SYBIL

“Why did you buy them?” Haven asks me when we start our trek back home. We’re lucky we brought our own wagon this time, instead of our usual walk. “Endentured servants don’t pay the bills. They don’t feed the skeletons.”

My smile comes unexpectedly. I bite down a laugh at the thought of Willard trying to chew on a man’s arm. The uneasy self-satisfaction has plagued me off and on since we left Torsen. “I have enough food to feed the empire,” I remind her.

She rolls her eyes and elbows me, hands otherwise occupied by the reins. I fight the urge to take her hand for the thousandth time since we left for Torsen the day before. The road to and from Reisau was much shorter with a set of wheels, a horse, and a warm companion. “Syb,” she whines.

“Look, if they want to work on our farm, they can. If they want to go home, they can. Reisau is a safe place for beastmen and sympathizers.”

Haven sighs, “Maggie is going to be pissed.” Probably. “What if not all of them aren’t… innocent bystanders?”

I shrug. “We’re letting them go. What they do after Reisau is none of my business.”

Haven sighs, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” She smiles at me. “But it is very sweet.”

“Will you protect me?” I ask, leaning into her side. She passes the reins into one hand to hook her arm around my waist and kisses the top of my head.

“From Maggie?” She shakes her head, “That’s all on you, Syb. No force in the realms could stop that woman’s wrath.”

I nod. I knew as much. I rub my forehead. I’d gotten caught up in the war again. Except this was a different battleground. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d long come to terms that all wars were the same, just on different days. My self-righteous nose couldn’t leave clean enough alone. “That damned prince,” I mutter.

Haven must hear me because she nods. “That damn prince,” she echoes.

We aren’t far behind my new wagon filled with personal slaves–I bristle at the thought. Once we returned home, I would have Lasis cut ties with that buyer as much as humanly possible–unless… Unless it would afford me the covert opportunity to purchase and release as many of the people he was actively trafficking as possible. I didn’t imagine he’d have use for more produce so quickly though, and I couldn’t imagine that human trafficking was a particularly slow trade. We rode up behind the wagon. Morose eyes peered out at us through the bars for miles before I urged Haven to ride ahead. We would have to warn Maggie, for one, and on the second hand… I couldn’t bear to ride so closely to them with those dumb guards around.

But then, when the night came and the road became difficult to see by, we were forced to pull off and build camp. I shuddered in the cold while Haven built a small fire for us. It might be the middle of summer, but the colds still got cool this far north. She finished her work and came to sit beside me, pulling me into her and wrapping us in a cotton blanket that Jun had packed for us. “You are too good for your own… good,” Haven scolds me in a sweet whisper that raises goosebumps along my arms.

She kisses my shoulder and I’m filled with warmth from my chest to my curled toes. “Am I?” I ask distractedly as desire burns in my belly. She slips her fingers beneath my shirt and pulls me to sit between her legs. I shiver at the contact.

“What are you going to do with the ones that stay?” She asks, voice vibrating against my collarbone. My neck reflexively arches away, leaving it open for more of her warm kisses.

I whimper a moan, “I can’t think when you do that,” I breathe. She pulls away, inviting the cool air to nip at the small wet kisses she’s left behind. I grimmace, “That was mean.”

She squeezes my sides, tickling me, and pulls me tighter against her chest. “So?”

I sigh and shake my head, “Mags asked if I could build some temp housing on the farm property. I could employ them to do some of that work. They could live there with the beastmen if the king’s men ever come to call.”

She sets her chin against my shoulder and leans her face against mine. She smells like sweat, road dirt, and honeysuckle. I could drink her in for hours. “Is Mathieus running out of glamor potions?”

“That’s what Maggie said.”

“Do you really feel comfortable with all those strangers on your land?”

I smile, “It isn’t like I don’t have people on at all hours,” I remind her. “We have the space, and it’s a great deal better than letting them have free reign over Reisau.”

She sighs, “We have to warn Maggie before we get there.”

She freezes behind me and I sit up straighter, inclining my ear. Beyond the fire, I hear the tell-tale clop of hooves. I sigh. “They didn’t stop.”

Haven winces and pulls away from me, wrapping me up in the blanket. “Do you want me to ride ahead? You ride with the prisoners? Maybe slow them a bit?”

I look up at her in alarm. “You’re gonna ride through the night? Alone?”

She kisses my forehead and squeezes my bicep. “It won’t be bad. I’ll sleep when I get home.”

“It’s another six hours out,” I argue. Luckily the road between Torsen and Reisau were generally safe, but the idea of her riding with so little sleep unnerved me.

Haven watches the approach of the wagon along the road and pats my shoulders, “It’ll be better. I’ll see you at home. I’ll be safe,” she promises and kisses me sweetly.

I grasp her elbows, reluctant to let her go, but she pulls away and rouses the horse.

By the time the wagon rolls into the campfire light, Haven has hitched the horse to the wagon and has disappeared into the night toward Reisau. I wave the guards down. “Come on, get off the road,” I grumble at the alarmed men on the seat who stop the wagon. “You’re not going to get all the way to Reisau in one bout.”

The guards exchange a look but shrug and turn off the road by my fire. “Where’s your ride?” One of the men asks.

“Sent ahead to ready lodgings for our new…” I hesitate, looking for a word that might throw suspicion, “help.” I decide. “I’ll ride with you in the morning.”

