“And you hunt them, Princess Rowan. You kill them. Which do you think they’d prefer? You have pets of your own. Yet you object to us making a living allowing others to enjoy the same privilege. Is owning monster pets only for the wealthy in Tamarel? Only for the nobility?”
“No,” Wilmot says. “Owning monsters is illegal for all. Rowan’s companions are free to leave her at any time, as are her humans ones. They come to her by choice. Stay with her by choice. You are on Tamarelian land, breaking our laws. I would suggest you reconsider your choice of settlement. In the meantime, all I care about are those harpy fledglings and our companions. Give them to us and we’ll be on our way.”
“You don’t get your companions unless you pay us our due for rescuing Everard of Bellamy’s brat.”
I stiffen, but Wilmot keeps his voice low, almost pleasant. “If you speak of his child that way, I would strongly suggest that you do not know Everard of Bellamy. Although that is evident by the fact that you hold her hostage. We have done as you asked by capturing the fledglings and destroying the nests.”
“You never wanted that,” I say. “You lied about the harpies harassing your village. You just wanted the fledglings, and you couldn’t figure out how to get them yourself. Lucky, then, that I came along and solved your problem. If you’d just suggested relocating the fledglings yourself, we might have fallen for it. But you had to try for Jacko, too.”
“That was a mistake,” Geraint says. “You may keep him. We’ll take the harpies and the dropbear.”
Kaylein walks up to Geraint, still flat on his back under Malric, and crouches beside him. “Please tell us again what you’ll do? Since you have us in such an awkward position.”
“Oh, but I do. My men are armed, as you see, and ready to defend our claim.”
She snorts. “I’m not sure which is more amusing. The idea of defending a claim to which you have no right, or the idea that your men pose the least threat to us. You have four. So do we.”
“Two are children.”
“And I’d pit them against the best of those.” She waves at the quartet. “These children train daily under the best fighters in the land. Your men barely know how to hold a weapon. And what weapons they’ve chosen. Two bows, with the arrows still in their quivers, and two daggers to fight against our swords. Our child over there”—she nods toward Dain—“could take down both your archers before they get an arrow notched.”
Geraint says nothing. He seems to be thinking it over, probably wondering what bluff he can pull, but in the end, he realizes the futility of that option.
“Leave us the harpies, then,” he says, as Malric lets him rise. “We will return the dropbear and your companions.”
“You made a deal,” I say. “We are not about to renegotiate—”
“You want these harpies?” says one of the men holding a box. “Take them.”
He throws the wooden cage as hard as he can, dashing it into the rocks. I yelp and rush forward, only to realize my mistake. We are faced with armed attackers, and I cannot be distracted by anything. The box hits the ground before I could have stopped it, the wood shattering, sedated baby harpies tumbling out. I wrench my gaze away and hold my sword high.
“Go on, Rowan,” Wilmot murmurs. “We have this.”
I hesitate only long enough to glance down and see blood on the rock. Then I sheathe my sword and run to the harpies. Four of them were in that box. Two seem only dazed, raising their heads and blinking hard. One is mewling, a bloodied splinter caught in its wing. The fourth lies still, but when I lift it, its breathing is strong—it’s just smaller than the others and more heavily sedated. I tuck the three into the remains of the box and lift the fourth as I tug out the splinter.
“So this is your royal monster hunter?” the man sneers. “A child cooing over hurt harpies?”
“Yes,” I say, raising my head to look straight at him. “This is your royal monster hunter, for as long as you are on our lands. Someone who cares enough about her people to fall for a trap helping them with a monster problem. Someone who cares about monsters, too, because slaughtering them is not her job. Nor is shoving them into boxes to sell at market like chickens and cows. There is only one thing worse to me—caring so little about them that you’d rather kill them than give them to me.”
The other villager with a harpy box lifts it over his head.
“Stop!” Dain shouts from his spot. “Move those hands, and I fire this arrow into your shoulder, and you will never lift anything heavier than a rag again.”
The man’s hands twitch.
“Are you deaf?” a voice says from the forest. “Or does that seem an idle threat?” Cedany walks from the forest, bow strung. “If you doubt he can make the shot, go ahead and test it. You’ll lose the use of that shoulder and the other one, too.”
Alianor appears, followed by a girl I don’t recognize. Except, of course, I kind of do. She looks like an older, stouter version of Alianor, with darker hair. Both of them are loaded down with the packs we left at the village.
“We got tired of waiting,” Cedany says. “Also, we overheard them talking about where they could sell the harpy chicks, which didn’t seem like what you’d planned. Terribly odd. We decided to come and get this straightened out. We may have left two of your men sleeping in the cabin. I asked to see their sedative darts, marveling at how they work, and they showed me. So gracious.”
Alianor walks up to the man with the harpy box and takes it from him with a “Thank you!” She leads her sister to
