Beneath My Skin

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 velvet slippers. 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, blue like the hottest flames, 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, matching the buoyancy of my grin and footfalls. A lady should not worry her companions. She is to be a moonbeam piercing 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 me, my gaze again falls to the wound on his neck. 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 really 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 makes it difficult to walk side by side. Bushes and brambles scrape my ankles, and I curse my decision not to steal a pair of my father’s luxurious boots.

“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, land rising 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 my skirt. 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.

I know nothing of the world beyond the castle walls. I still need him.

“What do the birds say?” Jōzu hisses.

The ravens’ caws mean no more to me than they do to him. They circle and screech wordless warning. Jōzu’s stiff arm herds me back. Weeds catch my skirt, and I stumble.

Before I hit the ground, chaos explodes. A dozen men attack from all directions. Warm fabric enfolds me, smelling sharp like dye. Though I flail, the hands on me multiply. Shouts and the sounds of ripping fabric fill the air as the ravens tear at my abductors. Further, sticks strike rock.

No, I am free! I am not a thing to be captured and bartered.

The words refuse to leave my tongue. Every breath hauls in more of the stench, and butterflies fill my head.

“Cease!”

I still at the authority in the bellow before realizing I recognize it.

“I am Sir Jōzu here to see Lord Shinkō. Release my companion.”

Sir? He is a servant boy. How does he know the lord of this rival mountain?

My backside finds soft soil, and I struggle to rise. As the cloying sack lifts from my face, cool, piney air flows into my lungs. My chest heaves, and I tug the cloth from Jōzu’s grasp, scrunching it in front of me like a curtain.

He takes my hands and guides me to my feet.

My toes curl, digging into the dirt. “Who are you?”

His smirk is a spear. “Whoever I must be to see you happy. Do you trust me, Lady Kichi?”

How I wish the trees could tell me his secrets. I have known this boy my entire life, a nobody chosen to be my brother’s constant companion.

I trusted him to hide the truth of my death, even when his own life was on the line. Why can I not trust him now? When he looks at me, why do I only see my father’s eyes, the same cobalt, same sword-edge shape? As if he, too, will trade me away if it means getting what he desires.

“No.” My hands slide free. Crude, bearded men surround us, garments torn. Strange armor covers most of them, peeking through the holes.

Face hardening, Jōzu leans closer. The scent of home clings to him, the sweet breath of wintergreen and the sour perfume of lemongrass. The salt of Kraken Cove hovers above the smell, and a burnt, electric musk loiters beneath.

“You are Lord Shinkō’s stolen daughter,” he whispers loud enough for the men to hear.

I shake my head. “That’s—”

His hand hovers a finger’s breadth from my lips, voice softer than the breeze. Only I can hear it. “Your mother was a concubine of Lord Shinkō, and shortly after she announced she carried a daughter, she disappeared. Years later, the world saw her again as Lady Nozomi, cherished wife of the Lightning Lord.”

“My brother was born before me.”

“Lord Shinkō doesn’t have to know that.”

I still shake my head, nails digging into my palms. I will not be the daughter of a lord—a political prize, a gift, married off to someone I do not want.

“You will be safe and happy with Lord Shinkō.” Jōzu’s words are syrup, and I almost believe them, but he hides something.

Blood coats the ground again, Jōzu’s face contorted in pain. Lightning crawls over him. My father’s Affinity.

The scene returns to what it was: My brother’s friend stares from a mere handspan away, blue gaze pleading. It is a mirror of my own eyes.

If I stubbornly insist on my own way, the vision will happen. Father will catch Jōzu, torture and kill him, and it will be my fault. I wonder that even in this moment of agony and peril, I still see no hint of his Wind Affinity.

What do you hide, Jōzu? And why?

I place my hand in his, and he leads me behind the walls of another castle.

***

Smoke clogs the air, acrid and black, staining the sky and stones. Trees droop like sleeping guards. The night staff cough distractedly as they stare and whisper at our entrance.

