Page 107 of Feral Guardian
“Eyzanth’s fucking balls!” Lily screams. “You usedmypower. How?”
“You transferred just enough when you touched the skin on my back,” Scarlett says as she leads us to a table set at the center of the room.
There’s no one else in the tavern, and the other tables have been pushed away. My senses send up warning flares that something’s not right.
I hold Lily back before we pass the final threshold. “Where is everyone?”
Scarlett cocks her head. “Working. This is the Upper East, my dear Alastair. We haveworkto do. Especially with the queen’s guards trying to reclaim the wall we rightfully stole.”
“The wall?Thewall?” I ask, aghast.
Zane nods. “We’ve held it for four weeks now. It’s an ongoing campaign to squeeze the Upper Kingdom into action against the queen.”
Scarlett sighs and pulls out a chair. “Yes, and that’s not been going quite as we’d hoped.”
“You’re restricting resources to the Upper Kingdom?” Lily asks as she takes the seat across from her sister.
Scarlett looks down at the empty seat next to her and purses her lips briefly before shaking her head. She looks up at Zane and gestures for him to take the open spot beside her. He does, and I take the space beside Lily.
There’s a map on the table, and a flagon of beer along with four cups. The map is of Fynren, with details around the city centers. It’s been marked up with various different colors of ink outlining patrols, troop movements, damage, and more.
Scarlett pours the apple-scented wheat beer as she talks. “We’re not starving the pricks—though I’d thought maybe that could be fun for a while. Zane tells me if I want the people to trust me, I can’t beunnecessarilycruel.So, we’ve just restricted their fun items. No whores, no krysanthem, no liquor, no spices—you know, the opulent things in life they think they can’t live without.”
“And the end goal is to get the nobles to dethrone the queen for you?” I ask.
Scarlett shrugs as she passes out the tankards of beer. “Essentially. Once she’s out of her palace, she’ll be easy pickings for our Spiders.” She grins at Zane who returns the expression but only briefly before his face becomes a stoic mask once more.
Zane wraps an arm around Scarlett. “We’ve restricted trade access from Illya, too, which hasn’t been loved by the merchants. We’ve set up a new bazaar on the southwest end that’s picking up in popularity, though. It’s assuaging some of their fears and relieving the pressure on their purses.”
“But it’s still not enough,” Scarlett sighs, pushing over a poster. Her own, one-eyed face stares back at us—though a little more horrific than it is in person—and the text at the top reads, in bold letters, “Wanted: Dead.”
“Only two thousand gold, though, so obviously I’m not worth as much to her as you are,” Scarlett says, wiggling her eyebrows at Lily.
“How did you know about that?” Lily asks, then goes to take a sip of her beer. I stop her, activating my poison detection ring and holding it over the top of the cup. I feel Zane’s and Scarlett’s stares burn into me as I confirm it’s not been tampered with.
Scarlett raises an eyebrow at me. “Satisfied? May I go on?” She turns her attention back to Lily. “We have friends everywhere. We hear and see everything. We knew you were coming for weeks and planned this little welcome party meticulously. You are a few days behind schedule, though.” She pauses to leer. “I wonder why…”
Lily clears her throat. “Yes, well, travel through the mountains is treacherous, especially in late spring. The snowmelt caused mudslides and such.”
Scarlett mock-gasps. “Mudslides, my dear sister? I didn’t take you for a backdoor girl.”
“Backdoor?” Lily looks up at me in confusion.
I’m torn between anger at her sister’s indecent teasing, and fondness. It’s obvious to me that Scarlett is trying to reconnect with her sister, that she’s desperate for that closeness they once shared. I feel it in the way she looks at Lily, in the way she looked at the empty seat next to her, and how she’s trying to learn about her.
“What do backdoors have to do with mudslides?” Lily asks, looking at Zane and Scarlett in turn. Zane looks away, his face barely readable save for the slight coloration to his cheeks. Scarlett is holding back a laugh behind her hand.
Finally, Lily pieces it together.
“Oh, you are theworst!” Lily growls and leans over the table to shove her sister’s shoulder.
Scarlett lets her laugh free. Even Zane smirks and I can’t help but enjoy this little joke at Lily’s expense. Perhaps it’s something we can explore, too, if she likes it.
When Scarlett’s come down from her fit, she sighs. “I’ve missed you.”
“Don’t try to smooth it over like that,” Lily says, crossing her arms. “You’re not the Belle I remember.”
“That’s because I’m Scarlett now,” she replies, the joviality draining from her face. “Mother tried to kill me, and to survive the streets I did things that would make Alastair blush—”
