Ginger princess's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Morning came gray and hungry. The ginger princess stood at the grain bin and lifted the lid. A shallow layer of oats slid across the bottom. Twelve new horses waited in the new stable. The three unicorns stood at the meadow's edge. Fancy Pants counted the bin with her eyes and said nothing. Thomas came in behind them and looked once and knew. "Two days," Thomas said. "Maybe three if we stretch it." "The nearest mill is a week's ride," Fancy Pants said. "And they'd want coin we don't have." The ginger princess closed the lid. Her hands shook. She pressed them flat against the wood until they stopped. She walked out past the old open stable and looked at the flat ground between the cabin and the creek. Good soil. Sun most of the day. She knelt and pushed her fingers into the dirt. "We plant," she said. Thomas came up behind her. "Grain takes months." "Not if the ward feeds it." Fancy Pants stopped walking. She looked at the green and rose light on the ridge. Then at the ginger princess. Then she smiled, small and sure. "Salt and honeybuns fed the ward," Fancy Pants said. "The ward can feed the field." Thomas did not argue. He fetched the seed sack from the loft, the last of their planting oats. The ginger princess marked out rows with her heel. Fancy Pants dragged a furrow behind her with a hoe. Thomas dropped seed. They worked all morning without stopping. At noon the ginger princess walked the plot's edges and set a honeybun at each corner. She spoke the words Thomas had used on the valley ward. She kept her voice low and steady. She asked the ward to reach into the soil and stay there. The light on the ridge dimmed for a breath. Then a thread of green and rose ran down along the ground, along her heel-marks, into the furrows. The dirt shivered. A green shoot broke the surface. Then another. Then a whole row lifted at once. By dusk the plot stood waist-high. Gold stalks. Green stalks. A thin band of purple grain at the far edge that none of them had seed for. It hummed like the ward hummed. The ginger princess reached in and stripped a head. The kernels fell heavy into her palm. She carried a basket to the new stable. The bay with the rope at its neck took the first mouthful from her hand. He ate. He did not tremble. She stood there and felt her knees go soft. Fancy Pants slid a shoulder under her arm before she went down. "It holds," Fancy Pants said. "It'll keep holding." The three unicorns walked in from the meadow through the open ward seam. They dipped their heads to the grain plot as they passed. Then they kept walking, out through the far side, up toward the ridge, and into the aurora light. No one moved to call them back.