“Okay, if you’re thinking of where your Beastman friend could have gone, he couldn’t possibly be past Kilrough. Not if he went missing only a week ago. It would take a full moon to get from Rhodia to Kilrough.” Kae said.
“How do you know?”
“I walked there. With Ma’trii. It took forever, and all we found were rocks and mountain goats.”
“Did you go through the path, and out the other side?”
“No, we didn’t have any reason to. Our hunting grounds are the forest and the plain. We’re content with that.”
Loren sighed and turned back to the map. “I need you to help me search from Rhodia to Markin’s Pass in the south. Maybe as far as Green Reach by the sea. Just in case.”
Kae sat heavily in the now available chair, but coughed at the cloud of dust that rose up. “You don’t think that’s such a typical route, princess? What if he’s gone to Yureun?”
“Can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“No one ever goes to Yureun.”
Kae smiled. “That’s what they want you to think. So no one will bother to check, they’re too scared.”
“Have you gone to Yureun?”
“No, do I look crazy? No one ever goes to Yureun, it’s haunted.”
Loren felt like screaming.
Kae took one look at the princess’s face and laughed. “Calm down, princess. I’m just playing with you. But really, I’ve never been to Yureun. Me and Ma’trii tried to follow the Kilrough Mountains up as far north as we could; we wanted to find where they ended.”
Loren sighed, and went back to her maps. She gave Kae the bare minimum attention. “Did you find it?”
“No, princess. We followed the base of the mountain for months.” Kae said, settling in. “We walked on foot, passing through the golden grass fields of the Beastmen plains. We camped outside Rhodia, watching the fires flicker in their guard towers, and hoped the hawks wouldn't train their bows on us. We couldn’t enter Rhodia, did you know? Ferals are allowed in the Beastman city, but only if they’re the mindless kind. The kind of animal that’s self-aware and wild.
Do you have a few minutes, princess? Well I don’t care if you do or don’t, if you want me to do something for you, you’re going to stand there and listen to me talk. The Beastmen who were born to walk on two legs, and had fingers instead of paws, those are the lucky ones. For every one of those Beastmen, there’s a feral born to an unlucky couple. Not blessed with the god’s favor, they’d say. Did you know it’s Beastman belief that when a feral is born to a proper Beastman couple, they sacrifice the child to the gods? They kill them; they take them out of the hut and kill them. But these ferals are different from wild animals. Wild animals, the Beastmen don’t mind. They’re a source of food, furs, labor.
Don’t frown so much princess, I know what I’m talking about. The Beastmen can tell if a feral is a wild thing or an abomination. There’s a kind of intelligence in their eyes, the same one in the heads of proper Beastmen, and that’s what scares them. The idea that an intelligence, and awareness like theirs could be living in a body that cannot speak or stand terrifies them. They see themselves in these cursed Beastmen and would rather kill them than face the possibility that that could have been them. That by some lucky star or god’s folly, they were lucky.
You look like you’ve never heard of this. I heard the Warmaster of your kingdom is a Beastman; didn’t he ever tell you? Well he wouldn’t, he’s the same as the rest of them. Cowards. How did I know? Ma’trii told me. In his own way. No, he can’t talk. He’s just a wolf. A cursed Beastman, I like to call him, I still see him as a Beastman even if he’s on all fours and wears no clothes.”
Kae went on talking more about Beastmen, and while Loren did listen for a while, she found her attention waning. Perhaps Kae talked so much because she only had Ma’trii to talk to, and the wolf couldn’t speak back. With a sigh, Loren wrote down their planned course on a scrap of parchment and folded it up, and put it in her trouser pocket.
Now came the hard part. She sat at her desk, brows furrowed in thought, as she tried to think of a way to leave Markholme for more than a few days. The king could be swayed with the idea of a hunting trip, as he loved the adrenaline rush stalking an animal through the bush and skewering it with an arrow could bring. The queen was more shrewd and suspicious, she would ask why Loren would want to be away from the city for so long. She might send the Spymaster after her. And both of them wouldn’t trust the scruffy huntress that Loren picked up at the market.
Kae talked on and on, not caring if Loren listened or not, and time seemed to blur together. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams that fell on the piles of books, and Loren was suddenly aware of how dusty the study was. She made a mental note that she should clean it out, have the servants come and help, and use the study more often. There was no certainty she would remember to do so later.
While Loren was deep in thought, she heard a knock at the door. At first, she thought
