Already, the first groups were starting to make their way back, carrying chameleon cats and leopards between them. An air pixie met them at the edge of the bed, using his winds to guide the bodies of the sleeping feybeasts to the ground. A few of the knights and guards had remained behind to guard his lordship should the hypnosis fail to stay in place for the full hour it was supposed to, if a surge happened, or if they were beset upon by other beasts.

  His deep voice commanded attention and obedience as he said simply, “You’re up, Athereon.”

  This was the part she hated the most. He’d insisted that she teach the hunters just as she would normally, in front of the remaining knights and guards. As the first beast was laid down in the spot indicated by the hunters, she trotted forward, her eyes wary on the rest of them.

  The redcap rubbed his hands together with a grin. “Going to show us how it’s done, pricklebear?”

  That alone got the interest of several of those present, who exchanged curious glances with each other about the redcap flirting with the greenling.

  Her expression flattened, but she returned her attention to the chameleon cat in front of her. Pulling out her skinning knife, she spoke quietly enough that the others found themselves leaning in unconsciously.

  “You need to be fast and accurate. Cut too close to the skin and you’ll rip holes in the whole thing, make it unusable. If you cut too deep, you’ll kill it before you finish pulling off the skin, and if you don’t cut it off before it poofs, you’ll have wasted your efforts.” She pointed to where she would be cutting first, explaining the process she would be performing so she didn’t waste time speaking while doing it.

  Then, without any further ado, she trotted forward without an ounce of hesitation and sliced along the pattern she’d already told them. Scrambling over the creature to do so before gripping the back of the neck, slicing around the cuts she’d already made, and ripping back the skin.

  More of the groups returned, standing at the edge of the treebed to watch the tiny greenling pixie easily scramble over the chameleon cat’s sleeping form, skinning it with enviable dexterity, ripping off the flesh before one last swipe to cut the flesh off the creature.

  Just in time, the creature let out a keening cry in its sleep before poofing into a stone, leaving her with an almost perfect skin from the creature’s back.

  Carefully, she folded it, explaining to keep innards on innards to those gathered around her. Even Paloka looked eager to try.

  Trotting backwards and setting the pelt aside in the area they had designated to pile components, the hunters then all dispersed to their stations to begin trying their own hand at it. What followed was a series of poofs and aggravated shouts when the creature died too quickly, or they ruined the pelt with a bad cut. She’d made it look easy, and now she found herself scowling as they wasted pelt after pelt.

  Lord Everwinter didn’t interfere, noting the rage slowly bubbling over in the diminutive pixie before she finally snapped.

  “Gods damnit, Qzi, you’re cutting too deep—” she snapped as she darted forward, angrily grabbing his hand over his blade and redirecting his hand. “And Jul, heating the knife makes it harder and ruins the gods damn pelt.”

  “But I was just—it looks cooked when you’re done with it—”

  “Tanning isn’t the same gods damn thing as cooking it, idiot.” She deliberately ignored the bliss-filled face of the redcap at their nearness, scowling down at their work before muttering, “Try again, dumbass.” Then she darted over to Ala’ole. “You didn’t connect the cuts well—the ones you made around the legs were good, but then you cut above the layer of fat instead of below it. Pick one.”

  “Hey Huntress? Mind showing us on the big one?”

  She scowled at the oversized chameleon leopard as she trotted over. It was technically evolved, but there was no separate distinction for the bigger form. Rather than jumping onto it and stabbing away, she trotted around it, sizing it up before her fists clenched, her shoulders tensed, and her scowl deepened.

  The pest appeared at her side. “Can I offer my assistance, my goddess?”

  She gave him a dour look, annoyed at his flirtations. Still, even if it made a muscle feather in her jaw, she nodded. “Grab where I tell you to grab, and when I say to pull, start pulling.” She stepped forward, stopped, and turned with a glare back at him. “And don’t pull with all your absurd strength. You rip the pelt and I’ll skin you, next.”

  He grinned. “If I don’t rip it, do I get a reward?”

  “Piss off,” she muttered as she began.

  Squirt didn’t notice that it wasn’t just the hunters that stopped what they were doing to watch as she fluidly moved her knife under the feybeast’s skin, clambering over the body with delicate hops and skilled confident grace.

