Walking four bound prisoners was never easy. The sun was sinking, and the fading light made it harder to watch their hands and watch my footing at the same time. They knew they outnumbered us two to one, even tied, and men like this lived for the moment someone slipped.

  The worst of it was that they would not shut up.

  They spoke loudly to each other as we walked, as if they wanted the whole forest to hear what they were. Mostly they talked about women. Mostly they talked about us.

  “I reckon the elf’s a solid eight,” Terry said, voice bright with the confidence of someone who had never been punished for opening his mouth. “She’d look better if she showed more skin. And didn’t act like a man.”

  “I’d still hit it,” the ugliest one replied, grinning like a dog that had found a bone.

  “Only person getting hit is you,” I said, “if you don’t shut up.”

  They laughed anyway, like the threat was part of the fun.

  Their voices scraped at my nerves. I kept my eyes on the path, kept my grip on the rope, kept my expression still. That was all that mattered. Get them back. Get paid. Leave them behind.

  “I reckon I prefer the cleric,” the second ugliest said after a while, as if he was offering a thoughtful opinion. “She seems like she’d make a good mother one day. Got that homely look.”

  “One night with the elf,” Terry replied, “marry the cleric.”

  I jerked the rope hard. Terry stumbled, swore, and had to catch himself before he went face-first into the snow.

  “Why so mad?” he complained, breathless. “I’m only complimenting you. You should be happy.”

  I exhaled slowly through my nose. The sound came out tighter than I wanted.

  This plonker couldn’t reach a cell soon enough.

  We were nearing the road when the last of the light bled from the sky. The trees around us turned into black shapes, branches weaving together overhead. Snow reflected the faintest glow, but it wasn’t enough to trust.

  That was when someone stepped out from behind a tree and blocked the path.

  A short man in leather armour, sword already raised, the tip pointed straight at my chest. His stance was practised, confident.

  I glanced to my right.

  A bowstring creaked.

  To my left, another. Two more figures, half-hidden in shadow, both with arrows aimed at Illara and me.

  Behind us, footsteps approached. I turned just enough to see them. A wizard, staff in hand, and another fighter closing the gap with the calm patience of someone who knew we were trapped.

  Illara’s hand tightened around her own weapon. Her breathing changed. I could feel the urge in her to act, to do something, anything.

  I forced myself to stay still.

  The man with the sword smiled like he was doing us a kindness.

  “Well now,” he said, voice loud enough for the others to hear. “Lucky for you two that we happened to come along just as you were being attacked by these dastardly bandits.” His eyes flicked to the prisoners, then back to me. “Rescuing you from their clutches.”

  The bandits started laughing. Terry’s grin widened, as if he’d just been handed a joke.

  I swallowed the bitterness and spoke carefully.

  “I don’t suppose we could split the reward,” I said. “Fifty-fifty.”

  The man’s smile didn’t change.

  “I think we’re being generous enough by not charging you for saving your lives,” he replied. “If we hadn’t come along, perhaps these fine gentlemen would have killed you after all.”

  He tilted his sword slightly. Not a threat, not yet, but a reminder.

  I could feel Drisnil inside me, shifting. A cold hunger stirring at the edges of my thoughts.

  I pushed it down.

  Hard.

  “I think the current arrangement will work for us,” the man continued.

  My jaw tightened. I reached forward and handed him the rope.

  My hands stayed steady, but it took effort.

  “Careful,” Terry called cheerfully as he was pulled away. “This lady doesn’t know how to take a compliment.”

  I looked back to Illara.

  Her face was a mix of fear and frustration, and something worse beneath it. The kind of expression that came from being forced to swallow helplessness.

  The man with the sword gave me another smile.

  “Well then. We’ll be off.” His gaze slid over Illara in a way that made my skin tighten. “Unless you need an escort back to town. Or some company in bed.”

  Illara stiffened. Her fingers whitened on her grip.

  “I think we’ll manage,” I said, voice flat. “We’ll camp nearby. Let you start the long journey home.”

  The man chuckled as if I’d made a joke. Then he turned, and the group led the prisoners down the road and into the dark.

  The sound of their footsteps faded.

  The cold returned, sharp as a knife.

  For a moment, I couldn’t move.

  Drisnil’s anger rose in me like fire in dry grass. Her urge was simple, clean, and brutal.

  Kill them.

  I held my breath and kept still until the worst of it passed.

  It took everything I had to stop her from taking over.

