Chapter 17

  The wooden box contained pairs of glass mushroom-shaped orbs, specially made for me and me alone.

  Now that the clan was flush with money from all our warring and plundering, I had decided to shell out for something other than just manga. Iemon had gone out to Kanazawa, him and his servants having been flown over by a bunch of dragonflies the size of busses.

  While there, they had made liberal use of a fleet of rented vans and hired drivers to restock on essentials.

  Including a boatload of manga. For the clan. I made my own purchases by essentially stealing the books and leaving cash at the counter using my Juchū.

  The orbs were, contrary to my expectations, not perfectly round. Instead, they were vaguely mushroom-shaped, with the back-end, the stalk going into the back of the eyehole, while the round part made for the ‘eye’ itself.

  And it was made of acrylic, not glass. Apparently, that was the better choice for this day and age on account of several factors, including comfort, safety, and ease of manufacturing. One pair was milky white, another pair pitch black and shiny.

  The three remaining pairs were green, brown, and amber.

  As I stared at the box, I felt an intense sense of wrongness overcome me.

  An intense sense that didn’t go away until I put the box away, giving it to Michiko, who shoved it into her face.

  This was… not a step that I really wanted to take. That was surprising, even to me. My Juchu’s Sense Expansion was enough that I didn’t need my eyes. I mostly read manga using them as well because otherwise, I’d be forced to hold the book a nose-length away from my eyes.

  My real eyes weren’t doing me any favors anymore, and I doubted that the glorified chop-sticks lodged into my brain was helping at all.

  If I sacrificed my eyes for these, then I would very likely be fulfilling a condition of the Swarm Queen’s Antennae. They were made for a blind woman. It only followed logically that they were optimized for one. And losing body parts for extra output was a binding vow as old as Jujutsu itself. Many blind masters throughout the years had been noted to possess an extra keen cursed spirit sense—it was the basis for the whole blind swordsman trope in the first place.

  Still, the prospect of undergoing such a procedure wasn’t just grotesque, but also entirely unnecessary.

  I had taken over all of Hokuriku’s big cities, and much of Gifu. I had range, an endless supply of cursed energy, and an equally endless supply of Juchū, growing every day. With each day that passed, I could produce three more Daughter Bugs, and a dozen more kamakiri, stationing one on each signal extender to protect them.

  I was flush.

  What was the point of making the antennae stronger, then?

  The doors to the situation room opened with Iemon rolling in, and Michiko disappeared into the shadows. She had learned to master the malleable nature of her existence as a cursed spirit, and could now hide away from most people’s perceptions, even tamping down her cursed energy signature at my request. In doing so, even Iemon couldn’t sense her presence.

  While it was fun to terrify Iemon with her presence, I did need him cognizant for this.

  We met in the middle of the room, where a table held a map of the historical Hokuriku region. Big crosses signified the conquered clans, and a circle was around the Mori clan compound in Gifu.

  “Alright,” I said. “To summarise, the Kagae, Ogura and Shiba clan are done. They’re our vassals now. Which means they gave us their excess cash, sparing only enough to survive. The only ones left are the Mori clan.”

  I summoned my Juchū. The table was low enough that Iemon, on his wheelchair, could easily see all the pieces.

  Iemon hummed. “I sense hesitation in dealing with the Mori clan. And overpreparation. If the Kagae, Ogura and Shiba fell with trivial ease, then why would the Mori clan be any different?”

  “Because the Mori clan have Mori Tachi,” I said, recounting to him our second encounter at the woods.

  “That’s… incredibly troubling,” Iemon said.

  “I only fought him with my body. I doubt that in our next go of things, I wouldn’t be able to find a way to win. Still, his ilk are clearly a cut above the rest, and demand extreme preparation.”

  I had left the vassalized clans with a skeleton crew of Juchū and one kamakiri each just to keep an eye on them. With the way I had crippled their forces, one kamakiri would be enough to annihilate any subsequent resistance.

  The rest were split between key areas around the Mori stronghold and the Hibana compound, in case they brought the party to us.

  “Iemon, this is the situation: I only need a few weeks or months. Once I have enough Juchū, it won’t matter what they try. My recent spree should have scared them enough to take the ceasefire. And they only care about what’s good for business. They would have no reason to stretch themselves thin if they don’t believe they’re under threat.”