  When she was ready, she climbed onto the thing’s back, telling the pest, “Grab here,” before sliding her knife around to connect her incisions. “Pull,” she commanded, scrambling over to where he had been while his wings came out to lift, shielding her from his absurd aura like he always did. She crawled under where the skin was detaching to cut it away, the skinning knives she had too short to do this from the outside of the skin. The gruesome work covered her head to toe in gore, but she was prepared for that and didn’t hesitate at all.

  The pest kept even pressure as he slowly ripped off the skin, Squirt slashing away at it as quickly as possible, slipping and sliding in the blood and muscle tissue as she did. She got to the end, abruptly cutting off the rest of the pelt right before the creature went poof and she landed in a crouch, covered in blood and bits of flesh.

  Qzi breathed out a, “Fuck me, that’s hot,” followed by a grunt as Tobias landed a punch in his gut and dragged him away as he whined, “My pricklebear, gods, I’ve never wanted anyone more.”

  Nonchalantly pulling out a cloth, Squirt wiped her face enough that none of it risked falling into her eyes before returning her attention back to scanning over the rest of the hunters, blatantly ignoring the redcap’s overtures.

  They all burst back into motion at her glare, their concentration high as they all attempted the same feats that she had made look so easy.

  An hour or so later, one of the guards made the mistake of muttering, “Gods, they’re wasting so many of these damn things, why do we even bother?” within earshot of his lordship.

  “Hewick,” called out the lord in a chillingly even tone, “join the hunters and try your hand at skinning a beast.”

  The burly bear d’mi straightened, a challenging glint in his eyes as he said, “As you wish, my lord. Move aside, toff.”

  Squirt bristled on behalf of Fenry. Sure, she didn’t like the woman, and it was clear she had some animosity towards Squirt, but to be called a toff?

  Asshole.

  She stepped between them, making Fenry blink in surprise as she held out her own skinning knife and bowed politely to the knight. “A blade to use, Sir Hewick.”

  Fenry hesitated, but Tobias called her away to help with one of the larger creatures and she then left willingly.

  The guard grumbled as he got to work, muttering, “It’s not that hard to skin a damn beast. Gods. Stupid Capital fey aren’t even able to do something as basic as—”

  His cuts had been skilled and knowledgeable, but mistakes that wouldn’t have made a difference on a deer were enough to kill the creature under him this time. A poof of red smoke, a feystone, and hands full of blood were all he was left with.

  He blinked at his clawed-tipped fingers, then growled, cursing as he did. He was brought the next animal and tried again.

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  And again.

  And again.

  At no point did Squirt offer to correct him, just stood by his side demurely as he grew more frustrated with each failed attempt.

  Meanwhile, her hunters were improving rapidly. Zhadin and Qzi were the best two, able to reliably skin their creatures. Fenry wasn’t far behind. Vox had paired himself with the easily frustrated Jul, who struggled the most. Even Paloka was given a blade to try on the savocs, the form before the chameleon cat, to try skinning herself, and she was getting close to managing her first skin.

  Finally, the fey lost a skin when he was only halfway through his work, his fist coming down to punch the earth as he shouted, “Gods damn it!” in frustration.

  Squirt took a measured step back.

  He huffed and puffed, fury emanating from him in waves before his shoulders slumped. “… what am I doing wrong, huntress?”

  Squirt didn’t respond right away, warily waiting for his tired and defeated eyes to raise to hers, making sure that he was actually addressing her.

  Still, she hesitated, and when she spoke the voice was quiet in its firmness. Not soft or yielding but lacking the fire with which she’d snapped at the others. “You’re used to cutting game where it doesn’t matter if you cut below or above the fat layer. It doesn’t matter for this, except because you aren’t choosing one or the other, you’re having to cut too deep in some places to connect the lines.”

  Squirt waited, seeing how he took the advice before she continued. “Cut above the fat where you can, as close to the skin as possible. Cutting under the fat is too close to internal organs and it makes them bleed out before you can finish.”

  He frowned. “You cut under the fat layers in places.”

  “I’m faster than you.”

