Tossing hospitality aside, the baron leaped at the mage's offer. "Of course!" he agreed before she could change her mind and say that, actually, she would like a chance to rest and maybe eat something after a long journey. "See to it, Anasius."
When the seneschal bowed, a tuft of reddish-brown feathers at the nape of his neck stuck straight up. Huh. Now that I looked more closely, the front of his tunic was the same rich chestnut as a whistling duck's belly, while its back bore ebony-and-chestnut stripes like the duck's wings. Aha. Now the baron's blind eye to duck demon banditry made more sense.
In a courteous voice, the duck demons' kinsman inquired, "Will you require anything from us, honored mage? Any supplies – seal paste, perhaps – or assistance?"
She jerked her head in a brusque, almost offended shake. "I have everything."
He dipped his own head, making the feathers stick up again. (I felt an unreasonable, uncontrollable urge to pluck them.) "This way, please."
As he escorted her out of the castle courtyard, he moved exactly like a duck in water: While his legs took short, rapid steps, everything above his waist glided along serenely.
News of the mage's arrival had raced through town, and heads were poking out of windows and around corners to watch for her. Humans and spirits had clumped up on the road, swapping rumors. She'd been sent by the duke – naw, she was just a traveling mage – no, I heard she was sent by the queen herself in her infinite benevolence!
Meanwhile, the mage strode down the center of the main street with her head held high, scanning the crowds but never making eye contact.
In an alley, a group of human children and cat spirits were playing scotch-hopper on a grid they'd scratched into the earth with a sharp rock. The girl in the middle of the grid teetered on one foot as she twisted around to gawk at the mage, and one of the cats jumped onto her head for a better view. The girl wobbled, flailed, and dropped her other foot onto a line.
"You lose!" crowed one of her human friends.
"You stepped on a line," meowed the cat on her head.
"Nuh-uh!" she protested, trying to bat at it and lift her foot at the same time. "Did not!"
In another bound, the cat leaped onto a roof and sat tidily, curling its tail around its legs, as it stared at the mage. Abandoning their game, the children and other cats scampered to the end of the alley. The mage's eyes noted them, rejected them as a threat or a power that needed impressing, and moved on.
"Honored mage!" came a shout. A stout, flour-dusted woman elbowed past her neighbors and thrust a lumpy bundle of cloth at the mage. "Thank you for coming! Please bring us rain!"
Pausing, the mage accepted the gift as graciously as a queen and passed to the seneschal. "I will bring you rain," she assured the baker and everyone else within earshot. "That is what I have come for."
That seemed...oddly confident, to say the least. I cocked my head up at the dragon. Can she really do that? I thought only dragons could bring rain.
He was shifting and squirming on his throne, his scales scraping against the wood, as if he just could not find a comfortable spot. "She can't," he replied curtly, too distracted for babytalk. "But she can make life very unpleasant for me in an attempt to force me to."
"Only if she's strong enough," Nagi corrected at once. Her tongue flicked in and out, in and out as she appraised the mage. "Which I doubt she is."
YOU ARE READING
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
FantasyAfter Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the "crime," she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom...
