They all were already awake come the dawn, for long was the road to Agaepsonia, burdened by wayns heavy with supplies, pulled laboriously by sumpter donkeys and a pair of lumbering pachidons from Durdvizal, bred to be better-suited for lengthy travels than ordinary elephants. Cecilia could not imagine herself getting used to such creatures and their odd proboscis, as fascinating to her as they were unpleasant. That these beasts had larger, wilder cousins in far corners of the world at times felt unreal. As the Blossoms set out under banners of red petals, led by Sieglinde, Cecilia kept her distance from those mystifying animals.

  “The others don’t seem to find them so unusual,” Prishia said to her, smiling. “They are a common sight in Biratgar. Very intelligent animals. Helpful, too, and though it may be a strange way to describe a beast, they are… Polite. Very considerate, for their size.”

  It was not their size that irked Cecilia, but those slimy, slippery trunks. Surely there was a touch of magic in their birth, as nature would never spawn such beings. Eschenstadt was home to blighted playthings of evolution, but at least those parodies of life were not quite so repulsively springy. The words she wished to use to describe them were not to be said in polite company, and would redden a lady’s face.

  They followed the road north, led by Sieglinde. Most of the present company was known to Cecilia, though some were unfamiliar faces. Several were her flourish-mates, fellows from the sowing of 1878, and the ones she did not know well, she assumed, were natives of Loclain like Stel. It was little wonder that Stelmaria and Millicent Auschar traveled ahead of all, for the sake of scouting though no dangers would be found this close to the Tower of Rebirth, in the heart of Siodrune. Cecilia knew Millicent mainly by reputation, for, though she had been many times invited to tea parties and social occasions organized by Lady Auschar, the host tended to be strangely distant for a woman so preoccupied with forging bonds of fellowship with her bloom-sisters. Like Stel, Millicent often lobbied about gathering support for Loclain, so the two had cause to celebrate, despite all sorrows and adversities.

  About the Academy now and then one could hear an unkind whisper of the Loclainites’ insistence, as though theirs was the sole nation in need of reinforcements. Cecilia reprimanded them when she could, though they inevitably reached Stel’s ears, and no doubt those of many compatriots. The aspish tongues of fools could not be stilled long, and even in better days both Rosa Aeterna and the Stone-Tree itself were mired in selfish inclinations. Some among us know what it is like to see perils at home, Cecilia had told Stel not a week after they began their instruction together. Not all are so coddled as to lift one’s blade only in ceremony.

  Still, Loclain was a crueler land than Eschenstadt, where nature was pitiless but the lands nevertheless untainted by diabolism. Little comfort for those buried in snows or eaten alive by beasts that their souls would not be made into tokens of bargain, but such was the truth. Cecilia could only guess what it was like to live so close to one’s sworn enemies of centuries, all too willing to partake in any atrocity.

  Come noon, looking back revealed the soot-veiled fogs of Cartasinde still in the horizon, beyond the Tower of Rebirth itself, now only a distant line. Ancient as the city was, old enough to outlast dynasties and to witness the world change countless times, it was only in the past hundred or so years that Cartasinde grew bloated with wretched life and abject misery. Now, though it was the wealthiest, greatest city in the world, it was a blight that demanded a disgusted attention even from afar. The Academy and the Tower were both distant enough that the stink did not reach them, mercifully. That such disparate places existed so close together, feeding off of one another… No place was perfect, but Cecilia still found herself missing Eschenstadt.

  The expedition ate a humble lunch, stopping by the side of the road north. Filling enough, though just one day ago they tasted far more delectable meals in the Tower of Rebirth, which was not yet so distant to be out of sight. But the road was no place for lavish meals, and for the sake of discretion they would avoid any inns on their way to Loclain, and thus avoid a meal that threatened to have any noticeable flavor. Even inns were an uncommon sight on the way north, as Loclain was hardly inviting to travelers. Cecilia had not seen a single soul save for her companions after departing, and knew well enough that if she did, most likely they would be refugees headed south. Responsible people don’t go to Loclain.

  Not a single soul, she thought again, thinking of their departure. In other times, an expedition of the Red Rose would have been seen off by crowds, by friends and families and authorities, all wishing them good fortune. But now was no time for the Rose to flaunt itself and bring attention to its newfound frailty and peril. They were but some few dozen girls, nowhere close enough to being able to hold a nation together. Yet that was all that could be spared.

  “In truth, we have always been lost,” Sieglinde had told her companions. “The Blossoms that came before us, who have also known horror and strife, also feared, as we do, that they were not good enough. No one is ever prepared. That’s the bitter truth of it, our glory and our ruin. Heroism is the most frightening virtue ever demanded of us. Only a fool is free of doubt and fear that she can never measure up, that she can’t compare to the names spoken with admiration and love, the ones fit for the histories. We forget they were girls like us. No more and no less.”

  As she washed a handful of dirtied cutlery on the cool waters of a nearby creek, she realized she couldn’t see the great founders of the Rose cleaning dishes, putting clothes out to dry, digging up holes to bury one’s nightsoil in. By her side, Triella toiled wordlessly, her work slow and meticulous. Cecilia couldn’t quite explain it, but though they’d known each other for two years now, something about their bond felt like it had changed after witnessing her squat on top of a hole. Discretion was not a possibility on a long journey, but still there was something odd about the whole situation. Mayhaps I am more of a squeamish prude than I gave myself credit for.

