Traps, Tricks, and Beasts [Book 2 Complete][Fantasy, Adventure, Underdog]

Squirt fielded more questions from Pakos between hushed lessons for the kids on proper decorum. They stopped briefly for lunch, the exhausted teens practically collapsing where they stood, many clearly suffering without magic to enhance their endurance and strength.

There were a few leaders amongst them who organized the sharing of the sparse food they got of stale bread and water. Squirt was made to wait on the royal as they ate, with her slated to get the remains of their meal. It was a practice that, when done well, guaranteed her better food by offering a fey of lower standing the same high-quality meal as their superior while also reducing waste by guaranteeing the leftovers to someone else.

To her surprise, the fell followed the intention of the tradition rather than just the letter of it, meaning she got a full meal of roasted pork and rolls with cheese rather than scraps of rind, fat, and breadcrumbs. In fact, the royal was treating her rather well, all things considered, much to the anger of the teens. Roughly ten of them were so deeply ingrained into their privilege that all they could see was how much better someone as lowly as her was being treated, and she could sense their malice growing.

The fell answered one who muttered about it. “Learn from her, and you, too, will be treated well.”

It didn’t take long for several of the less angry teens to start copying her every action and move, and she begrudgingly had to respect the fell. By giving them a foil—her—they were expertly manipulating every fey there to be predisposed to obedience first. It was a worryingly smart move.

More worryingly, they seemed to genuinely and rather honorably respect the intention of the ancient ways. The laws were not originally made with cruelty in mind after all, but rather to ensure that the weaker were well taken care of by their superiors.

In theory, anyway.

Like most ideals, in practice the whole thing was hardly, well, ideal.

By the end of the day, the teens were separated out into two groups—those who hated her, and those who revered her.

They were given no fire, as the shadowfell and vampires heated their food in the shadow plane. While the vampires gave her and the teens hungry looks with maniacal grins, she could sense more actual malice coming from the teens than the adults. Meaning, more than likely, the children truly were safe so long as they continued to obey.

Not great, but not bad for a hostage situation. They were collateral for something else, a tidbit she passed on to Pakos, who had begun fervently complaining about the obtuse companions she had saddled herself with, which, she repeatedly reminded him, was something he was just going to have to deal with when she wasn’t actively being kidnapped—

Stopped for the night, she did her duties to clean the cutlery and serve until the fell dismissed her, returning to the shadow plane with a devious smile.

Leaving her alone. Unprotected. With hormonal, emotional, distraught teens.

She tried to climb a tree, and one of the vampires pulled her down so quickly her boots had barely left the ground. They didn’t throw her—though they could have—nor hurt her, being rather gentle about it while saying, “None of that now. You stay where we can see you.”

They placed her back down with both feet on the ground, and she bowed deeply, internally cursing them. Damnit. They didn’t know about her wings. In theory an unrestrained pixie like her could climb a tree and possibly escape skyward, so she did understand their reasoning even if she hated it.

No climbing trees. Remaining in the open.

She would not be sleeping tonight.

She moved to the edge of the group far away from the most hateful of the teens, curled with her back against the trunk of a tree, her belt knife tight in her hand and wishing badly she had her gods damn bag with her sword in it—

Settled in as best as she could, she dozed, waking every time anyone came within a few feet of her. The vampires she could at least trust to leave her unharmed. She was acting as the royal’s servant, so harming her would have disastrous consequences for their leader.

Then again, it also did depend on the shadowfell’s interpretation of “their people.” Were their people the vampires? The shadowfell? Did it include her, or not? It was hard to know. Magic oaths like that were done with intention, meaning the interpretation of the magic depended on the fell’s intention when they spoke it.

Her thoughts continued to circle around their most likely interpretation based on her observations between short dozes until a scream had her on her feet in moments.

“Let him go! Let him go, please!”

A commotion further in camp drew her eyes as several of the vampires held down a pixie with ice blonde hair, his teal eyes filled with rage as he struggled helplessly against those holding him down. A useless endeavor. He, along with the other pixies, were those who struggled the most with their powers bound by the damn manacles.

“Serlyn!” called out a pretty young female pixie, the distraught expression only making Squirt’s heart harden faster.

