“Karl, you’re a disgrace.” Andric spat the words at his subordinate.

  “Yes, sir,” Karl said, nodding in agreement, still as sickeningly eager to please as always even as Andric berated him. With night having just fallen, Andric could not see his facial expressions. He wished he could have done this reprimand in daylight.

  The harpy beside them nodded fervently along with Karl, visibly agitated. “I cannot believe my sister had to continue the fight on her own, while you—”

  “Tatiana, I have this handled,” Andric said curtly. “Why don’t you go and see to Sabine?”

  The harpy let out a little displeased huff of air and did not take a single step away from the action, but she also said nothing back. They were surrounded by men who had sworn to fight for Andric, and she probably knew she might be shouted down if she tried to argue with him too strenuously.

  “For your punishment—” Andric began, but he stopped as he heard a quiet voice speak up from some thirty feet behind him.

  “May I speak with your leader?”

  The female voice that spoke the words was small and gentle, but in the stillness of the moment, it carried from where the speaker had uttered the words, all the way down the slope to Andric. He felt a shiver run down his spine.

  He knew the voice, knew it like he knew any that he had ever heard throughout his relatively short twenty-one years of life. He had heard a voice almost exactly identical to it just hours earlier. But he had never expected to hear this woman’s voice out here. Not while the Army was still in the area.

  It’s not safe…

  Andric swallowed and turned his head back to face up the mountainside, and he saw her.

  As tall and beautiful of face as her sister, but thinner, waif-like, almost ascetic in appearance, with eyes that carried all the sadness and wisdom in the world. The two sisters’ alluring beauty was almost opposite in some sense, just through the differing airs they carried.

  If Victoria was the daylight, shining through the clouds, Vidalia Twinleaf was the moonlight, casting a sense of ethereal magic all about her surroundings without ever needing to try. One was sunshine, tanned skin, health, and frankly a picture of fertility; Victoria looked like she could get pregnant from a lustful look. The other was pale, delicate, half-starved, and had been reclusive for almost half her life; one could easily imagine Vidalia dying in childbirth.

  Yet, if he was honest, Andric was more drawn to Vidalia. Her delicate beauty subtly called on any honorable man who saw her to protect her—from other men and even from the weather. Andric was probably more vulnerable to that than most men. The sickly air about her also made her seem less of this world, which was fitting for a seer. She was the only truly magical person he had ever met, and he had been suitably enchanted since they were children.

  Despite her position of importance, as the village’s only seer and one of two members of their tribe who had a class, Vidalia wore the same thin sackcloth dress as the poorest peasant girl. Hers seemed poorly taken care of, ragged and worn through in a few places, with patches covering the worst holes. The material, even at its best, was ill suited to the cold air of mountain nights, and Andric could see the wind passing through the fox maiden’s clothing even from thirty feet away.

  The family is poor. Even for beastfolk. I could take much better care of her. Of both of them.

  “Let her through!” Andric called to the ibex beastman who was talking to the woman and had been firmly if gently barring her way.

  Vidalia turned her head to look down at Andric and gave him a gentle smile, then began closing the distance.

  What is she here for? he thought nervously. The Twinleaf family was an object of fascination for him. The daughters were at once the most beautiful and distinguished girls in the village, and also a potential threat to his own family’s power and influence. Only a handful of households had ever held the village chief role for more than a generation, and most of those lines were dead as a result of the centuries of racial conflict their people had been subjected to.

  But the Twinleaf family abided. They always survived.

  Because of the power that lives in her… that lives in half the women of their blood.

  The power that could live on in his own descendants, if the two families joined their bloodlines.

  Vidalia reached him and gave Andric a relieved look.

  “Thank you for permitting me to enter your camp, war chief,” she said, speaking in a very formal tone and style. Andric became conscious again of the fact that he was surrounded by his warriors. They had all faded into the background as soon as he saw Vidalia in the flesh, but she was surely talking this way for their benefit. “Would you permit me to speak?”