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  “They don’t put these parts in the history books,” Triella remarked, quite jovial. “But Amaryllis the Fair had to wash on the road somehow, just as the First Blossom had to stop to make water, the same as the Frostbane and Siliya il-Santarini contracted lice and had to shovel mud.”

  “I had not thought that way,” Cecilia admitted. “I had not taken you for one so accepting of these… Lowly realities of our journeys and missions. You always did love the grand romantic tales most of all.”

  “And I still do,” she said, “but I needn’t reject the truths, or despise them. All the women I adore and see in my dreams were of the same flesh I am made of. Blood and bone and sinew and all that entails. If they were not, then we would be lost, for we would never be able to follow where they have trod.”

  Cecilia held her words. She knew less of Triella than she thought, it occurred to her. At some point she had simply begun to think of Triella as a girl living her most luminous dreams of being one among the Blossoms of their exalted order. During their education, it seemed enough to know that.

  “I rarely had to wash pots and pants back in Eschenstadt, at home,” she said. “Once or twice to learn the toil behind it, but rarely were my responsibilities so…” Menial? “Domestic. Though my family was not wealthy, we were sufficiently well-off to have help at the house.”

  Perhaps help was a dishonest work for paid servants, Svea and Luze, those two aged maids who had lived with and worked for the Kleinfelds since her father was a child. At the Academy Cecilia had mingled with daughters of great privilege, ladies promised great fortune and power from birth, even if they had been denied Efflorescence, but she had also known girls like Triella, who were plainly not born to significant means. It made Cecilia feel… What was it that she felt? She would never feel ashamed of her proud House, but Triella had rougher fingers even before martial training extracted its toll from all the chosen of the Ruby Blossom, and the memory now brought her some discomfort.

  “I briefly helped at a manor in Verilert,” the choice of words seemed to amuse Triella more than anything. “It was a pleasant enough experience, and my needs were taken care of, but I did not feel it could last forever. Though I was a companion of the daughter of the lady of the house, we would not be children forever, and in time I would no longer be able to remain by her side as she was introduced to parties, feasts, and grand gatherings. And I did not wish to spend my life in one place, as the wrinkled housekeeper had.”

  “At such a young age you were employed? Is that common in Altengrie?”

  “Somewhat more common than in Eschenstadt, to my understanding,” said Triella. “Less common than in some other lands, though. I shan’t complain of my lot in life, for in many ways I was more fortunate than most. Nowhere is life overly kind to orphans, and I have always been able to fend for myself without great sacrifice. Were it not for this dream, I could very well have been glad to be taken in as an apprentice and to learn a trade. For a time I learned the cordwainer’s trade, but I did not have the patience for it. Come to think of it, I lacked the patience for such artisanry.”

  “I struggle to see you performing such work,” Cecilia admitted. “I don’t know what I would have done if not for the Rose. My parents had expectations of me, to be certain, but…”

  “But no girl dreams of having her fate determined from birth,” said Triella, “to follow in the footsteps of her father or her mother, to know from childhood what one is meant to be.”

  “Quite true,” said Cecilia, “which is precisely why we have chosen the life of a magical girl before we turned fourteen.”

  Triella smiled, showing her crooked teeth. Cecilia could tell that she made an effort to be as ladylike and courteous as their many highborn companions amidst the Blossoms, but now and then she would laugh most earnestly, and Cecilia found it almost charming. I never learned to laugh like that, she would think. No wonder I’ve always been judged cold.

  “Surely I’ve some manner of life experience to brag about,” said Cecilia. “I’m quite adept at lighting a fire, and I know a thing or two about chopping wood. In Eschenstadt, you have to be able to do that. There are times where, even in our largest cities, you cannot leave your own home when the world is swallowed by heavy snows. All children learn of Rutgar the Fool King, who so feared assassins and spies that he expelled all servants from his castle, and froze to death come winter, his once-portly body now gaunt from starvation.”

  “Is there truth to that tale?”

  “As much as in any tale told to children,” Cecilia shrugged. “No doubt the moniker of Fool King was graced upon him after death by his successors that sought to sully his reputation and those of his bloodline. The truth is devoid of simple lessons of morality and clear conclusions, and as such it makes for a poorer story.”

  “Hm,” Triella stepped away from the creek, her work done at last. “I suppose I prefer the story, the folly of this dead king. The stories outlive the truth. And if the truth dwells in its time and the stories in years past, in a way they are more truthful than truth.”

  “I understand,” said Cecilia, who didn’t actually quite follow. But Triella seemed certain enough of her words, and in speaking of this, there was a wonder in her eyes, one that Cecilia couldn’t bear to quell. Every time she felt she understood the girl before her, she realized that in truth she knew little and less of Triella Amathiste, save that they were Blossoms together, last wardens of the world that saw its guardians culled pitilessly.

  And let this be enough, she decided. She thought of the solitude of their departure, the loneliness of this road of well-worn stones. It was to be a long path ahead, in more ways than one. The flat expanses ahead gave unbroken views of the path to Loclain, as uninviting as the lands they led to.