Nobody answered Naomi's question.
The forest did.
A dry rustle ran through the webs above us, like someone shaking out a very old blanket. Then every spider I could see moved at once.
I'd been counting things all morning. Ten wolves. One splash. Twenty steps of silence. I gave up on the spiders somewhere past forty, because forty turned into a hundred, and the hundred kept pouring down the trunks ahead of us.
Black. Glossy. Each one about the size of my fist.
And then they stopped.
They didn't rush us. They piled into a line across the path, between us and the deeper trees. A second line climbed up behind the first. Then a third, scrambling over the others, until the whole thing stood almost knee-high.
I'd watched Naomi drill the guards in a shield wall more times than I could count.
This looked exactly like that. Just with more legs.
"Big Sis," I whispered. "They're lining up."
"I see it."
"Spiders don't line up."
"These do."
One of the guards shifted her boot. The black wall rippled and got thicker. It didn't come one step closer. It just got deeper, like it was daring us to try.
Naomi looked past it, into the dark between the trees beyond. She looked for a long time.
Thoughts didn't travel through the bond. I'd checked. But I didn't need the bond for this one. Things that line up in front of something are usually guarding it.
So what's back there?
Naomi turned her back on the wall.
"About face," she said. "We're going home."
"But they're—"
"Guarding something. Yes." She didn't look at me. "Not today's problem. Today's problem is the way out."
We turned.
The way back wasn't empty either.
It wasn't a wall. It was worse. Spiders crawled on the trunks we'd passed, on the ferns, on the roots under our boots. And above us, all along the path we'd walked in on, the webs we hadn't seen were sagging with them.
Something over my head went tick.
Then it rained spiders.
"Big Sis!" I yelled. "Something's coming from above!"
"I noticed!"
"Are you surprised?"
"Very!"
Her sword came out in one long silver line. The web hanging across the path parted like wet rope, and Naomi walked straight through the gap without slowing down.
"Push!" she barked. "Boots high! Nobody stops!"
The column moved.
I'd seen my sisters fight. I'd seen the guards spar. I had never seen six women walk through a rain of spiders like it was mildly annoying weather.
The guard on my left tore a whole web-strung sapling out of the ground, roots and all, and swept the path ahead of her like a broom. Another stamped so hard the ground jumped under my feet. Somebody behind me was slapping spiders out of the air with her bare hands.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Sigrid's hand never left my shoulder. Her other hand was busy.
"Head down, Young Master."
I put my head down. Something landed on my collar. Sigrid's fist closed around it before I could even squeak.
It bit her first.
"Ow," she said politely, and crushed it.
I kept my hand off my sword. I'd learned that one already. Instead, I did the only useful thing a person in the middle of a column can do.
I watched the light.
Under 「Eyes of Elysia」, every guard had her outline of frost. White. Clean. Same as this morning.
The spiders didn't have any light at all. Elysia's eyes, apparently, only cared about people. The spiders were just holes in the world, black and fast and everywhere.
Then the guard on my left slapped her neck and hissed.
A fleck of yellow bloomed in her light.
Then another guard, at the ankle. Then the one behind me. One after another, the white outlines around the column started to change, like someone dripping honey into milk, one drop at a time.
Up front, Naomi's candle flinched in my chest.
Not a big flinch. A pinprick.
Then another one.
"Big Sis, you're—"
"Fine. Walk."
Far behind us, two more candles flared. Hana's and Marika's. They'd felt it too. Somewhere on the east road, Marika was probably frightening her horse.
The bites kept coming. Small ones. Shallow. The guards barely broke stride.
At first.
The youngest guard was humming her three notes again, faster than usual. Then the third note went missing.
Her left leg folded under her like it had forgotten how to be a leg.
She went down on one knee, and the spiders poured onto her like water finding a hole.
"Up!" The guard behind her grabbed the back of her armor and hauled her upright with one arm, swatting with the other. "Up, up, up—"
"I'm up! I'm up! My foot's gone all fizzy—"
Clang!