  His expression reproachful, he asked, “How fast could you do this work? Skin a whole animal like this.”

  Apparently, he hadn’t seen her demonstrations earlier. With a sigh, Squirt held out her hand for the skinning knife. He stared at her open palm dumbly for a moment before he suddenly put the pieces together and handed her the blade.

  A whooping shout of, “Fuck yeah, show him how it’s done, pricklebear,” followed by a grunt made her roll her eyes as she directed the next batch of creatures brought out by the knights to lay down in a line side-by-side.

  She didn’t immediately jump on them, though.

  Instead, she trotted over to the lord and bowed politely.

  “Yes, Athereon?”

  “Lord Everwinter, may I inquire if the lunch hour is close enough to call the others back?”

  He considered this, drawing his eyes up to look at the positioning of the sun. “Very well, Athereon. Let us break for lunch.”

  He didn’t even need to command it, as the Captain of his Guard was already barking out orders to call everyone back. As they came back, she directed the rest of the beasts to add to the line until she had a good twenty creatures of various shapes and sizes before her.

  They had also started bringing out creatures that weren’t just in the chameleon family—riisets and wa’vus, moonwings, quillbeasts—those she set up in their own line, preparing the sheets for collection of the paralytic powders and flamesacs. The rest of the encampment spread out around her lines, the hunters pulling out stoves she had made them to heat up their own lunches while the knights suffered field rations. It was enough to make the knights green with envy.

  Tobias waved a stirring spoon tauntingly. “Just ask our huntress to make you your own stove. Oh, wait, that’s right…” his voice dropped, gaining a deadly edge to it. “She’s just a greenling.”

  Several of the knights dropped their eyes, some even flushing with shame.

  Squirt scowled angrily at Tobias as she oscillated between wanting to wring his neck for riling them and being flattered. Settling for neither, with the last party back from the treebed and lunch underway, she bowed towards Lord Everwinter and intoned, “At your command, my lord.”

  One of the knights grumbled, “Gods, can’t we get a break? We’re eating here,” followed by a grunt as the one next to her elbowed her hard.

  Lord Everwinter stepped closer to observe close up, nodding to her. “On your own mark.”

  She dipped just a bit lower, pulling out her skinning blades. Qzi was practically beside himself as he started bouncing in his seat, his arms wrapped around Samuan and squeezing her in his excitement.

  Squirt’s shoulders hunched when the pest reappeared by her back, wings already out and floating above her like a shining beacon of beauty. “Want my help for the big ones?”

  She scowled down at the ground but nodded. “Fine.” Shifting her goggles up, she placed them over her eyes, then tied the handkerchief around her neck to pull up when she needed it for the second line.

  Moving to the first beast, she gave a courtly bow to each titled fey in order of their rank for absolute politeness, mollifying some of them in the process.

  After the last bow, she started. One by one. Each chameleon cat or leopard in quick succession. The bigger leopards that were an evolved form or two higher up on the scale, she repeated the same process she had earlier with the pest pulling as she climbed under the skin, slicing her way across the creature’s back. Those pelts were big enough even for the massive wolf that was Lord Everwinter.

  Twenty pelts finished in less than twenty minutes.

  Then she moved on to the next line, without once pausing. Plucking quills, cutting out flamesacs, carefully slicing the wings and cutting off the venom glands with the same dexterity and confidence she had done the rest.

  When she was finished, covered in gore and breathing a little heavily, she removed the handkerchief and goggles, then bowed to his lordship, and waited.

  A loud, slow clap sounded, reverberating in the space before his lordship then turned to address the stunned guards and knights. “I will have you all know that the very enchantment that has made this job the tedious trek instead of a grueling multi-day battle was invented by this same huntress. And while I have heard many complaints from each of you here about the work, its tedium or gross nature, or even the inconvenience of camping out for a night, I will remind you that this is a hunter’s job. This is the Guard’s job. Maintaining balance by managing the feybeast populations, only the genius that is this woman has uncovered many more uses for these items.”

  He then turned to her. “Athereon, tell us all about the uses for the components you have gathered.”