  “I mean no disrespect when I say this, Teira-sama, but we are far beyond pretending not to be a threat. You have given them cause to be in complete terror.”

  In other words, I was scary. “Reputation is everything,” I said. “And I haven’t given anyone cause to doubt my words.”

  “Teira-sama…”

  “Talk to them,” I said, pointing to an old landline telephone on an adjacent table.

  He rolled over to it, took the telephone and wheeled the number for the Mori clan.

  A minute later, we had a connection.

  “This is Mori Ken, head of the Mori clan,” I heard easily just by standing near the phone. My eyes were trash, but the antennae had made every other sense supernatural. “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Hibana Iemon, one-hundred and third head of the Hibana clan.”

  “Excellent. Care to explain your recent slew of actions?”

  “The Hibana clan felt under threat by the Shiba clan for its repeated hostile actions in the wake of our clan’s… restructuring. Rather than wait for more such ill-fated attacks, we felt it prudent to simply act pre-emptively.”

  “…by slaughtering hundreds of curse experts.”

  “The Hibana clan felt threatened. We have always known that the nature of interclan politics was fraught with much barbarism and the law of the jungle. But we recognize that the Mori clan stand above such trifles—you recognize the finer things in life, and we have noted your impeccable taste and class—, which is why we intend to continue our mutually beneficial trade partnership. Money for barrier techniques, as per our ancient agreements.”

  “Though you haven’t harmed us directly, you have cost us dear clients, which will lower our revenue considerably in the coming new year.”

  “The clans are still in need of barriers.”

  “Can they afford them in the wake of their… restructuring? How will they earn?”

  “That’s for us to worry about, Mori-san. But I can assure you that you will not find us to be disagreeable partners.”

  “And how can we be assured that you will not simply attack us for our lore?”

  “Make no mistake, Mori-san. We did not give calls to the clans before attacking them. But we are speaking to you out of respect for your work and out of recognition for your position as the leaders of the Association.”

  “How magnanimous.”

  “Let us set up the next summit on the eve of the new year. In neutral grounds: Tokyo. Neither side will have any advantage nor disadvantage. If you wish, I can travel to your compound and swear a binding vow of nonviolence until then.”

  “Don’t bother. We know you’re not the true seat of power in your clan, Hibana-san. But we shall meet on the eve of the new year. Tokyo. Where we will both be forced to behave.”

  “May I… suggest an exchange of hostages? To keep us both honest?”

  And then I could be the hostage. Very smart. I liked the way he thought. Since I already had a signal bridge to the Mori compound, it wouldn’t make a difference for my range, except that I wouldn’t be able to make public appearances.

  But I could already do that through my ambassador Juchū. At this point, it just didn’t matter.

  “Yes. We can make arrangements for that, certainly. Thank you, Hibana-san. You have cleared many of my misgivings. I look forward to the beginnings of a new working relationship.”

  As did I.

  We would get so much work done once they bent the knee.

  000

  The kodoku ritual was one of the few sophisticated forms of sorcery that the Hibana clan could still make use of. We were bad at barriers, we barely knew how to make simple talismans, and we relied all too much on our Juchū for everything.

  The kodoku ritual was different. In the middle of a room was a diagram on the ground twenty feet wide made with white paint. Pots with incense sticks were placed at key locations on the circumference of the diagram. That, and talismans—slips of paper with calligraphic kanji hand brushed on them.

  And in the middle of the diagram, an enormous one-hundred-gallon clay pot.

  In the olden days, the kodoku ritual was performed by cursing venomous small animals and then putting them in a jar set up in this manner. Then, the jar was left to ‘ferment’ so to speak. In actuality, the bugs and poisonous critters would bite, kill and eat one another. In doing so, the surviving creature would gain a stronger and stronger poison.

  Then, when only one was left, the deceased animals would get thrown out and the surviving critter inside the jar would become crushed up, liquefied and strained until only the essence of ‘evil’ remained—a black liquid.

  This process had to be repeated many times until the resultant essence was enough to fully submerge a single tool.

  Using Juchū, this kodoku ritual could be simplified with the Cursed Technique: Reversal. I had my Juchū—in the shape of spiders, centipedes, hornets, and various other types—sit around the lid of the jar, or hovering over its wide mouth, secreting their venom non-stop.