  Illara came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist in a quick, tight hug.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “You could have turned that into a bloodbath, but you didn’t. I appreciate it.” She stepped back, her eyes tired but sincere. “And we don’t desperately need the money right now. We can afford to lose the bounty.”

  Her words were true. They should have been enough.

  But as I watched the other group disappear into the dark with our prisoners, something ugly settled in my chest. Not greed. Not even pride.

  Just the sense that they had stolen what we had earned, and expected us to swallow it.

  “I may have a way to get them back,” I said.

  Illara’s expression tightened at once. “Without killing anyone?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I nodded. “No killing. But it will involve something I only have a limited supply of until I can find the ingredients again.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “The poison you used on those bandits when we first met?”

  “Yes.” I hesitated, forcing myself to say the next part plainly. “I may need to rely on Drisnil for this. Just a little. And it will require a threat of violence, at least against the prisoners, to keep them quiet.”

  Illara went still for a moment, weighing it, her jaw tightening as if she was biting down on words.

  Then she spoke carefully. “Alright. Thank you for warning me. But if it looks like it’s going to turn into killing, we leave. Their crimes don’t warrant execution.”

  “I understand,” I said. And I meant it. I did.

  Even if Drisnil didn’t.

  We followed the group’s tracks in the fresh snow. Moonlight made the ground glow faintly, enough to keep the footprints visible. It was quiet work, the kind that demanded attention without conversation. Illara moved ahead of me, her eyes scanning, her body tense with purpose.

  It did not take long before we saw firelight ahead, wavering between the trees. Several figures sat around it, voices drifting in bursts.

  We slipped off the road and into the ditch that ran alongside it, crouching low.

  “I’m so glad we get paid tomorrow,” one man said, voice low and satisfied. “Been scraping by on scraps for weeks. Pity it’s only two gold.”

  “Adventuring isn’t cheap,” another replied. “We barely break even half the time. Would help if our tracker did their job.”

  A third snorted. “You try tracking, if you think it’s so easy. Besides, we got the prize anyhow.”

  “Only through dumb luck,” someone muttered. “If we hadn’t heard them coming from so far off, we might never have found them.”

  Illara’s eyes flicked to me, sharp and meaningfully silent.

  I resisted the urge to smile. Not because it was funny. Because it was exactly the kind of arrogance that made men sloppy.

  We waited.

  The moment to act would be when the boredom turned into drowsiness, when the fire had burned low and the guard was tired enough to resent the job. The others would sleep first, and one would remain to watch.

  Eventually the talking died out, replaced by the sound of shifting bodies and slow breathing. We waited again, another two hours, until the camp had fully settled.

  Then I slipped on my ring.

  The veil folded over me. The world seemed to blur slightly at the edges, as if reality itself had lowered its voice.

  I rose slowly from the ditch and peered out.

  Only one was still awake, the short man in leather armour, the same one who had spoken to us on the road. He sat on a fallen log, poking at the fire with a stick in an absent-minded rhythm, as though he could keep the night away by irritating it.

  Now was my chance.

  I let Drisnil forward, just enough.

  No killing, I told myself. No killing. No killing.

  Something cold curled inside my chest in response. A kind of irritation, sharp and resentful. Drisnil did not like restraint. Drisnil endured it.

  I pulled out a sewing needle, thin as a whisper, and coated it with some of the last of my potent sleeping poison. The kind I could not remake. The kind I had been saving.

  It felt like a waste.

  It also felt like a bargain.

  I crept towards the watchman’s back, careful with each step, my boots sinking quietly into snow. The only proof of my passage was the shallow marks left behind, and even those the night might hide.

  The man shifted suddenly.

  My body stopped instantly, still as stone. For one heartbeat he turned his head and looked directly at me.

  Logic said he could not see me.

  But in that moment, I felt the old fear anyway. The kind that belonged to prey, not predator.

  He frowned, then shrugged and returned to the fire, yawning.

  I moved again.

  Close enough now that I could feel the heat of the flames against my face. Close enough that I could smell him too, the rank sweat of a man who had not washed in days, mixed with smoke and stale leather.

  It was unpleasant.

  It was also reassuring.

  It meant I was real.

  I brought the needle to his neck and pricked him in one smooth motion, my other hand clamping over his mouth at the same time.

  His eyes went wide. His body jerked. He tried to shout.

  I held him firm, feeling his pulse hammering against my fingers.

  It took only seconds.

  His struggle softened. His limbs slackened. His head lolled as the poison dragged him down, not violently, but like sleep claiming someone who had lost the right to refuse it.