  “Of—of course I will.”

  I never meant to actually make her come down here…

  “Thank you.”

  She lowered her head in a bow, and her tail tucked itself between her legs.

  “My sister conveyed how my words came across to you earlier,” Vidalia said. “So I came in person to apologize for my disrespect. If you perceived me as attempting to give you orders in any way, that was not my intention. You are a man, and you have defended our village and our people very courageously. I would never wish to deprecate the risks that you take to keep us safe, or to command you. I know it’s not my place.”

  She visibly shivered with cold as she spoke. Her flimsy clothing, thin and delicate body, and submissive posture all filled Andric with a strange combination of guilt and arousal as he looked at her. He felt bad that he had dismissed the last message conveyed through Victoria, he felt the desire to warm Vidalia up somehow—she was not dressed for the evening weather at all—and at the same time, there was a dark thrill to seeing her so visibly humbled. The proud, aloof girl he had been chasing for half his life was bowing her head to him.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  An instant after he felt that strange pleasure, he knew it was wrong to feel it. Vidalia was trying to persuade him of something. They were in a life or death situation with the Army camped out just a couple of miles away. He needed to get a grip.

  “Um, forget about that,” Andric said awkwardly, his face growing hot. “I wasn’t offended. I just wasn’t sure you were seeing the situation entirely clearly, not being on the ground yourself…”

  “That was the other reason why I came,” she said, finally raising her head and making eye contact. “I know I’m weak in body, and I would not make much use as a warrior. But I wanted to show the strength of my convictions by being here in person rather than sending someone else to speak for me. I thank you for keeping this part of the mountain safe, so that a young woman may walk freely without fear of… harm. To body or virtue.”

  He could tell she was trying to pump up his ego, as well as those of his fighters, but that didn’t prevent it from working. He felt himself standing up a little straighter.

  “What—” his breath caught—“what was it you wanted to say, exactly? I don’t want to keep you out here any longer than necessary.”

  He genuinely meant that. Part of it was sympathy from seeing how her visibly malnourished body shook in the cold. Part of it was a slight fear that this part of the mountainside actually was subject to attack, despite his best efforts. If Vidalia was killed or assaulted walking home from here, it would be a terrible loss for both himself and the tribe. It would also make Andric look like a monster if people started to talk about how she had come in person, despite being weak and sickly, just to show him that she was willing to put her life on the line to apologize to him.

  “As you wish. I’m here with two requests. First, please, please don’t send any more of our young warriors to face those two soldiers that your men fought this evening.”

  Andric flushed. I already know I made a mistake not listening to you about that. But… yeah, if you hadn’t appeared, I have to admit, I would have definitely pursued them. He felt a tension in the air from everyone else around that matched his own feelings from before Vidalia had spoken.

  All of his fighters wanted to go and finish off the two soldiers, who seemed, from the description Karl and Sabine had given, to be near the end of their rope. The fire user had been too weak after the skirmish to give chase to her opponents, and the other soldier had taken an arrow to the chest, near the heart. Until Vidalia mentioned sparing him, Andric had assumed he was dead.

  “Why not?” he made himself ask.

  “They will eventually be friends of our people,” she said.

  There was a grumble of discontent from the men and harpies all around Andric, but he raised a hand, and they quieted.

  “I know it may be hard to believe, but it is the truth,” Vidalia said. “They are also two highly dangerous individuals, and the loss of life that you would suffer to defeat them would not be worth any temporary advantage you could gain. I also have another reason, related to my second request.”

  You had better be right about them joining our side, Andric thought. We were so close to killing those two off. If there had only been a few more archers and slingers, they would surely be dead already. Now they’ve had no time to recuperate. If they’re as strong as you say, this could be our only chance…

  He nodded. “Go on.”

