Bloodguard

chapter 39

Maeve

I brace myself against the counter to remain upright, tears blurring the writing before me. Years. His family’s been dead for years .

All this time, he’s stayed alive, fighting to fulfill the dreams of a family long dead, a family he’s trying to bring home.

The shop owner skips out from the back room, abruptly stopping when he sees the doll lying on the desk and the letters surrounding it.

His eyes widen as realization strikes.

But realization doesn’t strike him nearly as hard as I intend to.

I intend to strike him dead.

I unhook my cloak. It flutters as I toss it away and unsheathe my sword. Toso hisses, leaping up and racing on all fours along the counter. Now that the shop owner sees my face, he damn well knows exactly who I am. He barely calls me by my title before he races behind the doors and locks them tight.

My anger makes me strong. I kick open the doors and sweep into a dark storage room. It’s large and dusty, shelves piled and spilling over with valuable goods this devious little shit hoards for his own profit.

How much hurt has this man caused? How many lives has he ruined? How did no one realize this sooner?

I start forward, spinning away from the first shelf that the shopkeeper topples over to stop me and dodging the others that follow. The heavy and sharp contents slam and break against the old wooden floors. They create large piles covering the entry to the solarium.

The owner is pushing and throwing everything he can at me. I hop over tools, toys, clothing, and boxes of dried goods, my quick footwork mimicking an odd dance.

Toso bounds over the mess, his growls growing more menacing. I stalk toward the solarium, taking my time so my sensitive eyes adjust from the dark storage room to the bright space filled with sunlight. I freeze beneath the archway.

A dome encompasses the entire roof of the aviary. There’s a large opening in the corner where the glass dome ends and the tiled roof of the remainder of the house begins. It allows the enormous birds access in and out, as well as exposing them to the elements, including those harsh enough to kill them.

Tethered across several posts are incredibly old and malnourished hawks, straining their bodies to reach the scraps of food intermixed with their waste on the floor. Their feathers are brittle from age and the disgusting conditions they’re kept in. These birds are barely capable of flight. To task them with carrying supplies is heartless.

And to send them to the distant regions where migrants and gladiators arrive from? Impossible.

“How long have you been pocketing money and supplies meant for starving families?” I demand of the shopkeeper who’s nearly halfway across the aviary.

He stills with his back to me. “Who said I’ve done that?”

“Are you this much of a monster?” I challenge. “Or are you so ignorant that you’d insult someone with a sword?”

Fingers wrapped around my sword hilt and attention still on the man, I point to the rope binding the hawk with my free hand. Toso follows my direction and skitters to the perch. “Set them free,” I tell him, opening and closing my fingers in a biting motion, and off he goes. He gnaws through the rope anchoring the bird before bouncing along to the next perch.

It’s only my anger that keeps my gasp from escaping. The hawk’s ankle is shredded and unnaturally twisted. He is the oldest among the aerie, his glazed eyes and lowered head telling me that he gave up on life a long time ago.

“Go,” I tell the hawk with a shooing motion, still keeping an eye on the man.

The poor hawk tilts his head from side to side, wary, then turns to his master for instruction, his loyalty evident despite the neglect and abuse. The man shakes his head, and the defeated hawk remains in place, wings drooping, and I’m infuriated even more.

“Toso,” I say. “Fly. Go. Tell them.”

Toso angles his furry head to the side, taking a moment to interpret my request before he enthusiastically repeats it in his own magical tongue. The hawk’s eyes widen. He squawks once and expands his wings, soaring through the opening and not looking back.

“How dare you?” the owner asks, his voice rumbling. “They belong to me!”

“You don’t need them anymore,” I assure him. “As of now, you’re permanently out of business.”

“Says who?” he challenges.

“Says me!” I yell. “The heir to the throne!”

I tighten my grip on the sword when the bones along his spine crack and his ribs realign. A shifter. Hmm . But what kind?

He curses when the next hawk takes off, followed by another.

“Did you ever send anything you were supposed to?” I demand.

He laughs—yes, laughs . “Sure. At first. I needed proof I sent something, now, didn’t I? And the wealthy always check.”