Still silence descending on the camp as the shadowfell emerged from the shadows. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

“Caught him taking my keys, my royal.”

“Hm.” They made a motion with their hand, and Squirt paled further. She didn’t hesitate to obey, jogging over and kneeling where they had indicated. “Cruel indeed, to wake us from our sleep. Tell me, Servant, what is the price for stealing?”

Trapped. Trapped by social convention into obeying.

Her voice trembled, the tone of it as ghostly as her face. “The offending hands of the one who stole so they might never again attempt to take from their betters.”

The tension in the camp skyrocketed. At this point, Squirt doubted any still slept, and she could feel their eyes riveted on her.

Why couldn’t he have fucking waited—

“Indeed, his hands. But if I take his hands now, how will those manacles remain in place? Hm. Servant, explain to him what the limits of my judgement are.”

The angry pixie, Serlyn, snapped his gaze to her with a desperate kind of threatening glare, daring her to speak.

She dared, anyway, knowing that he had already sealed his own fate. There was nothing she could do for him. She was practically weaponless, though even if she wasn’t, there was nothing she had that could touch someone on this caliber.

Her voice as deadened as her heart, she said simply, “There is no limit, your highness. You are the most powerful fey and thus stand the highest. Your judgement is as absolute as our obedience.”

With her eyes down, she didn’t see the message as it sank into the young man’s bones, but she felt it. Felt the very air shift from defiance to terror as the teens all realized, truly realized, how low on the totem pole they suddenly were.

It was a lesson she’d learned a long fucking time ago, and she struggled to conjure any sympathy at all.

The fell said, “Perhaps you are starting to understand now, on this, your cusp of adulthood, your true place in the world. You have been coddled too long, insulated from the brutality of the natural order. I aim to fix that before you impose on my future.”

Understanding hit Squirt like a lightning bolt.

This wasn’t just a case of kidnapping and ransom. They were teaching these soon-to-be-adults absolute obedience. Their aim wasn’t to fix them. It was to break them.

“For the crime of thievery, to ensure you cannot do so again, I will take your sight.”

Squirt kept herself lowered, her eyes down.

“No, wait, please, stop, don’t touch me—”

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No matter how removed she tried to make herself, no matter how much she told herself that he was an idiot and had done this to himself, his screams haunted her along with the distinct chuckle of the fell as they did the deed. A chuckle of sadistic power, relishing the opportunity to exude it on the weaker fey.

She was never able to shake the guilt.

The next day was much the same. There were no more escapees. Instead, those who despised her only grew in assuredness that she was a viable target for their rage. They all gathered around the now blinded Serlyn, giving at least some of them an outlet that wasn’t just rage directed her way.

Some of them, anyway.

The rest? The hair at the back of her neck almost never went down even if she couldn’t directly pinpoint a singular source of her discomfort.

Their menace continued to grow throughout the day, and she found herself instinctively shrinking closer to the nearest powerful fey that tolerated her.

Meaning by the end of the second day, she found herself hovering next to the royal rather than the teens, which only perpetuated the cycle. She was being complicit in the royal’s attempt to break them, and she knew it just as much as she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

She served them dinner and then was granted her own when one of the back scouts came back with a shit eating grin. “Well my royal, we’ve done it. He’s on our tail.”

“How close?” they rasped.

“About a day’s behind, but their scouts are closer. Looks like they intend to maintain the distance.”

Their smile was a little crooked and very wrong. “Well then. And what good timing, too. We will reach the border tomorrow.”

“Should we push them now?”

The fell didn’t respond right away. Squirt felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up and knew their eyes were on her, though why, she wasn’t sure. She kept her expression as blank and neutral as possible, doing her best to not look like she could hear anything despite being right next to them. She almost flinched when one of the tendrils stroked under her eye at the tired bag there. “… no. We have pushed this one too hard, already.”

The vampire sighed. “Adopted another one?”

“Hm.”

Her blood went cold, her mind going immediately to the worst possible implications. Another one, meaning they were in the habit of adopting weaker fey. Possibly greenlings. Possibly just to slowly break them. After all, there weren’t any around her now.