  “In a day, two days, not more than three—timelines are always hard to determine for certain, but the signs are all coming together—the fox beastfolk village will come under attack. A combined group of soldiers and miners will come to burn, kill, rob, and rape.” Her voice broke on those last words. “I beg that your group should return closer to our village, so that you may defend the elderly, the children, and the women who have been left behind as you led your daring attacks on the Army.”

  The request was obviously unselfish. Vidalia and her family did not live in the village itself. They were distant enough that she might reasonably have expected to remain unaffected by such an attack if she anticipated it and simply hid her family.

  Still, Andric couldn't help but interpret a slight dig in her phrasing. When Andric had determined that he would fight the Army, back when Vidalia first warned the tribal leaders about their return to the area, she had counseled that hiding would be better. She had argued that the elderly, the children, and the women could not afford to suffer the brunt of the retaliation that would inevitably come from challenging the Army. With her powers, she could all but guarantee that they would never be found in the hiding place she would select.

  But the elders had not wanted to place too much faith in the fox maiden, whose predictions were sometimes far off in time from when events actually happened—or occasionally even wrong. They had sided with Andric instead.

  “How does this relate to your first request?” he asked.

  “When our village is attacked, those two soldiers will turn on their squad and defend us. Though their might would not be enough to defeat the numbers of our opponents ordinarily, if you and your men are there, too, then our people will surely survive. Without either the two soldiers or your fighters participating, the attack will end in a victory for the Kingdom’s Army.”

  He made his voice hard. “Is all of this certain? Set in stone? Or speculative?”

  “It’s as certain as the sun rising tomorrow,” Vidalia replied. “I would stake my life on it. No, I do stake my life on it. If I’m wrong, please kill me in three days, as an example to future seers.” She lowered her head again, tilting it slightly this time as if baring her throat for a cut.

  Andric’s face tightened. Those were not words the fox maiden could easily take back, if she had not known how her audience would react. He could feel how the men around him stiffened at the alarming suggestion of killing the beautiful young woman.

  “I reject the offer,” he said, slightly annoyed.

  He knew he was being manipulated to some degree. He had known it before, but this part was by far the most overt. Part of it was his own fault for the way he had framed his rejection of her advice earlier.

  He also suspected that the seer was telling him the truth as best she understood it. That was the most annoying thing about Vidalia. The prediction, what she believed was going to happen, was inseparable from the prescription, what she thought you should do about it. If she didn’t have an idea for a solution, she would simply keep silent and treat the future as inevitable.

  And, like most women, she thought she was cleverer than she actually was.

  When we are wed, I will tame her, Andric thought. And I’ll make her tell me everything she sees. Share every dream with me.

  “We will leave the two soldiers to lick their wounds, then,” he said. “We will return to the perimeter of the village, since it’s as certain as the sunrise that there will be an attack there… sometime soon.” He locked eyes with Vidalia again. “You’d better be right about that.”

  “I am.”

  He nodded, and his voice softened. “Will you take an escort back to your home? It’s become very dark since you set out.”

  “No, Andric,” Vidalia said. She smiled that strange, slightly sad, ethereal smile of hers. “I truly meant what I said about you keeping the mountain safe for a young maiden to walk alone. And if I was meant to be harmed tonight, I would have dreamt about it. The powers are good for that much, at least. Thank you for listening.” She bowed her head once more, hands clasped in front of her chest.

  Then she turned and began ascending the hill again.

  Andric was still very cognizant of the fact that he had been manipulated—was perhaps being manipulated even at this very moment, for a woman’s beauty was in part a manipulation—but his eyes followed her up nevertheless, his gaze hungry for all that his hands could not touch. Those long legs, the slender, delicate dancer’s figure, the tail that wagged gently from side to side with the subtle sway of her hips, the maiden’s braid that he longed to undo…

  One day, he thought. Soon.

  , of course, we are now 29 chapters ahead of Royal Road, so we can know if Vidalia's prediction came true or not...