He hurls a perch at me. Then a bag of grain. He’s running around the room, and I weave to the other side so he can’t backtrack.

My voice shakes from my hatred. “What about the gladiators?”

“Which one?” he mocks as he runs in the opposite direction.

“All of them!” I shout my words as I fling a dirty water bowl at him. He ducks, and it shatters against the wall beside his head. Coarse white fur sprouts along his back.

Two more hawks take flight at the sound. They used to drink from that filthy thing. They won’t have to anymore.

The owner turns his head, and the long black nose of a badger twitches back at me. “Most die anyway!” he hisses. “How do you think I pay your royal taxes?”

My hands turn to lead. “You evil little worm.”

His fingernails have grown into thick, sharp claws. Instead of running, now he stalks me.

Good.

He’s challenging me, clearly to the death. “You’re making a mistake,” I tell him, my voice seared with rage. “And I swear it will be your last.”

He leaps at me, finishing his shift midair.

I pivot and swipe, cutting off his greedy hand. A cry of agony rattles my eardrums. But chopped arm or not, he’s fast and hits back, using his weight to send me crashing into a feeding station. My wrist strikes the corner, and I lose my sword. I barely catch the swinging claw he aims at my face.

Toso hurtles himself on top of the owner’s head, biting and scratching. I follow Toso’s lead, biting the exposed flesh of the owner’s other arm. He screeches like the swine he is and violently shakes his head, flinging Toso away.

We roll along the dirty floor, wrestling and trying to kill each other. In his shifted form, he’s able to put up a hell of a fight against me. The struggle is intense. He’s heavy and strong, but I’m elven, mad as hell, and refuse to let him go. I turn, adjusting my body until I manage to clutch his trembling good arm between my legs. With all my strength, I twist. The limb is hard to break in his animal form. It takes some effort, but the crunch when I succeed is pure satisfaction, as are my blows that follow.

I punch him in the throat and kick him far enough away to give me time to scramble to my sword.

The shopkeeper leaps again, but Toso bites down on his ankle, surprising him and limiting the height of his jump.

Not a problem. It’s high enough. Arcing my blade horizontally through the space between us, I sever his spine.

My first kill. I think I ought to feel worse about it.

Two halves of the shopkeeper land at my feet, but it offers me little satisfaction. He got off a lot easier than he deserved. Breathing deep, I stomp back toward the entrance and snag my cloak, draping it over myself to cover my bloodstained shirt.

When I reach the front door, Toso right behind, I kick it open, blood-slicked sword in one hand and Dahlia’s doll in the other. It’s only by luck that the streets are empty.

“Princess?” a familiar voice asks.

Or not.

I don’t notice Uni right away. His old brown shirt and breeches blend into the siding of the house he stands before. He pulls his baby girl in a wagon and uses his free arm to carry a stack of firewood he must have just purchased, given he’s so far from his neighborhood.

“Princess?” he says again.

I swallow hard. That title hurts me now. Princesses do better by their people.

As queen, my first task will be freeing Papa. The second, ending the combat in the arena. And every task that follows will involve seeing to those who need me and protecting them from the likes of that shifter lying dead on the floor of the shop.

My steps feel heavy as I walk toward him. “Uni, will you help me with something?”

He drops his pile of wood and looks from his child to me. “You saved my little girl. I’ll do anything for you, Princess.”

My eyes sting. Yes, he would.

“I want you to bring everyone who’s in need to this store. Take whatever you want. Food, jewelry, gold—anything—oh, but first close the door to the aviary so no one sees the dead body. Will you do that for me, Uni?”

His eye sweeps down to look at his daughter. His sweet baby is wrapped in the towels I used to bathe her the day she was born. They don’t have much. Today, they’ll have more, as will everyone Uni brings here.

“Are you sure, Princess?”

“Yes,” I tell him. “Just two stipulations. One, you didn’t see me.”

He nods. “What’s the other?”

I take another look at that building that made its fortune in lies. “When the shop is cleared and everyone’s gone, burn it to the ground.”