  The ritual was set up that anything that entered the pot would have its potency magnified by a million times while the total volume would be reduced by a million times as well. According to Izumi, it had taken the great Kenzo three weeks for his Juchū to secrete enough poison to create a Bath big enough to submerge a single sword.

  My system was providing me a non-stop flood of cursed energy, and the only thing limiting the throughput of poisons was the rate at which I could convert the cursed energy to positive energy.

  I predicted that it would take me three to four days to fill the entire pot.

  Then… a hundred and eight days before our first batch of cursed tools were ready.

  000

  “Ishikawa, huh?” Kusakabe Atsuya leaned back against his chair, chin tilted upwards at Yaga-sensei. He was seated behind his desk in his office in Jujutsu High, wearing the same shades as always. Next to Kusakabe sat his friend, Usami, wearing shades in-doors like the dope that he was.

  “Any chance our per diem will be high enough for us to try out the famous Nyoitamori?” Usami grinned lecherously.

  Atsuya clicked his tongue in distaste. Who’d want to eat food off a human body, whether it’s a naked girl or not? And besides, “Ishikawa is known for other things, Usami.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I need you two to get serious,” Yaga-sensei growled. “This isn’t a joke. Cursed spirit sightings have fallen off all over the prefecture. Our windows are reporting swarms of insectile shikigami exorcising these curses at record speeds in Kanazawa and Kaga.”

  “Ain’t that a good thing, teach?” Usami asked.

  “Our windows have also reported a spike in not just the quantity, but the quality of cursed spirits in the rest of the country,” Yaga-sensei said. “Whatever is happening, the higher-ups are demanding to learn every detail. About the shikigami and those behind them.”

  Atsuya frowned. “Hold on. This sounds like a rather important job, teacher. Are you sure you should send us two? We’re only fourth-years.”

  “You’re the strongest sorcerers available. Grades one and semi-grade one. Act like it!”

  That title was largely fraudulent, though at this point, Atsuya had given up on trying to live up to it. The higher-ups had slapped the label on him without even asking him for permission, and had then sent him to job after job, expecting him to perform according to the standards of a Grade One.

  So far, he had been able to keep the act up, exorcising Grade One curses with concerted effort, and trying his best to make it look as effortless as possible. Grade Ones weren’t meant to sweat against Grade One curses after all. The whole point of the grade was that he was meant to effortlessly outclass spirits of the same grade.

  Usami was another lost cause, though Atsuya saw a kindred spirit in him. He was also flying by the seam of his pants, tricking everyone into thinking that he was worthy of his grade. And he worked hard to pull off his ruse. From one con-man to another, he approved.

  This mission, however… “Are you sure we’re up for this, sir?”

  Yaga sighed. “Yes, I’m sure. Stop asking. There’s far too much at stake for you to bog me down with your false modesty. You’re strong. Both of you. You can handle this. The mission is merely observe and report. If you can capture one of the shikigami alive, then all the better. If you can secure an encounter with the shikigami users, that would be ideal.”

  Atsuya sighed.

  “Nyoitamori, here we come!” Usami squealed.

  000

  “Kazuhiro barely talks to me anymore,” Hibana Mayumi said as she finished cleaning another plate before putting it aside on top of a cloth where it could absorb the moisture. The other washerwomen hummed in understanding as she opened up. As always, talking was a slow affair nowadays. The anxiety of losing points weighed on everyone’s minds, and this forced them to have to choose their words carefully. The clan head was always listening.

  The other day, Mayumi had lost points for telling her daughter that her slovenly attitude would ensure that she remained unmarried. She had said that out of love and concern, and it had cost her! Why was it so wrong for mothers to care for their own daughters in the new Hibana clan?

  It was a shame, but there was nothing that could be done about it. The clan head’s strength was overwhelming. If even all the curse experts in the clan could not stand up to her, then what hope did the rest of the clan have?

  “And I barely talk to him,” Mayumi admitted. It was easy to guess at what was going through Kazuhiro’s head in the wake of his losing a pinkie to the punishment of his crime, ‘marital rape’. Mayumi still couldn’t understand the concept. If they were married, then how could it be considered rape?

  Wasn’t the notion that she should always participate willingly a little extreme? How realistic was that? Men had their needs, and women always had to help them meet those needs even if, in the moment, they didn’t want that at all.

  But you could never trust a woman’s whims in the moment. That was what it meant to be a woman; illogical, and in need of guidance.

