoto, to what do I owe the honor?” I asked as quietly as I could while still being respectful.

  He smiled and spared my Mother a glance and then tilted his head up the stairs. I nodded and followed him until we were far enough away that waking her was unlikely. Only then did he return my bow. My breath caught a bit when he bowed low enough to imply a degree of respect I had never been afforded by one so my senior before. It made a bit of sense, I supposed. I wasn’t sure what the specific placement of ‘chosen by the gods’ was in the imperial hierarchy, it had never come up, so bowing to me as an equal was a safe way of hedging his bets.

  “Kara,” he said, his voice friendly and familiar,, “I came by your house to talk to you before you left, but your sister told me you had come out to the library last night and not returned. She’s a bit worried about you.”

  Kyomi was awake? Wait, what time was it? Was I late for my meeting with the porforkin? Panic swelled in my chest “What time is it?” I asked with growing worry. Would he leave without me?

  He smiled and patted my shoulder, “The Jugei star is bright, which means that if you would do me the honor of taking a walk with this old kitsune, we should end up at your house before the merchant with enough time to say farewell.”

  A sigh of relief escaped my lips before I remembered myself. Instead, I spared my mother my own glance as I thought of my sister home, alone. She was old enough that she could be trusted to start preparing for the day herself, but I couldn’t imagine her being happy about doing so given… everything.

  Elder Yamamoto patted my shoulder again, “Don’t worry about her. Donbo will help her clean up and get her home to your sister.”

  I nodded and brought my eyes back to him. Part of me wanted to stay, read more. There were plenty more scrolls I hadn’t gotten to, but I knew that wasn’t a wise choice. So instead I reluctantly climbed the stairs passing Elder Yamamoto’s personal assistant, Donbo, on his way down. He wasn’t much older than me, but much more muscular. It reminded me of why Elder Yamamoto had been assigned an assistant. He had fallen late last year and had been on crutches for a while.

  I wasn’t sure what would happen if he fell again. Donbo was much more muscular than I was, which left me unsure how that would work. Perhaps… I shook my head from the distractions and moved to walk at Elder Yamamoto’s side. It was easier to prevent than repair and walking at his side was the polite thing to do regardless.

  “And how are you this morning, Elder?”

  He chuckled, the sound feeling mildly blasphemous in the traditionally quiet library. “Kara, we both have two tails and you are Starborn. If anyone should be using honorifics, it is I.”

  I found myself blushing despite myself, trying to adapt to the sudden changes in my life. Sensing my floundering, his voice turned soft, “Fortunately for the both of us I am far too old and weary to dwell on useless things for long, especially when it troubles someone doing me a favor. So, instead, tell me what you and Izumi found.”

  I stuttered for a moment before my brain connected the name to my Mother. It wasn’t often that people talked about her with me using her name which made it disorienting when they did. I shook my head and focused on the question.

  “A lot. There are several abilities ascribed to the kitsune over the years, but it was hard to tell which were the common ones and which were the exceptional. Too much variance in the descriptions to truly be clear. I have a partial list though, mostly built oddly enough from the translated works of Myrna the Deft.”

  “‘Your enemies,’” Elder Yamamoto said, clearly quoting, through from what text I couldn’t tell, “‘will often have keener insights into your failings and abilities than your friends for the simple fact that they won’t forgive you for either of them.’”

  “Ah, well,” I said, uncertain what to do with that information or how to feel about one of the greatest villains in history having the clearest insight into my people. “I suppose?”

  Not particularly elegant, but saying nothing somehow felt worse. I moved to speak again before we could dwell on that.

  “Regardless, she spoke of shapeshifting, both to foxes and other races. The frequent mention of muzzling the kitsune in particular for safety implies that our bite was a common concern. Not sure why given how awkward those angles might be, but it’s something. The part that interested me the most were were comments on how all of the People, from child to general and even mages who were suspected to be too worn to cast, had certain magical tricks. There was a lot of speculation, but the only one she knew for certain was something she called ‘Foxfire’?”