A sword hit the roots in front of me.
The guard on my left was staring at her own hand. Her fingers were half open and stiff, like they belonged to somebody else.
Knights don't drop their swords. I'd grown up in a house full of knights. I had never once seen it happen.
I looked at their light.
The yellow was deeper now. Darker than Sigrid's cut had been this morning. Darker than Tilly's cold. And the youngest guard's was the darkest of all.
The further it strays from white, the more they need you.
"Big Sis!" My voice cracked. I didn't care. "It's the bites! There's something in them. Their light's getting darker. All of them!"
Naomi looked back.
She saw the youngest guard leaning on the other one. She saw the sword on the ground. She saw a knight flexing a hand that wouldn't flex.
"I can fix it," I said.
"Not here."
"Here's where they're falling down!"
A spider dropped onto Naomi's shoulder. She flicked it off without looking.
"There's the new one," I said, quieter. "「Mass Heal」. Everyone inside the circle. One cast."
"I said not yet."
"I know." I swallowed. "So say yes."
For one heartbeat, Naomi didn't say anything at all.
I hadn't threatened her. I hadn't just gone and done it. I'd asked. I really hoped she'd noticed.
"Ring," Naomi said. "On him. Tight. Backs in."
The guards moved before she finished the last word. The youngest guard was half carried into place. The guard with the frozen hand scooped up her sword with the other one. In two breaths, I was standing inside a circle of armored backs, with Naomi at the front of it and Sigrid right behind me.
Spiders hit the ring from every side. Boots stamped. Fists swung.
"Do it," Naomi said.
I reached for 「Mass Heal」.
Every cast I'd ever made was a splash. A little tip of the pitcher, and done.
This time, I tipped it further than I ever had, and let it pour.
The circle opened under our boots. Wide. Its lines raced out across the roots until they touched every guard's heels.
And it was green.
Not White. Green. Bright as new leaves.
For one second, I forgot about the spiders.
Four hundred and twenty-six people, plus today. Every circle I'd ever cast for them had been White. I knew White the way I knew my own handwriting.
This wasn't White.
Light rose out of the green, soft and warm, and washed up over the whole ring at once.
The bites closed. On necks. On wrists. On the youngest guard's ankle. On Sigrid's knuckle. On Naomi's wrist, right where her candle had flinched. All of them in one breath, like a seamstress pulling a single thread and closing a dozen seams at once.
"By the Goddess," somebody breathed.
Naomi stared at the ground. At the green. Then she looked at me.
Her face didn't change. Naomi's face almost never changes. But in my chest, her candle went very, very still.
Then the light faded.
The bites were gone.
The yellow wasn't.
I stared at the guards' outlines. Still yellow. Still dark. The youngest guard's was barely any lighter at all.
Of course. 「Mass Heal」 closed wounds. It didn't chase down whatever had already gotten inside them. That was a different skill's job.
"It's still in them," I said. "The poison. I closed the holes, but it's still in them."
"Then—"
I was already moving. The youngest guard first. She was the darkest.
I put my hand on her arm and reached for 「Cure」.
Splash. A plain White circle, small and familiar, just under her boots. The yellow in her light thinned, paled, and drained away like a stain washing out of linen, until she was white again.
She blinked. Stamped her foot. "Oh! I can feel my toes."
"Good. Keep them."
The guard with the frozen hand was next. Splash. White. Her fingers curled closed around her hilt one by one, and she let out a breath like she'd been holding it since the wolves.
I turned to the next guard—
"Enough," Naomi said. "Out first."
"But the rest of you are still—"
"Walking. Which is all I need." She raised her sword toward the way home. "Run."
And I ran.
I didn't argue. I didn't look back. I didn't stop to heal anyone.
It was the hardest thing I'd done all day. And I'd just turned a circle green.
The webs ended all at once.