  One of the other women, Suika, hummed, “the clan head claims that we don’t need to do all this work just because we’re women.”

  Mayumi tittered politely. Suika’s comment was skirting dangerously closely to ‘reactionary rhetoric’. Still, she had gotten her point across without running afoul of the rules. Suika was a clever lass in that way. Perhaps too clever for her own good.

  Indeed, what the clan head claimed, and what was good for the clan, were not always the same thing. Mayumi’s role was still to manage her household for her husband and children. She cooked, cleaned, did the laundry, and ensured dignified living conditions. It was the work of an entire day, leaving her with no brakes whatsoever. The work of a woman.

  The heavens had made women resilient. Like a boar, her skin was thick and capable of handling the many whips and punishments that she needed to keep herself on track. It was a point of pride for her. A mark of strength.

  The clan head claimed that this was not a woman’s intrinsic role. She claimed that the next generation’s households should share equally in their domestic responsibilities, and equally in serving the clan. No more specialized roles. Everyone would become generalists.

  In Mayumi’s opinion, she doubted that the clan head really knew much about all the effort, skill and talent that went into doing women’s work. All the ceremonies, all the recipes, all the techniques for completing their work in a timely fashion. Mayumi wouldn’t dare try to teach Kazuhiro any of it, but in the unlikely scenario that she got the man involved in her work, he would be equally out of his depth as she would be were she to try her hand at brewing sake.

  Men worked easy jobs with much periods of rest in-between. He couldn’t handle her burden.

  He was… weak.

  She winced, chasing away that sacrilegious thought. Kazuhiro was not weak. He was skilled and capable.

  He was just not a woman. And that was fine.

  “I’m… lonely,” Mika said. Mayumi felt a flare of panic. Expressing dissatisfaction with the current regime could lose her points. “My husband will not speak to me, either. And I do not know how to raise my children anymore. Our household has become like a haunt for ghosts. Wandering about in silence.”

  “A couple of new books just came in,” Suika said, interrupting the rant. “The subject matter is…” she grinned.

  Mayumi was curious.

  Suika looked to the left, then to the right, then she reached into her inner robe and pulled out a book with a graphic of a woman—

  Mayumi gasped.

  There was a barechested woman on the cover, with blood red lips, white hair, and a thick white bar concealing her nipples, for all the good that it had been able to conceal her modesty.

  “This isn’t against the rules,” Suika said. “This was brought in by the clan head’s own orders.”

  “It must have been a mistake!” Mayumi said.

  “Careful. The clan head does not make mistakes. That’s what she says. We must believe her.”

  Mika took the book and read the cover. “He-ru-ta su-ke-ru-ta. Helter Skelter?”

  “It’s about a non-sorcerer, a celebrity, who enjoys a life of luxury due to having undergone medical procedures to enhance her body.”

  Mika gasped. “Is that even possible?”

  “It is in the book. But this is a story about hubris. You should read it!”

  Then, to Mayumi’s horror, Suika pulled out another book. It featured a girl wearing a bright pink short dress, both hands holding a sword to the ground next to her, and her hair was golden. Mayumi took it. “Revolutionary Girl Utena?”

  “The library is open to all,” Suika said. “Didn’t you read the latest newsletter that came this morning?”

  Mayumi had been too busy preparing breakfast to do so.

  “I have an idea,” Suika said. “We should read these books, and then talk about them.”

  Mayumi couldn’t believe that she wasn’t dismissing the idea out of hand entirely. Perhaps the weeks spent in tense silence had swayed her. She would do anything to just… uselessly wave her lips about something. Even if it couldn’t heal what had broken between herself and her husband.

  “We’ll each read one book. Then we’ll rotate between ourselves until everyone has read their books. Then we can discuss the contents.”

  Mayumi looked down at the cover of Revolutionary Girl Utena, closed her eyes, and nodded.

  000

  Drinking in the Hibana clan was something of an extreme sport.

  That wouldn’t dissuade the men from doing so anyway. Between them, they had made it a game to go to the pub, have themselves some sake, and make bets on who would lose the most points come tomorrow morning.

  The objective wasn’t to lose points, of course. No one wanted to see poor Natsu get caned while in his underwear yet again.

  Satoshi finished his fourth—and final cup—while he sat on the counter with his friends, sighing.

  “Don’t you have anything stronger than forty proof?” Satoshi asked the barman, Kazuhiro.