Wait, hadn’t they figured out she was Athereon—

Swallowing thickly, she scowled as she tried not to let her hands shake.

A hand landed on her head, the shadowfell patting her comfortingly. “They lived well, servant.”

Well and short or well and very, wonderfully long—

They seemed to decide that was more than enough comforting for them as they slipped back into the shadows.

The vampire in front of her squatted with a grin. “Color me curious. Ever been bitten by a vampire?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Squirt gave him a flat look, annoyed that she now had to answer. “Unwillingly, my lord.”

He rubbed his chin in thought. “Hm. Painful?”

She scowled. “Very.”

He grinned. “Then you should try the other side.”

One of the nearby vampires snorted. “Larth, leave the lass alone. Stop trying to get your dick wet and go back to watching that redcap.”

Two things happened in an instant. First, she ever-so-slightly stiffened. Next, the flirty vampire clocked it. His eyes narrowed slightly as he scanned over her outfit again, a sharpness to his gaze. He murmured, “A redcap, hm…”

She kept still, her eyes down, her expression completely devoid of anything.

He cocked his head, murmuring quietly, “But is he part of the group? Or is he just after you?”

Her expression remained unchanged.

He frowned slightly, still mumbling to himself. “… still, a greenling?”

Her expression remained unchanged.

He leaned in slightly. “Would you care if we killed this redcap?”

Her expression remained unchanged.

“Huh. A wall of stone.”

“Larth! Scout! Now!”

The man dropped his head, sighed, and rubbed his hair before standing and muttering, “Tough nut, eh?”

As a benefit to the fell disappearing and the flirty vampire being called away, no one noticed that Squirt barely ate her meal that night.

She waited for the cover of darkness before creeping through the camp of teens, most in restless, fitful sleep until she found the one from the night before.

The silver haired fey had a rough bandage over his ruined eyes, sweat beading his brow, and several other young fey gathered around him like a defensive unit. Most were asleep. One, a young female pixie, lovingly wiped the sweat from his brow, clearly gutted over his state.

Not good. Without his magic to aid his healing, infection was setting in.

Glancing at the guards to make sure they weren’t watching, Squirt crept to his other side, opposite the pink pixie girl. She reached out to pull back the bandage and see the state of the wound when the pixie girl’s attention snapped up, a familiar gleam of anger, violence, and rage in her eyes.

Squirt froze, swallowing thickly.

All fey could turn on a dime. And this one had clearly been pushed to the brink, already.

Quickly scanning for the guards to make sure the movement didn’t catch their attention, Squirt slowly lifted her hands in a gesture of peace.

The girl didn’t trust her one bit. Instead, she shifted herself, subtly reaching for something on the other side of the boy’s body, her eyes hardened with grim determination.

Idiot. Squirt was trying to help, goddamnit.

Most fey—particularly at their power scale—knew little of infection. Their bodies and magic made them immune. With their magic suppressed, so was their healing, leaving them vulnerable.

Squirt knew that. She had spent the day today during their march keeping her eyes out for the right plants for the job, grabbing them as they went and making a makeshift paste that would prevent him from succumbing to his fever.

Giving another scan around for the sightlines of the guards, Squirt pulled the medicine out of her shirt, unwrapping the scrap of her shirt she had made it in. Using silent gestures, she moved to point from the wrapped up goopy mess in her hand to her own eyes, miming wiping them.

The girl’s eyes did not change. There were deep bags under her eyes of exhaustion. Mania had them wider than normal, the whites thickened with veins visible even in the dim light of the moon.

Shit.

Unreasonable fey were the worst. Unreasonable, traumatized teenage fey?

Still, Squirt had to try. She hadn’t been able to get the boy’s screams out of her head and refused to sit by and do nothing.

Reaching back into her shirt, she pulled out the mashed together lump of her dinner as a bribe, laying it out on the ground. It was clear the girl had some kind of weapon, and from the way she tensed with every movement Squirt made, she was a hair-trigger from pulling it out.

And Squirt couldn’t have that.

One of the children next to her stirred, likely smelling the roasted meat and fruit-and-nut bread that had been served for dinner. Squirt held still, briefly afraid the child would wake.