  A direct order. She swallowed, shifting from foot to foot. Every single attendee could see her nerves as they spilled out onto her face and into her voice.

  She bowed. “As you wish, my lord.” One by one, she went down the line, explaining the uses she’d found for the different materials. By the end, her voice was hoarse and her throat parched.

  He used a finger, crooking it at her to command her forward. Trepidatious, she obeyed until she was directly before him, trembling a little.

  He put his hand on her head, wordlessly casting a cleansing spell filled with enough power to temporarily stun her, before unhooking his own water skin to hand to her. She took it with trembling hands, wanting nothing more than to disappear back into obscurity.

  Still, to not accept the obvious gift would have been a slight, so she guzzled the water down. There was something extra about it, something powerful, and by the time she finished sating her thirst she felt energized once again instead of exhausted.

  She’d have to question him on it later.

  Instead, she carefully held it out to him with two hands as was polite, her eyes down.

  “Athereon, I believe we have some extra time. Do you have your shots of the red dust from your training demonstration?”

  She scowled but nodded. “Yes, my lord.” Technically the dust she had made then was far less potent than what she had now, as the stuff then she’d specifically made to use against other members of the Guard.

  “Good. Sir Calst, Sir Hewick, Lady Gnusha, Lady Vanreal, Titled Uwoth. All five of you expressed that you thought the trainees were merely weak and have been staunch opposers of Athereon’s traps in the war to come. Let’s see if you’re right. Stand over there. Athereon, I’d like you to shoot one of those red powder bombs at them. No one else will help them. I will give them the chance to cleanse themselves as they claim would be so simple to do.”

  His stern gaze slid over the bowed heads of every fey present. Two of those he called scoffed as they stood and stalked over to where he’d indicated. One paled. Sir Hewick couldn’t pale, as his face was full of fur, but his expression was one of someone trudging their way to the gallows.

  Squirt wanted to question his lordship on the wiseness of this decision, but unfortunately, he’d sprung this demonstration on her. She couldn’t question him in front of these witnesses without risking retribution. It was doubtful even Tobias would protect her against him if she truly challenged his authority.

  Swallowing her nerves, she pulled out the slingshot that got more scoffs and chortles from the knights present.

  The hunters, meanwhile, took a collective step back. Even Paloka tugged her uncle’s arm, the man somehow perfectly clean despite the messy work of the morning, getting him to step back as she whispered to him in their language. He obeyed reluctantly with his lips pressed into a firm line.

  Steeling herself, she lined up the shot and fired.

  The effects were instant.

  As soon as the powder burst on the armor of Sir Calst and exploded in a plume of bright red, the fey started screaming. Squirt winced, knowing what a mistake it was to do so. Screaming did two things—first, it opened one’s mouth, coating the delicate and sensitive flesh there while also absorbing the toxin into the bloodstream. Second, it was usually accompanied by a lungful of air, which got the toxin into their lungs.

  There was no cleanse that would save them from that.

  The ones with summer-based magic attempted to call water to cleanse themselves, but their words were cut off by hacking coughs and bile as their stomachs emptied themselves of the lunches they just had.

  Squirt blinked, realizing what this really was—punishment. The lord was punishing them with the blazing ant powder shot while also making a point. She had a feeling that these five wouldn’t be allowed a second lunch, meaning they would be going hungry after puking up everything they’d had.

  His lordship must have finally taken pity on them as they rolled around in the dirt, desperately trying to get rid of non-existent flames and incidentally only coating themselves in more of the stuff. Raising one hand, he wordlessly cast a cleanse over the entire area and the five victims.

  It wasn’t enough, though. Those with the toxin in their bloodstreams and lungs wouldn’t be able to be fixed without a healer’s touch. They would suffer until their bodies finished processing and expunging. They continued to roll on the ground, bleeding from their eyes, noses, and mouths, one desperately rubbing dirt on his face and in his mouth as if it could help.

  The lord merely turned, leaving them to suffer as he addressed the pale Captain of his Guard. “Captain Evense, reorganize the teams. It seems these five are unable to continue at this time.”

  She flinched at his address, then bowed with her eyes wide in awed respect. “As you wish, my lord. Shall we continue?”

  “Let’s.”