Moments flash out of sequence: A servant trots up a staircase, carrying an armful of linens. The same servant lies broken at the bottom of the passage, burden fallen, cheeks sunken and saggy with age. The youthful version reaches the top and vanishes beyond a doorway.

“There will be a breakfast feast to welcome you,” a maid says as she guides me into a third-floor suite.

When did I lose sight of Jōzu? Where is he?

The maid beckons me to a stool in the middle of the stone room. Rock or velvet, soft or hard, there is no median here. A vanity lines one wall, its mirrors stretching between two large windows, where the moon washes the castle walls in ghostly gray. When I sit, the maid brushes leaves from my black hair.

“Is Lord Shinkō a good man?”

“His benevolence ensures we all have whatever we need and then some,” she croons. “The engineers come up with new things every day to make our jobs easier.”

My eyes flit about the room, jumping between all the things I do not understand—trinkets on the vanity, limbs on the doors of the armoire, fire that does not flicker encased in glass. The most prevalent shape is a circle with tiny protrusions like icicles hanging in all directions. “Do they work on something to combat the smoke?”

She runs a damp cloth through my locks, leaving behind the fragrances of lavender and mint. “The smoke is a side effect of their tinkering.”

“It harms people.” I whip toward her, and my hair slaps her arms.

She does not move. “Understand, you come from a different place. You haven’t the authority nor the time to criticize our ways.”

Authority, yes, but time? I have all the time in the world.

My hair sticks to her skin like a web of ink. As I stare, her arm shrivels and sallows with age, then reverts, plump and taut as ever.

I pull my hair away and tie it in a bun. “If you mock Nature, She will not look kindly on you.”

She puts on a tight smile. “Your imaginary goddess is no threat here. Neither are your tricks.”

“Lightning heeds Lord Hontō’s summons.” I conjure a polite smile of my own. “I cannot fathom how you believe it a trick, not if you’ve seen it. But likely, you have not. I will forgive your ignorance.”

“How generous of you,” she goads with the slightest of bows.

I take an abalone kanzashi from the vanity and spear it into my bun. Its metallic beads jingle as I shake my head to test its security and let out some of my frustration. Jōzu thinks I’ll be happy here? In a town that has no respect for Nature and makes light of Her gifts?

Then, they will not expect me to have an Affinity. Its useless manifestations will not matter. I might even be able to pass it off as something else and learn to use it to my benefit.

I’m very good at gambling when my Affinity decides to be helpful.

I look askance at the servant. “If I were to do something uncanny, you would not suspect I had a real Affinity, not even a little?”

“I wouldn’t deny the sciences behind what you people do.” She juts her chin toward one of my lady mother’s ravens. Six of them have set themselves about the room, but it looks like more. They’re ever restless, never in a spot long enough for one to count them all. “You’ve spent time with the birds. You’ve trained yourself to understand their signals and trained them to obey yours.”

Not entirely untrue. Yet, they are a part of my pretend Affinity.

I stand, and they all turn to me. “How very insightful of you.”

It was supposed to be a compliment, but she frowns. “I don’t understand you.”

“I apologize. Is it my accent?” I try to imitate her elongated vowels. “I only mean to say you are clever.”

“Your words are fine. It’s your motivation that puzzles me.” She discards the brush in a drawer and the cloth in a basket, then pulls a sponge from a lidded pot. It steams as she presses it against my shoulder, and mint fills the air again. “The first thing that struck me as odd was how willing you were at Sir Jōzu’s side. He’d have to bind and gag me.”

“You despise his company that much?”

She cackles and dabs more dirt from my visible skin. “I despise nothing about our hero. Seeing you enter free, I can only assume you view yourself as a noble sacrifice.”

I shrug my now clean shoulder as she moves on to the other. “I’ll miss my old life, but I was going to have to leave it one way or another. Time spares no child.”

“Better a martyr than a crone, eh?”

It is my turn to frown, brows like dewdrops almost heavy enough to fall. “You speak as if this is a literal death and not an opportunity for a new life.”

