Do it.

The last words she spoke before we cinched the green ribbon around her neck, a stark line bisecting her head from her body, a scrap we’d buried to gather magic under the mother tree. We tied the final knot. She took up her sword, a girl become death, the edge of her blade fine enough to cleave three dimensions into one, determined enough to halve a stone pillar with one quivering swing of the arm.

We quorum of kings lauded her might, draped her in speckled furs and heavy golden chains, pushed upon her platters of game birds and goblets overfull with strong wine and white spirits. We quorum of kings caused and lauded her silence, knowing the ribbon would permit material treasures to pass, but choke any words that would fall from her lips. We quorum of kings dote on our cormorant knight, quip, She is hungry for words, like for fish in the sea.

She will silence our enemies, our quarry, spilling their blood across our finely soled feet, like barrels of brilliant sardines.

She serves us.

We chose her.

She does not touch the ribbon.

It gleams below her chin.

• • • •

I was only a boy when I knew her, a nameless girl winding through nameless alleys, always singing, cheeks already lined from smiling. The adults decried her constant chirping, her treacle-ish affect, too sweet to bear. Sweet girls go brittle when fed through the gears of our time, burn up like crackling caramel. We need tough women, women who bend over backwards and do not break. Or so it is said.

They put a knife in her hands.

Sent her to our kings.

Said, Do not return without a ribbon.

• • • •

If you see her coming, do not waste time squinting into the sun. Do not wonder if she is a mirage or a speck of pollen, do not debate packing for one day or five. If you see her coming, gather up the children, the chickens, the terriers, flee straight into the trees, crash through the underbrush, ignore the thorns as they stripe your legs in blood.

If you see her coming, it is too late.

Do not fear her blade.

She is not cruel.

It will be quick.

• • • •

She is not much for smiling, though we appreciate her silence, of course we do. That is why we tied the ribbon at all.

We have many green ribbons.

You send us many desperate girls.

We tie them to feet and hands and fingers.

And even lovely knees.

Any girlish part we like.

• • • •

I was almost a man before I saw her again, silhouetted against a winter sky. They told us she would come at noon to devastate the city, and she spent the morning perched on the hillside above, as if carved from granite. The wind billowed the banner she held, whipped the ends of her ribbon behind her, giving the illusion she was fluttering wings.

I did not see her face, did not need to. I knew her.

From the panic of our elders.

Rushing us down the avenues.

Elbowing their way through the streets.

• • • •

If you see her coming, kiss the soft ground and revel in the mud that pulls her boots, thank the chill that pimples her skin, pray to the poorly stuffed mattress she slept on last night. If you see her coming, take all the time you need to arrange your loved ones, bundle them in blankets, pile sacks of millet in the cart, pile your winter stock of round brown potatoes, water the horses before you go, nearly forget and then find your box of treasures, your late grandmother’s amethyst amulets.

She will take her time approaching.

It matters not how the house was emptied.

It need not be by her hand.

• • • •

We have no further use for ribbons, for the magic of the mother tree—the nation is ours. We quorum of kings won dominion, peace, and we spend our days galloping through our expansive private forests, felling stags and boars and chasing a golden dragon, a white unicorn to no avail. We quorum of kings are descended from gods. If we say, There is a unicorn, that is fact undisputed. If the creature remains unfound, you will suffer our wrath.

You will not complain.

If you do, you are wise to do so far from our majesty.

• • • •

I was a man when she arrived at my village, the tip of her sword etching a sharp line through the dirt as she dragged it behind her. Everyone else had already fled, but I thought she would know me, remember our joyful rambles through the steep streets of our childhood.

She found me in my barn. She knocked the basket from my hands, sent metal tools skidding across the dirt floor. I fell to the ground and curled into a ball, shaking, thinking, She no longer knows me. I did not know her so well either: fine, taut, and deadly. She raised her sword above her head. The marbled surface of the folded steel caught the light, a sliver of white in the dim.

I thought my death would be quick.

Instead, she lowered her arm. For a moment, I saw the girl she once was, a girl open to surprise and the whims of fate.

She sheathed the sword.

Offered me a hand.

• • • •

She spends her days staring into the sky.

When I see her coming, I draw a hot bath of milk and rose petals, I slide the shirt from her shoulders and launder it in clean river water. When she is here, I chatter on about the warm weather and the summer flowers bursting across our fields, the condition of our flock and whether our sheepdog has come home. I am as joyful as she used to be as a girl.

I approach.

She touches the ribbon at her neck.

Hesitates.

She wants to ask me something, but cannot.

Instead, she watches the clouds move in surging shapes.

• • • •

She and I spend every day together alone, everyone else now gone. She and I kiss and touch and meander outdoors, and sometimes she bites my lip until it bleeds.

We are long finished, but we linger naked on a blanket so she can stare at the sky. Her back turned to me, her hair swept to one side, the ribbon dark against her skin. I examine the knot, hastily tied by our quorum of kings. The long left leg of it lists downward, conceals the symmetrical ridges of her spine. Our quorum of kings was always too ruthless for beautiful satin bows, the art of swooping ribbon is better left to men like me.

I touch it.

She lets me.

It is scratchier than expected, ends threadbare.

It comes undone with one tug.

Spirals off her shoulder.

Flutters toward the grass.

She leaps to her feet and stumbles, then goes to her hands and knees to chase the ribbon as it curls away on the wind, her sword left among the daisies, her white clothes wrinkled beneath the scabbard, her belt a careless coil, her bare feet slick against the hillside.

I join the chase, grabbing at air, mud, vegetation. I pull fistfuls of summer-dry weeds and scatter them behind me in celebration. I run naked, whooping and laughing. It’s the closest I’ve had to a hunt, a fine pursuit through an empty meadow.

The ribbon tangles in a blueberry bush.

Only the ends left free to struggle, animated by the treacherous wind.

I pick up the ribbon.

It weighs nothing.

A scrap of fabric tossed by a breeze.

I wrap it around my palm. It will not escape again. I could keep it, but no—I will not take her power, cause her trouble with our kings, will not deny her the speckled furs and heavy gold chains, the platters of game birds and strong rich wine.

I am proud, but I will pretend I am sheepish and coy. I present the ribbon like a piece of fine fruit, straightening its shimmering length to loop clean around her neck. Already I can feel the pleats of my superior knot, the one taught to me by kinder grandfathers and fathers and uncles, men too gentle to rule or to quorum, too gentle to demand blood spilled in their names.

I come closer with the ribbon.

She backs away, eyes wet and furious.

She levels a hand between us, fingertips trembling like a harp string.

She says the first word she’s spoken for twenty years:

Don’t.