Jaye had always liked her eyes and was more than a little concerned that she was going to have to lose them.

“But it won’t hurt, right?” she asked, shying backwards as Shadow leaned in to inspect each of her eyes closely.

“It won’t hurt you, of that you may be certain,” Shadow said, bringing his hand to where a chin would be on a face with more features.

“Wait, who’s it going to hurt then? Not you?” Jaye wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of changing her eyes so she could pass as human but she could understand the value of it. Shadow suffering some injury to accomplish it though made her feel ill. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer for her. Not again.

“You need have no fear about that,” Shadow said. “No, there are simply certain precautions we believe would be wise to take.”

“Precautions like…?” Jaye asked, still wary of what Shadow might have in mind that involved harming anyone.

“The obvious candidate for a disguise is to cloak you in a simple, self-sustaining illusion,” Shadow said, stepping in close again to measure the distance between the outside edges of Jaye’s eyes. “They’re quite common for many different types of caster to employ. From our readings, we believe it is in fact more common than not for casters to appear as something other than who they truly are. It makes certain spells more challenging to affect them with, and there is quite definitely no lack of vanity amongst those who are reasonably gifted in any of the arcane arts.”

“How would that hurt anyone though?” Jaye asked.

“Because Seemings are so common, it is also quite common for casters of all stripes to possess spells, gifts, tools, or abilities to look through simple illusions.”

“So they would see I was a Ravenkin no matter what?”

“If we relied on only a single simple illusion, yes, without a doubt, and that would raise all sorts of questions that would be best avoided for the good of all involved.” Shadow stood back and made a few practice gestures which Jaye knew would have to be a middle piece of a spell. “Instead, our thought is to layer several illusions, and incorporate guards against scrying into the inner layers. Thus if someone is content not to pry into your secrets, no harm will befall them. Those who peer past the first level we imagine should suffer no ill effect either. Looking past a simple glamour is too common and accepted. We shall make the first layer they would see past the outer shell one which suggests you are usually your glamour for simple beautification as many casters do. Pushing past that level will carry a price though, and pushing past the next will carry a greater one. Should they get through those layers, we believe showing your true appearance would be the best course. They will disbelieve a Ravenkin could cast a spell that elaborate and should they try to push further they will find themselves stymied by what they imagine to be the ‘final illusion’. Perhaps one last guarding spell in place, setup to protect nothing, that way they will either admit defeat or struggle through increasing amounts of pain uselessly.”

“Aren’t there casters who could wipe away all the illusions at once though?” Jaye said, thinking of Shadow’s witch and the others like her.

“Yes. Should we run into such a one, we will need to either evade their notice or accept that no magic we possess is likely to avail us.”

“Okay,” Jaye said, acknowledging that as both obvious and a simple fact of life. Some people held a vast amount of power but they were typically far away and unconcerned about people like her, so it made sense to be as unconcerned about them as possible. “And all this won’t hurt you or me?”

“See for yourself,” Shadow said and conjured a mirrored disk for Jaye to observe his work.

The young woman who looked back at Jaye was a few years older and a completely different species. Gone were her night black eyes, replaced with brilliant blue human eyes set in a face framed by Jaye’s black hair but with softer cheekbones and a thicker lips. 

Jaye touched her face, because what else could she do, only to feel that the illusion was more than just visual.

“We made sure the tactile sense was covered as well, in case someone should have reason to make a closer inspection,” Shadow said, inspecting his work with a critical eye.

“What do the other layers look like?” Jaye asked.

“The one below the visible layer is the same visage though well past the bloom of youth. Anyone who spies that will be likely to assume that you are a woman aging into the middle years of adulthood who is unwilling to let go the charm she held as a youth. Below that is the visage of a Grove Tender, and below that is you. The Grove Tenders are known to travel under other appearances when outside their grove, especially ones who have been exiled for one reason or another. We considered another human guise, but if someone has pushed past two human visages, it seemed likely that would believe you to be something other than human. On that layer, your hair will feel like the softest of leaves and your features will take on a warm and polished wooden texture.”

“You did all that without any words?” Jaye asked, stunned at the complexity of the spell.

“We have had little to nothing to do for the last century but practice the arcane arts,” Shadow said. “Disguising only one person was something we mastered early on before we learned that we couldn’t enspell ourself to be able to leave the forest on our own.”

“Well, that’s what we’re ready to do now, right?” Jaye asked. “Or is there anything else we need to do?”

Her stomach grumbled at the thought of more delay, which brought a chuckle from Shadow.

“We are as prepared as I believe we can be,” he said. “Come let us get a proper meal to sustain you.”

Jaye was tempted, once more, to take wing and simply fly to the town, but the staff in her hand and the cloak she wore were armor and a shield she was loathe to part with, and so she followed along on foot as Shadow resumed leading their trek though the forest.

