The last slant of evening sunlight fell across the earthen wall outside the Clan Grounds. The weeds along its top bowed in a wave, then straightened again.
Kiyoshi stood in the wasteland below the slope. He had not taken the usual route.
The usual route was easy. One step, and he was there.
Today's route took him around nearly half the perimeter, on foot the whole way.
The ruts in the dirt road had stayed frozen all winter. Now they had thawed, leaving water pooled inside.
He picked his way along their edges, keeping mud off his soles.
He took the Perception-Blocking Talisman from his inner pocket, pinched a corner of its seal paper, and tore it open.
As the seal tore all the way through, the talisman lay against his palm, cool for an instant.
He slipped it back into the innermost layer of his pocket, balled up the torn seal paper, and tucked that away too.
Thirty minutes.
A safeguard that had sat unused for half a month was no safeguard at all. He had to take it out and see whether it worked.
The perimeter sentry's wooden platform stood behind the registration line. A guard ninja leaned against it with his arms folded, his bamboo hat pulled down to his brows. The fire in the charcoal brazier at his feet burned low.
Kiyoshi walked along the outer edge of the registration line, neither fast nor slow, at the pace of a stroll after dinner.
Those eyes never lifted.
He crossed the line.
The sentry post behind him remained quiet. No one checked a ledger. No one spoke.
An ember snapped in the brazier. The wind pressed the smoke low, dispersing it around the platform's base.
...It worked.
Insects called fitfully from the clumps of grass at the