Both my shoulders are as clean as they ever will be in this tainted air, so she folds my sleeve and begins on my wrist. “We don’t believe here that the Grave holds life, but if that faith eases your fear, cling to it until the end.”

My brows dangle lower.

She chatters on. “The engineers adore the chance to study Sir Jōzu’s tricks. They’ve designed armor to defend against it. Soon, machines will replicate it and put that power into the hands of anyone.”

The power to command tempests is not safe in the hands of just anyone.

“Is that wise?”

She does not hear me, and perhaps it is for the best. My lips press in a livid, jagged line. How dare Jōzu show off for these foreigners when he never does at home. Who are they to him?

Perhaps they saved him, and he feels he owes them? Three years ago, a horde of sea monsters attacked my brother’s first commanding voyage. Months later, Jōzu returned, carrying a skinny and unconscious Unmei. My brother’s friend hasn’t been the same since. He falls quiet whenever the occasion is mentioned. He disappears for long periods—no longer than a week, but noticeably absent from Unmei’s side. We tease that he must have found a girl on the outskirts of the village, a farmer’s daughter.

Could he have come here instead?

Despite the press of the steaming sponge into the corner of my elbow, cold coats me.

The maid pauses, fingers ghosting over the soft inner side of my forearm. Future bleeds over the sight, and a knife takes the place of those fingers. Its curved tip leaves a dripping, crimson line. Then it is gone, my arm smooth and unblemished beneath the gentle touch.

“There is some appeal to the fantastical,” she murmurs, “in believing the legends that say the power to bestow ultimate strength rests beneath the skin of those with the rarest Affinity.”

Nature is the rarest Affinity, given only to Her favorites. It is my mother’s Affinity, and supposedly mine.

“The ritual is very specific. Of course, it’s balderdash. That’s why Lord Shinkō will do it, to prove it’s nonsense. Our science is stronger than Nature or Her devouts, but it’s such a shame that to prove it will take slicing and peeling such lovely skin.”

I lurch, upsetting my stool, but my feet somehow keep me upright. “What?”

“Lord Shinkō will skin you at sunrise.” Her brows draw a V and her mouth an O. “Sir Jōzu didn’t tell you. That explains a lot, poor dear.”

It certainly does. She said he would have had to bind and gag her. The tethers on me were invisible lies, and she has corroded them with truth. It is acid, and its fire punches holes in my gut. Everything I am spills out. I am empty.

She reaches for me, but I scramble back. A windowsill nudges my spine, and I look over my shoulder at the escape it offers. Four stories in the air.

I care nothing for heights. I leap.

Wings surround me with a frenzied beat. I am limp, a sheet blown off the line, subservient to the wind. Inky talons clutch every joint as they did when we rigged the bridge to fall so my family would believe me dead. Like then, the ground waits with a final embrace, but I do not rush into its arms. Unlike then, spectators gawk, point, and gasp. It seems their engineers have yet to enable flight.

I alight outside the castle walls and run without a glance behind. My fourth stride stops short as Jōzu’s arms lock around my middle. If Nature were really my Affinity, I could command the ravens to gouge out his eyes. Yet, they do not take my commands beyond a few practiced messages. Beyond that, they react to my circumstances. They will only attack him if he attacks me.

My fingers are not as sharp, but they will do. I scratch at his face, but he pins my arms to my sides and carries me, feet dangling, toward the open gate and its pool of orange light.

“Release me, you gutter rat!”

“You haven’t even given this place a chance,” he hisses in my ear. He smells of rain’s freshness and the burn of lightning. Static rushes across his skin with the voice of tiny explosions. It lights the veins beneath his skin with the faintest flickers.

“No more lies, Jōzu. How could you bring me here to be killed?”

He stills. “What?”

“They believe that beneath my skin—beneath the skin of one with a Nature Affinity—lies the power to grant strength.”

He spins me to face him, grip on my shoulders like a tree’s roots. The more his eyes widen—that too-familiar, lightning blue—the softer my tone.