One moment we were running under a ceiling of gray silk. The next, the branches overhead were just branches, and the light went from evening to slightly less evening.
Naomi slowed. Then stopped. Then turned around.
I turned with her.
The spiders hadn't followed.
They'd stopped exactly where the webs stopped. Hundreds of them, crowded along the last strands like a black tide line on a beach. Not one of them crossed it.
They weren't chasing us. They were just making sure.
"They're not following," I said.
"No," said Naomi.
"They weren't trying to kill us, my lady," Sigrid said quietly. "They were trying to make us leave."
Naomi watched the line for a long moment.
"Then they got what they wanted," she said. "Today."
We didn't stop again until we were well into the entrance, far enough that I couldn't see a single web. The ten wolves still lay where we'd left them. The forest was still silent.
Naomi raised a hand. The column halted.
"Now," she said.
I didn't need telling twice.
Sigrid first. She held out her bitten knuckle the way she held out eggs people gave me at the gate. Splash. White. Then the guard who'd hauled the youngest one up. Then the guard who'd swept the path with a tree.
Splash. Splash.
One by one, the yellow drained out of them, and they went back to plain, clean frost.
Which left one.
Naomi was already tugging her gauntlet back on.
"I'm fine."
"You're yellow."
"I'm always yellow."
"Not this yellow." I held out my hand. "And I can feel it, Big Sis. You know I can."
She looked at my hand. Then at the guards, who were all suddenly very interested in the trees.
She pulled her gauntlet off again and held out her wrist.
Splash. White.
The venom drained out of her light the same way it had from the others.
Not all of the yellow, though.
A thin thread stayed right where it had been this morning. The old one. Ten years' worth.
「Cure」 can't touch that. That isn't poison.
I thought about the other skill sitting quietly next to 「Mass Heal」 in my head. The one that takes exhaustion out of a body.
I opened my mouth.
"No," said Naomi.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to." She tugged the gauntlet back on. "One new skill a day."
"Is that a rule now?"
"It's a rule now."
I checked the pitcher while she wasn't looking.
One 「Heal」 at the entrance. One pour. Six splashes. I counted twice.
It wasn't empty, and I wasn't dizzy. But it sloshed when I moved, a lot lighter than it had any business being before lunch.
Naomi turned to the guards. They straightened without being told.
"What you saw in there," she said.
Nobody breathed.
"Stays in there. Until I say otherwise."
"Yes, my lady," they said, all together.
"Saw what, my lady?" said Sigrid. "I was busy with spiders."
The youngest guard raised her hand. "I saw green—"
The guard beside her elbowed her in the ribs.
"—leaves," the youngest guard finished. "Lots of green leaves. It's a forest."
"Good," said Naomi.
The guard waiting with the horses nearly dropped the reins when we came out of the trees.
"My lady! Are you all—"
"Fine," said Naomi. "Mount up."
The gray mare was asleep standing up. She woke, looked at me, and seemed faintly disappointed I'd come back.
I rode home in the middle of the column, with the Gloamwood's dark line shrinking behind us, and thought about exactly one thing.
Green.
Not how. I knew how. I'd been tipping the pitcher until I got dizzy every single afternoon for a month.
But when? Last week? The week before? How long had I been walking around Green, splashing out little White circles and calling it my best?
Nobody had ever told me what ranking up felt like. Apparently, it felt like nothing at all.
You sent me a whole new line for 「Eyes of Elysia」, I told the goddess with her eyes closed. A note for this would've been nice.
Hana was at the gate.
Of course she was. She'd felt everything: both of Naomi's pinpricks, and whatever I'd felt like when I poured. She stood in the open gate with one guard beside her, her tin of salve already open, and her eyes already wet.
"Don't tell me it was nothing," she said. "I felt it."
Behind her, leaning against the gatepost like she'd been there for hours, was Marika.
"You're supposed to be on the east road," I said.
"I finished it."
"You finished the road?"