  The man shook his head. “No can do, bud. The clan head estate keeps hogging all the strong stuff. There’s barely enough to even go around these days. I’m working overtime just to meet the demand.”

  “What are they even doing with it?” Satoshi asked. “There aren’t even any clan elders left, except Iemon-sama. And the servants probably don’t drink.”

  Natsu barked out a laugh, one that immediately gave Satoshi a bad feeling. “Maybe the clan head’s a fan of strong drink.”

  His bad feeling warred with the sheer hilarity of the statement and he laughed, along with the rest. They banged the counter. Even Kazuhiro was laughing.

  They didn’t stop for several minutes. Each time Satoshi pictured it, he laughed again. Then he just started laughing at the other people’s laughs.

  They were going to lose so many damn points for this.

  “See you at the caning scare, Natsu-chan,” Satoshi grinned. “I’m definitely going to report you for this.”

  “Nooo, man, come on!”

  “No, I need the points! I just laughed!”

  “Hey, let’s make a group-report so we all get the points!”

  Natsu sighed and nodded, accepting his fate. Good man.

  And to show him how good he was, everyone sacrificed a drink scrip to practically drown Natsu in sake. He perked up at the sight of the five cups in front of him, eyes sparkling. Satoshi only hoped that he didn’t throw up all over the place.

  Minutes later, one of them groaned. Nobu. “I miss having sex.”

  Koji laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” Satoshi growled. He missed having sex, too. What man wouldn’t? The clan head had taken their wives from them. Taken off his damn pinkie!

  It still hurt.

  Even if he was in the mood, just the thought of doing it was enough to send spikes of agony through his right hand. It confused him.

  Koji, who was also missing a pinkie, shrugged. “It is to me,” he took a sip of his sake. “I laid with my wife just last night.”

  Everyone in the pub, including the bartender, froze.

  “Huh?!”

  “Oh, he’s dead. He’s going to die.”

  “The women belong to the clan head, now. What were you thinking?!”

  Koji shook his hand. “No, no, no, you don’t understand the rules. The women get to choose now. That’s all there is to it. What do you think my woman chooses when I come home to her with a basket of flowers I picked from the forest? Or when I compose to her a poem—even a bad one—praising her beauty? Fellows, it’s easy. And I bet they want it, too. Cold as they usually are, I doubt they would really turn us down if we asked nicely. How many of you have asked nicely?”

  Ask?

  The very thought of that felt humiliating. Satoshi usually just voiced his demand and his wife would hurry to oblige him. There was never a question of whether or not she had a choice in the matter. Why would she choose to do it, anyway? The process seemed rather unpleasant on her side. And she didn’t need to like it to bear his children. That much was obvious.

  The other men calmed down and returned to their drinks, visibly deflating at the prospect of debasing themselves to such an extent. Picking flowers, composing poems…

  The clan head meant to make women out of them all.

  000

  Hibana Haruta hated the other girls.

  She also hated the boys.

  She hated everyone.

  She sat back against the wall of some house, watching the others playing in a garden. The girls played a pretend tea ceremony while the boys were busy waving imaginary swords at each other, pretending that they were curse experts.

  Haruta didn’t want to play tea ceremony. She wanted to play curse expert.

  And when she had gone to them, they had stopped playing and looked at her all weird. So she laughed and walked away and they continued playing again, all happy. The biggest kid, Kenzo, was pretending like he was the Kenzo, from two-hundred years ago, just because they had the same name. Lame. Who cared about Kenzo anyway when Teira was right there?

  Then again, maybe that was why they had looked at her weird.

  “Can I be Teira?” she had asked.

  They didn’t say anything to her, though. They were scared to, probably, because Teira might come down and beat them up for it—as they deserved.

  But maybe she was too old to play pretend. She was eight years old now. Teira was the same. And she was leading the clan. Definitely not playing pretend and acting like a curse expert. She was a real curse expert.

  Haruta summoned her Juchū. Her very last one. When she was six, she had been forced to give away her Juchū to the snot-nosed brat Takahashi because they were supposed to marry in the future.

  Those were the rules, apparently. When you betrothed to a boy, you had to pay a bridal price of all your Juchū minus one. Sometimes, it was all your Juchū, if you had been a ‘bad girl’.

  One of the first things that Teira had done after taking control was annulling all those stupid betrothals. They were no longer betrothed, but Takahashi still had her Juchū.