  Elder Yamamoto nodded, his left hand deftly moving while his right pressed heavily on his cane, weaving into something resembling a spellform. Elder Yamamoto had been a guardsman before he retired, which implied he lacked any magical talent at all. But despite that, after a moment a small ball of light, no brighter than a torch and no larger than a peach, sprung to life from his hand humming with the distinct form of magic. He twisted his fingers again, which sent the ball spinning around him and another to form. Twice more he did this until there was a small ring of fires surrounding him, bobbing a circular path around him.

  It wasn’t a spell I recognized, not that he should have been able to cast it, but it was clearly magical in effect. But how?

  He chuckled as he watched the lights moved, a wide smile upon his face. “Still got it.”

  “How, what?” I asked before I could remember myself.

  He chuckled, “Same way you do anything with practice and focus.”

  I shook my head, “No, I mean, how does it form. The pattern you traced would open your flows, but that would only explain the first, not the second, third, or fourth. You didn’t need to repeat the patterns for the rest.”

  He shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t have the same words you have to describe it. I only have how it was explained to me during my officer training. It isn’t about gathering energy or concentrating. Instead, it’s about aligning your body so that what is already there can flow out. The shape of your arms guides it for you.”

  That almost made sense. Runes were patterns that you could put on something and would direct ambient energy through them and the energy would congeal into a spell effect without anyone having to directly guide it. The Refrectory worked on that principle on a much larger scale. But there was nothing that dictated they had to be carved into stone. I had lessons in needlework for that exact reason. If it could be shaped by thread, why couldn’t it be shaped by the body?

  My fingers started to move in the pattern but then I stopped as something he said piqued my curiosity.

  “Officer training?”

  “For the White Army,” he said with a solemn nod.

  I blinked in surprise. The White Army was the coalition that drove Myrna the Deft and her elvish forces out of the Wyrvwood almost two hundred years ago and was led by Akari Nine-tails, the most famous and possibly the most powerful sorceress in all of kitsune history. I had known that Elder Yamamoto was old, but two hundred winters past was almost three times the age of Senior Yuki. Kitsune didn’t live that long.

  “Uh, forgive me for saying so, but… that does not seem possible. Myrna the Deft’s invasion was long ago. If you were there you’d have to be…” I said, trailing off to avoid needing to pick a number.

  Elder Yamamoto laughed again, his grin wide and mischievous. “Oh, I’m not that old child. I wasn’t even an errant thought in my great-grandfather’s mind when Akari Nine-Tails marched out. But that doesn’t mean the White Army isn’t around today. Elves are stubborn people and someday they’ll come and try to conquer the Wood again. And while we don’t have the magic we used to, we’re not about to let them get the drop on us again. When, and it is when, they’ll blow the horn and all the guards, mages, and volunteers will pick up and go rally to kick those willow bastards’ asses again.”

  I blinked again, taken aback at the fervor in his voice and confused about the supposed inevitably of war. Seventeen winters, and this was the first I had heard of both a coming war or an army. It begged many more questions, but those questions would be things that would likely take the rest of the morning to answer and I was sure I’d get more information the closer to the coast I went.

  And clearly Elder Yamamoto agreed. “Regardless,” he said, breezing right past the fact that there was an army that had been kept from me all my life, “As much as I enjoy reminiscing about my time in the military it isn’t why I came to find you. No, what woke me up this morning and got me moving well before the sun came up is that I realized reading is excellent for telling you ‘what’, but it is fairly bad at telling you ‘how’. Especially histories. So, I’m gonna give you a start on what I can before you go into the spider’s web.”

  I blinked in surprise, stumbling over questions as I discarded them. Why not Sage Vinollo? Because, I reasoned, as the oldest Elder, Elder Yamamoto would’ve been born with the greatest natural amount of magic and had the most training with his natural gifts. What would we learn first? Probably the lights - since he already had shown that skill - and shape shifting, if we could, so that I could blend in with the Elves.

  Finally, I asked the only question I couldn’t solve on my own, “Will we have time?”

  He shrugged, “It’s uncertain, but the only thing I know for sure is that if we don’t try, we certainly won’t.”