After several excruciating heartbeats, the child settled once more.

Releasing her held breath, Squirt turned her attention back to the girl pixie. Annoyingly, the girl was completely unmoved by the food offering. Squirt held it out, having specifically saved it for the boy who would need his strength to fight the infection.

Tense seconds passed. The girl’s eyes darkened.

Squirt froze, frustrated with her obstinance. The boy would die without help.

So Squirt did the one thing that, had she been thinking straight, she wouldn’t have done.

She glared back. Set the food down on the ground. Enraged that this idiot was possibly dooming the boy she clearly had a thing for because she didn’t trust Squirt, who had done absolutely fuck-all except try to fucking help, she lost her temper, pulling out her dull-as-fuck belt knife and sawed it onto the back of her forearm.

It was painful from the dullness, taking several passes before she cut deep enough for the thinnest line of blood to appear.

Finally, the idiot girl’s eyes showed something other than violence—a touch of confusion.

Unwrapping the paste, Squirt took a precious, small amount and wiped it across the cut, then held up her arm to the girl with a glare, annoyed that she had needed to go this fucking far just to treat a boy who would die otherwise.

Then she pointed towards the boy’s face, clocking the way the girl immediately stiffened with an annoyed twitch to her brow, and pointed to the salve. Then pointed to his mouth and the food with stern obstinance.

The first froze, seeming to weigh Squirt’s measure. Her hand shifted, pulling out a makeshift shiv from a sharpened branch, holding it slowly out at Squirt in a threat as she reached towards the salve with her other hand.

Fucking finally.

“Oi, what’re you doing up—”

Squirt didn’t think. She simply dove. Dove over top of the girl’s arm holding the shiv. The girl, startled by the move, thrust up before freezing, stunned. Around them, the other protectors for the boy stirred, startled awake by the movement and sound.

Squirt grimaced, thinking to herself that the shiv was at least sharper than the belt knife.

Stunned, the girl didn’t move, frozen where she was with her shiv buried in Squirt’s side, Squirt splayed out and hiding the food and salve.

Gritting her teeth, Squirt answered the vampire guard, “Changing the boy’s bandages, my lord.”

The vampire snorted. “Let the runt die. He tried to stab me yesterday, the fucker.”

Another guard called out, “Fuck off, Kiev. You’re just mad the kid almost got the drop on you.”

The girl was frozen still. From the angle, Squirt could see the way her heart was pounding, the wild pulse at her throat giving it away.

“And where’s the blood coming from, hm?”

Squirt answered, her head low and voice full of subservience. “I cut my arm, sir.”

The girl tensed, her manic eyes wide on Squirt.

Seconds passed.

“Alright, back to bed, you lot. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Greenie, finish changing his bandages and then sleep over there. I don’t wanna clean up greenling blood.”

Another sniffed the air. “I can’t smell it, though.”

“Smells like a whiff of almost nothing.”

“Hm. You’d think greenling would at least smell appetizing.”

“With that level of magic? Please.”

The guards wandered away, their conversation fading into the dark. Slowly, Squirt sat up with a wince, prying the child’s hand off of the shiv. It hadn’t hit anything vital, luckily enough. Squirt took a small bit of the paste before pulling the shiv out of her with a wince, the paste helping the blood to coagulate a lot faster than it would otherwise.

With no further ado, she broke the shiv into tiny pieces so that the guards wouldn’t find it, burying it in the dirt as the children around her watched.

Finished, she held the lumpy cloth of salve out to the shell-shocked girl, muttering, “Put it on his wounds. He’s fighting off sickness. This will help. Then feed him by mixing the bread with water so that he can swallow easily. He’ll need the strength.”

One of the kids who had woken but not seen the entire exchange whispered, “Why the fuck should we believe you?”

Squirt snapped back in an even quieter whisper, “Do you want him to die?”

There were no further arguments after that.

Conscious of the fact that she was now in the center of the children who had decided she was a problem they wanted to take out their rage on, Squirt removed her water pouch from her belt, set it next to the food, stood, and left, curling herself up with her back against the trunk of a tree and hoping that it would be enough to save the boy.

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