By the time they got to the first of the treebed hotspots, the Guard, who had previously been joking amongst themselves about an easy trip, were hardened soldiers. Once the ritual stones were set up, many shared looks of relief at the routine, if exhausting, work ahead.

  This time, it was his lordship that engaged the enchantment on the ritual stones, finding his eyes landing on the contemplative expression on Squirt’s face. The Guard fell out as a unit, climbing into the treebed in their teams with a singular sense of unity between them.

  Quietly, he asked, “What is on your mind, Athereon?”

  She hummed. “… how many people do we have?”

  “As of this morning? Ninety-four.”

  Meaning one fey did not make it through the night.

  “Why? What are you thinking?”

  She chewed on her lip. “Well… yesterday was a mess. And we’ll probably have another surge before we return. We don’t have enough stones for everyone, but… instead of a fire that draws in the beasts unless the surge has waned enough, why don’t we use these?” She hit her knuckle against the staff stuck into the ground. “Face them inward at us. We have eighty stones, so we’ll have to sacrifice some to sleep, but if we make a circle of them big enough it will send the stampeding horde into a deep sleep. The hunters can do their collections as the most injured rest.”

  He considered this strategy. “It would hinge on the ritual stones being set up without getting knocked over in the surge.”

  She nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah… or getting broken or targeted once engaged. Hell, some of the beasts would swallow them whole for the magic in the stones.”

  “Hm… I will consider this. If it were a strategy we wanted to pursue, how do you envision it working?”

  Her brows furrowed softly as her gaze dropped. “… in a perfect world, you’d send me and Zhadin out to set them. I’m small enough for Zhadin to potentially portal with, which would allow for the fastest setup, but then there’s the issue of defending the poles until we get the last one in place, and then continuing to defend them so the ritual isn’t disrupted once invoked.”

  He nodded solemnly. “I will take that into consideration. Excuse me, Athereon.”

  She bowed politely as he turned and left, the first groups bringing out their beasts. The hunters waved her over with grins as they began dissecting them, and while they were all distracted, she caught a smile tugging up her lips at them all. How happily they did the very thing that she’d been ridiculed for.

  “Pricklebear! Is there anything we can get off this thing?”

  She sighed, trotting over to begin her lessons.

  By midday, the other hunters had pushed her away from the main lines of collection. Instead, she was brought the odd cases. New types of feybeasts she’d never dealt with before, had never seen before, and some that didn’t have any names that she knew of. Two she couldn’t even identify their starting evolutions.

  Each unique creature brought out a gleam in her eyes and the telltale hints of an excited smile as she clambered over them, writing notes and investigating the different properties and components. Furs. Talons. Venom pouches. Watersacs. Flamesacs. Even a couple of what she soon realized were lightningsacs.

  A stack of blank boards with quills and an ink pot appeared by where she worked, and the fey who dropped them off grumbled out, “Fer yer notes and such,” before stalking off.

  She stared after them in utter confusion.

  Waste not want not. She began sketching out more details on the boards, setting aside and labeling the components she didn’t know what she could use for yet so she could match them up with the right notes. She kept her personal notes in her notebook of scraps, assuming that the lord must’ve had these boards prepared for her and thus using them for more official notes and observations with the expectation that these would turn into more pages in the encyclopedia he’d already requested.

  Midafternoon, one of the dourer knights stalked over to her. She froze in obvious fear on the back of a beast with hundreds of small jewels for eyeballs she was plucking.

  He grunted, shifting from foot to foot long enough that the creature died before she could finish collecting the eyes, and she scowled down at the ground.

  Still, she did not address him or move, or even risk glancing up at his face, keeping her eyes down in subservience until she was spoken to.

  Finally, the man grunted out, “I found a dungeon.”

  Her brows furrowed and eyes blinked furiously in confusion, but she didn’t lift her head or respond since he hadn’t asked a question.

  He sniffed and rumbled out, “It’s yours. I’ll let his lordship know.”

  Aghast at the abrupt declaration, her head snapped up and jaw dropped as the burly d’mi slinked away without giving her the chance to refuse.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Tobias, wary at the stunned look on her face, trotted over and asked, “What did he want?”

  Still in utter disbelief, she said, “He… gifted me the dungeon discovery.”

  Tobias studied her flabbergasted expression before a smug smirk broke out across his face.

  Oh yeah, Bartos had done some genius maneuvering here.

  Tamping down on his sudden need to swoon, he gestured at the next creature laid out for her. “So, what’s this one do?”

  Another week passed. The soldiers became feybeast veterans. Every hunter now had passible collection skills for even Squirt’s discerning eye. She, meanwhile, had catalogued fifteen new species of feybeast.

  On the third treebed hunt, one of the guards offered her his hypnostone and muttered, “You, uh… if you wanted to explore the treebed… see the creatures before we take them…”

  She stared at the stone and the fey with enough awed disbelief that his ears turned as pink as his hair.

  His lordship chimed in only to say, “Athereon, make sure you are back for lunch.”

  Her eyes as wide as saucers, she accepted the stone with trembling hands, then darted off before anyone could change their minds.

  From then on, every treebed, one of the Guard would lend her their stone until lunch, leaving her to take notes on the various beasts and get a closer look at how the nests were made up.