  I caught him before he hit the ground and eased him down carefully.

  There was no kindness in the act, but there was control.

  That mattered.

  I dismissed the veil and motioned Illara forward.

  She approached with her bow in hand, face pale but steady. Her eyes flicked to the unconscious man, then to me, then away again.

  She did not speak. But her expression did.

  What are you becoming, Geoff?

  We moved through the camp quietly until we reached the prisoners. Terry and his men were tied nearby, still asleep, their breath fogging faintly in the cold.

  This was the dangerous part. If they woke and shouted, it would be chaos. The other group would wake and we would be surrounded.

  I pressed my knife lightly to Terry’s throat and covered his mouth.

  His eyes snapped open in panic.

  I leaned close and whispered, voice low and urgent.

  “My friend and I are keen for some real men to show us what we’re missing. But we can’t do that here with all the others. So you and your friends are going to come quietly with us, somewhere private.”

  Illara made a strangled noise, half squeak and half choke, her hand flying to her mouth.

  She stared at me like I had grown another head.

  I ignored her and kept my gaze locked on Terry’s.

  For a moment Terry just blinked, slow and stupid, processing the words like they were a complicated prayer.

  Then his mouth curled into a grin.

  “Yes,” he whispered, hoarse with excitement.

  My stomach twisted, disgust rising sharp enough that I nearly flinched away. There were easier lies, I told myself.

  There were.

  But this was the lie that would work.

  Terry nudged the others awake. They murmured and shifted, confused until Terry spoke urgently to them.

  Then, one by one, they shuffled to their feet and began following us, still bound, still sleepy, still stupidly eager.

  Illara remained frozen for a heartbeat longer, eyes wide and horrified.

  Then she followed, silent as a ghost.

  We led them down the road for a time, away from the camp and far enough that even if they shouted, it would take effort for anyone to find us.

  After a few minutes, Terry spoke again, voice thick with hope.

  “So… can you untie us now? I’m keen to get started on our night of pleasure.”

  He shifted his trousers as he spoke, as if his own imagination was doing half the work.

  Illara’s head snapped towards him. Her expression was pure venom.

  “I never agreed to this,” she said, sharp and furious.

  Terry blinked, confused.

  I let out a breath, slow and controlled. “Don’t worry, Illara. I only said it to get them out of camp quietly.”

  The ugly man with the thin beard snarled. “You bitch!”

  “Heh,” I said, and I let just enough of Drisnil’s voice edge into mine. “Maybe you should think more with the head on your shoulders, rather than the lower one.”

  The man went red.

  I tugged the rope again. “Now. If you don’t want to be used as human shields in a fight between adventurers, I suggest you start moving faster.”

  Illara opened her mouth, then closed it again, her expression strained.

  We jogged the rest of the way back to Ravencrest, the prisoners stumbling after us.

  We arrived just in time to see the other adventurers catching up, dragging their still unconscious companion along the road like a sack of grain.

  The wizard pointed at us and shouted, voice hoarse with rage.

  “They stole our quarry and drugged our friend! We want them punished!”

  The guard at the gate stepped between us, looking exhausted before the argument even began.

  “Sort it out at the barracks,” he said. “I’m not dealing with this here.”

  We pushed through and reached the guardhouse. Percy answered the door, hair unkempt, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  The wizard immediately launched into it. “These two stole our bounty and drugged our man. We want them punished!”

  Percy stared for a moment, then sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead.

  “So,” he said slowly, “you’re telling me that two people got the better of five of you, stole your prisoners from under your nose, and you want me to believe that story.”

  The wizard faltered.

  Percy’s eyes flicked to the unconscious man, then back.

  “I’m guessing what happened is your friend got drunk on watch. The prisoners slipped their bonds. These two found them and brought them in.” He gestured vaguely at us. “Which means they get paid.”

  “That’s not fair!” one of the men snapped. “We caught them first!”

  Percy’s expression did not change.

  “First group to deliver the bounty gets the reward,” he said. “That is how this works. Always has been.” His gaze sharpened. “Now I suggest you lot go find a bed and try again tomorrow, before you embarrass yourselves further.”

  The wizard looked like he wanted to argue.

  But Percy was already turning away.

  “Drisnil. Illara. Come inside. We’ll do the paperwork.”

  We followed Percy in, our prisoners stumbling behind.

  In that moment, I realised something with a cold, sinking clarity.

  My alliance with Percy was starting to pay dividends.