  It had happened too soon for her to get attached to them. Instead, over the two years since then, she had gotten attached to her last one.

  She had called the bright-pink shikigami—currently in the shape of an atlas beetle—ChūChū.

  With it, she could never be a curse expert. Teira had banned all Juchū battles, so what you had was what you got. It was unfair, but she didn’t know what to do about that.

  She let ChūChū rest on the top of her knee, and stroked it on its head. It felt weird to do that. She could feel through her Juchū after all.

  It felt like getting head pats from dad when he was super-duper drunk and too happy to shout.

  Not when he was angry-drunk, of course. Then his head pats turned into slaps. Not anymore, of course. His hand hurt too much from the missing pinkie.

  Of course, that also meant he couldn’t pat her head anymore. But maybe that was for the best. She was too old for head pats, anyway.

  She saw a preying mantis Juchū float towards her other knee, black as night. She panicked, re-absorbing her Juchū, as she looked at the newcomer.

  Glossy black.

  Was this… the clan head?

  Did she do something wrong? Was it because she wanted to pretend to be Teira?

  Quickly, she thought of an apology. “I’m sorry, I won’t pretend to be you anymore!”

  The Juchū nodded its head, as if to forgive her.

  Oh, what a relief!

  She looked around, and then concealed the mantis from the others with her hand, before leaning closely. “You’re my favorite curse expert. I only wanted to pretend to be you because I like you so much.”

  People didn’t like it when she said this. They either got quiet or looked at her weirdly. Her mother smiled and nodded, as if to indulge her. As if Haruta was trying to make up a pleasant lie like ‘the food was really tasty today’ even though they both knew that she had made the miso soup too strong, or had burned the fish, or overcooked the rice.

  The mantis nodded proudly. Of course Teira-sama would know how cool she was. Haruta grinned at that.

  An idea occurred to her. Her eyes sparkled and her grin widened at it.

  Then, her courage failed her, and she deflated. “Nevermind.”

  The Juchū tapped at her knee, as if to ask ‘no really, tell me!’

  Fine.

  “Do you… like to play, Teira-sama?”

  The mantis looked up for a moment, as if to think. Then… it shrugged.

  “Would you… play with me?” Haruta asked. “I know you’re really busy doing clan head things and being an awesome curse expert.”

  The mantis shook its head.

  “Oh,” Haruta looked down, despondent.

  Then she looked up. “Wait. Do you mean no to being busy or no to wanting to play with me?”

  The mantis raised both hands.

  “Do you mean both?”

  The mantis froze.

  Then it pinched her knee.

  “Ow!”

  It was a tiny sting, but it got the message across: ‘don’t be stupid’.

  “So you don’t want to play.”

  The mantis shook its head.

  Haruta pouted. “You can’t blame me for making sure.”

  The mantis shook its head.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Haruta said. “It must be easy for you. You always have something to do.”

  The mantis started cutting the air with its clawed hands. “Fighting?” It shook its head. “Training?” It nodded frantically.

  Oh!

  “Should I train?”

  It nodded frantically.

  “Can I train with you?”

  It raised its hands in an X, shaking its head.

  Oh. Of course not. Haruta would only hold her back.

  Alright, then.

  Haruta grinned. “Then maybe you can teach me?”

  It shrugged. Maybe she was too weak to benefit from her teachings at the moment.

  “Then… I’ll grow stronger! I promise! Then I’ll be your right-hand woman!”

  The mantis paused for a moment.

  Then nodded.

  Haruta gasped in surprise, shock, and sheer, utter glee.

  She jumped up, hands in the air and shouted. “Yaaaaay!”

  000

  To be aware of practically everything was to let a flood of information slip past your vigil.

  I had, however, always given special dispensation to whenever the information that slipped into my vigil was cursed energy-related. That was the only thing I made sure to always pay attention to.

  I drank from my gourd of sake, and one of my Juchū saw it in a split-second.

  It didn’t sense it.

  It barely even heard it.

  It just saw it with its big dragonfly eyes.

  It saw a man flying across the forest floor.

  A man unlike anything I had ever sensed in my life.

  For even non-sorcerers had cursed energy. Even non-sorcerers had a vestigial amount of inner power that I could sense sooner than I could see or hear.

  This one had none.

  And he was coming right for me.