  She attempted to put her foot down at the third person gifting her a dungeon, but no matter what arguments she presented, the fey would angrily do it, anyway. Then she’d falter in fear at their anger, forced to drop her eyes and accept the gifts she didn’t want.

  Which pissed her off.

  More and more, the fey she was surrounded by became difficult to avoid. Gods, she found flowers in her seat at dinner. She knew it wasn’t the redcap, as so far, his gifts were all the bloody or wriggling variety, and he had even started a competition with the shadowfell to see who could gather the most components by the end of their trip. Nor was it coming from Tobias or his lordship, who were amused at her nightly tantrums in the safety and privacy of his lordship’s tent. Instead of needing to avoid a few prominent fey, the unwanted attention was coming from everywhere, and it was driving her mad.

  Especially since his lordship had decided to deny her scouting the way. She’d shot herself in the foot by giving him detailed maps of the location, and between him and the other hunters they were able to navigate well enough without her. She had to march at his side all damn day as he claimed she was too important to risk.

  That argument had shut her up for a good day as she gave him the only real retaliation she had—the cold shoulder.

  And he proved himself right at the next surge.

  The air thickened and the hair at the back of Squirt’s neck stood up. She froze and the entire company stopped with her.

  Lord Everwinter merely asked, “Surge?”

  She nodded, “Yes, my lord,” as she pulled out the whistle arrow.

  “Very well. Take this.”

  She fired off the shot to call the scouts back before she took the hypnostone from his hand.

  The captain barked out, “Squads! Formations! Move as directed!”

  The group split into five as they marched apart, his lordship in the middle as he asked the dumbfounded Squirt, “Tell me when they are far enough.”

  Catching onto the plan, she pulled out the first staff from the bag on her back, swallowing as she heard the crashing of beasts.

  He held out a single hand, as calm as ever, and they were surrounded in a translucent globe of water.

  A shield.

  Wide eyed, she snapped out of her stunned state when the first beast threw itself harmlessly against the shield, and she realized she was, indeed, safe. Letting out a deep sigh of disbelief, she finally said in a quiet whisper, “When.”

  He twisted his wrist, and all five groups stopped. “Are they equidistant? Do any need to shift?”

  She quickly scanned the groups, pointing to one. “That one four clicks north.”

  He shifted his wrist, and the groups stepped north.

  “There!”

  They stopped as his hand did.

  Biting her lip, she looked at the others, gauging their positions and directing them as necessary. Each group defended itself from a split horde, something she noted vaguely seemed to make each fight easier.

  He hummed nonchalantly to himself. “This is a good strategy.”

  “It is?” she asked numbly.

  “It is. Come. Go with Zhadin.” He held out his cloak as tentacles of shadow reached out, grabbing her and pulling her through the cool, lifeless plane of shadow. She had to hold her breath, unable to see and unable to breathe before colors burst again, and she gasped in air. She stumbled when landing, her arms wrapped around the staff as she quickly oriented herself. Jamming the staff into the ground, she turned it towards the center. When she took a step back and nodded, the tentacles burst out and pulled her back into the realm of shadow. This time she was prepared to hold her breath, reaching in her bag to grab a hold of the next staff. Once she burst out into reality again, she landed on her feet, lined up the next staff, and jammed it into the ground.

  The lord started walking towards the last group as Zhadin took her through each of the five circles of soldiers. By the time she planted the last one, he reached the same spot, grabbed the staff, and engaged the enchantment.

  About twenty guards that had been on the inside of the invoked circle fell into an immediate sleep. The rest ran in, dragging their sleeping comrades to the center of the space, five small groups staying in place ready to defend the staffs just as the stampede of beasts threw themselves in after the larger group.

  And oh so helpfully fell into convenient piles.

  Cheers rang up around the space, the Guard already helping to pull back the beasts and sort them while the hunters began collecting from the beasts laid out to sleep. Some of the guards had started learning, too, and they all took good-humored cracks at the work.

  Staring in awe at the scene around her, she barely registered as his lordship strode up beside her. He hummed, drawing her attention as he nodded with a devious smile. “Yes. Indeed. A much better strategy.”

  She stared up at him. “You… what just happened?”

  “I told you, Athereon—you are too important to risk. You are more in tune with the Hunt than you think and noticed the shift faster than anyone else I’ve ever known. We had more than enough time to get into formation before the beasts hit.” He nodded at the stakes in the ground. “This was just a different formation.”

  Dumbfounded, she finally said in a dull voice, “You… used me as an early warning system?”

  His smile turned into a smug smirk. “Yes.”

  She stared at him. Then her eyes slowly drifted back to the crowd of happy soldiers laughing and celebrating the event that had traumatized them a week ago and found herself unable to feel even the slightest hint of anger at him.

  He’d listened. Watched. Valued her insight. And now a peace she had never known possible during the most terrifying natural disaster she’d ever experienced had settled over the entire group. No one was even hurt.

  If he noticed the tears of awe and gratitude that slipped down her face, he never mentioned them. She did note, however, that he shifted to stand in front of her to hide her behind his cloak, and she was enveloped in a soundproof bubble.

  She fell to her knees as the sobs overtook her.

  She’d done it. She’d saved people. She’d finally been heard. And gods, it felt so good to see.