I shake my head, the scene blurry beyond my tears. “Or they disbelieve it and want to prove Nature’s gifts a lie. Either way, they will skin me at dawn in some grotesque ritual.”

He pulls me against him, tucking my head beneath his chin. “I’m so sorry, Lady Kichi. I’ll fix this somehow. Lord Shinkō promised me…”

He does not finish the thought, though I know how it ends. The lord of this mountain promised him shelter, but if that were all, this servant boy would not have returned with Unmei after their ill-fated voyage. Each time he slipped away since then was another opportunity to never come back.

The rapid rhythm of his heart thrums against my cheek.

“You want to destroy him,” I say. “Our father, the Lightning Lord. You have his eyes and his Affinity.”

The rhythm falters, and I shove away. His expression paints the hard lines of a stormfront, electricity in the blacks of his eyes. After a moment, his chin lowers in silent affirmation.

“They will kill Unmei as well.”

He stares at me, unblinking as pale light dances across his plains. Shouts pour ever closer behind us, heralds of galloping feet.

“You will sacrifice him. And me, too, it seems.” My voice cracks, but I urge my tongue faster, hurling the words like hail. “And all for naught because I do not have a Nature Affinity.”

His face falls like branches laden with ice. “But Lady Nozomi—”

“Is barren. Though she is my mother in spirit, the woman who carried me was her maid.”

His grip loosens, and I tear free. My feet sink into autumn’s leaves, and I duck beneath the first sapling’s lowest limb.

“Do not follow me, Jōzu. My true Affinity has shown me the end.”

A chain wraps my ankle and drags me back through the carpet of crimson and moon-bleached yellow. My hair mimics night’s fingers fanned across it, a darkness that holds secrets. Darkness allowed a maid to cover her head and secure a child for her lady not once but twice. For that boldness, Nature gave that second child her true mother’s coloring and Affinity.

I scream and kick as more chains wrap me. As before, the birds attack these enemy strangers, but they are not enough. If I had the Affinity I should, the trees would be my soldiers, the grass my calvary. Instead, the scene only sputters. We pass beneath the palace gate. It is scaffolding. It is ruins. My captors are infants, old men, skeletons. The machines in the yard grow and shrink. They become sleek monstrosities that move as if alive.

I lie upon a raised stone slab—an alter—chains clicking to its metal loops. Those around me move swift as wind, then languid as tree’s blood. Knives split my arms, but I do not feel it. That must be future yet. My heart pounds at the promise.

As dawn blushes the sky, a familiar tingle slices the air, and the chains slacken. They fall away as metallic gravel, and I stare without a word.

“Go!” Jōzu shoves me from the alter, and I land low on my feet, skirt pooled over my toes. Lightning clears a path through the armed crowd, and I keep on its heels. Bathed in red and blue light, we sprint along the top of the castle walls.

“I’m right behind you,” Jōzu says as I reach the edge, where a ravine waits, mouth wide and throat deep.

I leap, trusting my ravens. Wings and talons surround me, but Jōzu remains on the wall. Nets tighten around him, and an unfamiliar voice speaks—past, present, or future.

“We need the pelt of one with a strong Affinity. You’ll have to do.”

Thank you for reading!

This is part 2 of 3. Together, the titles form a phrase:

One More Scar

Beneath My Skin

Etched Upon This Heart I Hold

Link to One More Scar: https://theprose.com/post/230414/one-more-scar

Link to Etched Upon This Heart I Hold: [check back later]

Fun fact:

This tale is set in a fictional, unnamed mountain range. While the story is told in English, the characters are named in Japanese, and each is an allegory of their name’s meaning. Here is a list of the characters, the ideographic writing of their name, and an approximate English translation.

J­ōzu | 上手 | Skill

Kichi | 吉 | Luck

Unmei | 運命 | Destiny

(Lord) Hontō | 本当 | Truth/Reality

(Lord) Shinkō| 信仰 | Faith

(Lady) Nozomi | 望み | Hope