"I ran out of road." The tips of her ears were going pink. "It happens. Roads end. Look it up."
Hana went down the line of guards with her tin like a general inspecting troops.
She reached the youngest guard, who held out her arm. The bite there was gone, not even a mark. Hana salved it anyway. Then she took the other arm and salved that one too.
The youngest guard looked at me over Hana's head.
"Both arms," I said. "Just to be safe."
"Just to be safe," Hana agreed, and had no idea why that made the guard laugh.
Then Hana got to Naomi.
Naomi held out her wrist without being asked. There was nothing on it. Hana salved it very carefully anyway, and Naomi stood there and let her, the whole time.
I handed the gray mare to Tilly.
"Horse returned."
"Thank you, Young Master." She ran a hand down each of the mare's legs, then looked me over too. "Both of you, then."
Before anyone could go inside, I did one last thing.
"Everyone, um. Line up? Please?"
The guards traded looks. Then they lined up in the courtyard, shoulder to shoulder, like it was an inspection and I was the captain. Sigrid stood at the end with her hands behind her back, which was how I knew she was enjoying this.
I walked the line slowly and looked at every one of them.
White. White. White. The youngest guard, humming her three notes again, all of them this time: white. Even the guard who'd waited with the horses, and the one who'd stayed with Hana. White, white.
"Satisfied, Young Master?" Sigrid asked.
"Nearly."
I turned to Naomi.
Frost, mostly. And that one thin thread of yellow, exactly where it had been at breakfast.
"Noted," she said, before I could open my mouth.
Then, louder: "Dismissed." The guards scattered toward the barracks and the kitchens and, I suspected, the nearest bench.
Naomi didn't move.
"Hana. Marika. Fabian," she said. "War room."
The war room sat on the east side of the house. It had one window, one long table, and one enormous map of Greymark painted right onto the tabletop. The Gloamwood ran along the top edge of it in a green so dark it was almost black.
Mother used to plan in here. Naomi had planned in here for ten years. I'd been allowed inside maybe three times in my life, and one of those was to fetch a quill.
Naomi didn't sit. She never sat in here. She stood behind the chair at the head of the table with both hands on its back.
Marika dropped onto the edge of the table.
Naomi looked at her.
Marika slid off and into a chair. "I was getting off anyway."
Hana sat properly, smoothed her skirt, and took out her little notebook. "How many casts today?"
"Today?"
"Today."
"One 「Heal」 at the entrance. Six 「Cure」." I hesitated. "And one... other."
Hana's pencil stopped.
Marika's head came up. "Something stung Big Sis. Twice. We both felt it. And then you went all hollow for a second, like someone pulled a plug out of you."
"That was the other."
"The other what?"
"It was green," I said.
They both stared at me.
"What was green?"
"Sit," said Naomi.
"I am sitting."
"Then listen." Naomi set one palm flat on the map, right where the painted Gloamwood met Greymark's last fields. "All of you. What we found in there today means—"
Knock, knock.
The door opened before anyone answered.
Nobody opened the war room door before anyone answered.
Agnes stood in the doorway, out of breath, with her cap crooked. I'd never seen that either.
"My lady. Forgive me."
"Agnes."
"Her Highness the First Princess," Agnes said. "She's at the gate."
Silence.
"Today," said Naomi.
"Now, my lady. With her escort." Agnes swallowed. "The road's crimson all the way back to town."
"Royals don't ride all the way to the border," Marika said faintly.
"You said that," I said. "Weeks ago."
"I stand by it."
Naomi's hand was still flat on the map. I watched her lift it away, slowly, one finger at a time. Then she straightened, and the Countess of Greymark slid back over her face like a visor coming down.
"Then she'll see a Saint," Naomi said. "With a White circle."
Everyone looked at me.
I looked down at my hands. A few hours ago, they'd made a circle the wrong color.
Now a princess had ridden all the way from Sanctara to watch them make the right one.