Aside from her growing hunger – the Hunters hadn’t exactly been generous with their meal – the trip was pleasant enough. Jaye could feel her neckhairs prickling as the witch’s curse brushed past them time and again, but she was a welcomed guest so it was merely curious rather than homicidal. Without an implicit threat weighing over her, Jaye got to appreciate the vibrancy of the unspoiled woods. The trees and other vegetation were in their own dance of contesting with each other for light and soil, but there were harmonies and cooperation as much as there was competition and a slow sort of warfare being waged. Most of all though, Jaye noticed how the witch’s curse wasn’t a blight upon the land but rather its shield. The witch hadn’t left the wood twisted and mired in hate, she’d left it a guardian.

Seeing that was a powerful temptation to follow Shadow’s words and stay within the forest’s safe embrace. For a part of her, it was what Jaye needed more than anything. The rest of her rebelled at the thought though. She didn’t want to be tied down, not anywhere, again. She’d been hidden away her whole life with the promise that the constraints on her world, on her truest nature, were there to grant her safety. And they hadn’t. Even if the witch’s curse could, she didn’t want that to be the legacy she followed.

Jaye had no illusions that the world needed her, but she could feel with each step a growing awareness that she needed it. Maybe not the people in it, but the space of it, the freedom of it. The…

There were walls.

As she stepped crested the last rise at the forest’s edge, she saw walls waiting for her.

“It would seem that Riverbough has grown considerably since last we visited,” Shadow from within Jaye’s staff.

At the forest’s edge the land sloped downwards towards a river which defined its natural boundary. Perched on the other side of the river the largest city Jaye had ever seen loomed over the landscape with battlements which rose at least five times her height. She’d been expecting a simple farming village, similar to the Refuge she knew, but was instead confronted by a far more intimidating metropolis and that was more than enough to check her steps before she left the forest’s comforting canopy.

“This may work to our advantage,” Shadow said. “A small city such as this will be more used to accepting travelers than the village it once was. Yes, we believe that blending in and procuring a meal should be quite simple!”

“Small?” Jaye asked. “This is small?”

“Indeed. By comparison to a Ducal seat, Riverbough is barely a more than a minor fort. Look and see those walls? Only the bottom half at best is stone. And note that there are no defensive fortifications outside them. Were an army to lay siege to such a town it would fall within a week at most, or so our history books would claim we believe.”

Jaye tried to envision an army approaching the walls she saw. If it were an army of Ravenkin, they would just fly over the walls, but an army of Ravenkin would also be shot from the skies en masse, or carved apart once they landed. An army of Tauren though? Yes, that she could see. With a few dozen of the bull people, an army could probably tear those walls apart in an afternoon.

“So we can go in?” she asked, her stomach grumbling once more and her knees feeling more wobbly than she’d preferred.

“Let’s watch that group,” Shadow said and Jaye spied a small group with wagons trudging down the road which ran on the far side of the river.

The arrive at the entrance to the town and paused for a discussion with the guards stationed there. Jaye caught the glint of metal coins being handed over before the group was lined up for inspection. Most passed without comment or complaint but a small number were held aside which caused some consternation.

“What are they arguing about?” Jaye asked.

“Would you like to hear?” Shadow asked and wove a spell which carried the distant sounds to them on a tiny breeze.

“Listen Filgar, if they’re not branded, they’re not coming in,” one of the guards said, speaking to a man who was clearly the group’s leader but looking at the people who had been kept back.

“They’re temporary servants,” Filgar, the leader of the travelers said. “Branding would ruin their resale value. You know that Onoxo! ”

“That’s not our problem,” Onoxo, the guard, said. “If they’re not branded, you can’t control them and we don’t want any of those problems.”

“You can’t just turn them away, what am I supposed to do with them?” Filgar asked.

“Brand them. I told you. We got irons and a fire here. Would take less than a minute. Or you can turn around, take your spices and beans and peddle them back in Embervale.”

“I told you, we’ve already been the Embervale. Duke’s already stocked up. Can’t sell him anymore spices for at least a month.”

“Sell him the servants then,” Onoxo said.

Behind the men, Jaye heard the smallest of whimpers from one of the Nature’s Blessed who’d been singled out. She wasn’t sure if it was from the prospect of being branded or the prospect of being sold to the Duke of Embervale. Whichever it was proved sufficient motivation for the Deerling man to act though.

His first leap carried him far beyond arm’s reach from the guards and his second improved on that. Jaye started forward to meet him, but froze when his third leap was the man’s last. His speed had carried him beyond the gate guard’s reach but not beyond the range of the bowman on the walls.

Whatever appetite had been bothering Jaye vanished as she watched the man twitch and bleed out beside the road, sagging down into death before he could pull himself so much as an arm’s length further towards the forest.