They nod and begin to unload the prisoners. They’ve obviously done this so often that they have it down to a routine: the prisoners get led out in pairs with a guard’s supervision into the woods to relieve themselves before being led back to the prison wagon with its bars. The other guard kept watch on the prisoners laying along the floor, trying to catch some shut-eye, I think. I avoid the temptation to drift over and talk with the beastmen, instead rolling out my bedroll out across the ground near the campfire.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Once all the prisoners had been let out to take care of business and were locked back in their awful cage-on-wheels, the guards started setting up their own sleeping accommodations across the fire from me. I bristled at the thought of sleeping around people I didn’t know, especially without my usual (over-) protective friends.

I was pleasantly surprised when one of them took up guarding while the other turned over to sleep, starting to snore almost immediately. Good, I think to myself as I roll over, myself. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, much less a random guardsman that was holding mostly innocent (or all innocent) prisoners hostage. The thought made my blood boil. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to still the wrath that ebbs just beyond my reach. It would do no good unleashing my fury onto these men who were doing nothing more than a job they probably didn’t enjoy to put food on the table for their families.

Once my breathing settles into a natural rhythm, I wiggle my fingers into the soil just beyond my blankets, and press my magic out in a wide net. I twine my magic in around that of mycelium just beneath the surface, asking if they wouldn’t mind waking me if something amiss occurs. A flare of yellow magic scrapes gently against mine and I gasp, coming back to myself. It was coming from the prison wagon. I turn and look at it, expecting to meet someone’s eyes, but no one seems to have moved.

I rub the magic out of my fingertips, feeling self-conscious. To my knowledge, I am the last of the necromancers in Led. The only necromancer I hadn’t accounted for was Ben, but no one had seen him in decades. Could Ben have branched off to start his own community of necromancers? The yellow magic had been faint, but it was clear–unmuddied. It was pure. I shiver under my blankets, thinking of Haven and Soleil.

I hadn’t seen Soleil since the other day when I’d come into town, and I missed him sorely. Just as much as I missed Haven, whose breath I could still feel tingling against my neck, long after she hit the road to home. I worried about her trek over the night road. Luckily these roads were relatively safe from the highwaymen of the East, but there were still animals in these woods… and old druidic traps. I wince at the memory and miss Henry.

I close my eyes and feel the brush of mycelium agreeing to warn me of any unsavory activity. The yellow magic doesn’t resurface again and I wonder if I’d imagined it. The day’s events catch up to me and I am dragged into a gentle sleep.

I sit on the seat between the guards the following morning, trying without success to avoid brushing the arms of the men on either side of me. I hear the quiet murmurings of the men behind us in the wagon. It is a long six hours. The tree cover lends some reprieve from the sun above, but the humidity from the rain just a few days ago hangs heavy in the air and makes my clothes stick to my skin. My fingers itch to dig into the soil, knowing that my family is at home toiling without me. I spend six hours hoping the wagon hurries so that I can let these prisoners go and get back to my life.

We eventually pull into Reisau only to be met by Maggie, who has taken up standing on the side of the road with her hands on either hip. My heart dips into my stomach. She was not happy. Not that I blamed her. The prisoners we were told were coming through were not supposed to be my property all of a sudden–much less allegedly innocent products of a discriminatory law instated by a long-missing prince.

I’d hear about it later, for certain.

“Ho, there boys. Where ya headin’ to?” She calls as we approach.

The guard raises his hand in greeting while the other slows the horses to a stop. The one regards me carefully before telling the mayor, “Just passing on through.”

I take advantage of the stalled wagon and hop down. My legs are wobbly from all of the sitting I’ve done. “Hi. Uh. Yes. Transporting prisoners.” The guards know as well as I do how illegal human trafficking is, and this is my responsibility now. I didn’t want them becoming suspicious that I wasn’t taking slaves. “Can you, erm.” I hesitate, realizing how absurd I sound. “Unload them so that we can sort them into their cells?” I call.

The guards do as they’re asked, lining up prisoners against the rock wall that Maggie has painstakingly built over the years, stone by rugged stone. She sidles up to me. “Really?” she asks incredulously in a whisper.

“If it wasn’t me, they’d go to someone else,” I whisper back. “Look at them,” I nod my head as the guards have them sit on the ground, wrists all bound.

“I saw,” Maggie grumbles. “We don’t have nearly enough glamour for that many people and our own.”

I nod, “The ones that decide to stay can do so in the hostel I’m building for town.”

She winces. “That was meant for our people,” she reminded me.

I shrug. “What’s a few extra hands? It’s not like all of them will stay.”

“What if some of them actually are dangerous?” she hisses.

“Then they’ll be dangerous elsewhere,” I tell her.

“You’re offering them a free place to stay.”

“No,” I raise my finger, “They’re going to work. They’re going to work hard. But they’ll be safe, they’ll have food and a roof over their head, and they’ll earn a wage. If they want. They can leave at any time.”

“Can you afford more farm hands?”

I remember the conversation I had with Lasis the day before in Torsen. I’d stepped into an alleyway and pulled out the magical device, holding it close to my ear. When they’d insisted we purchase it from Mathieus, I’d thought it looked like a silly looking rock: rough on all sides and an unattractive gray color. “You’re running behind,” Lasis accused when they answered.

“I’ve run into a problem,” I whispered into the rock. I’d eyed my surroundings carefully, realizing I looked particularly absurd talking into a rock. “They’re not paying.”

“What do you mean?” Lasis’s voice hitched.

From the other side of the rock, to someone not attuned to necromantic magic, they might hear only squeaking and gnashing of bone against bone as Lasis’ face bones moved. Yet, somehow, it lengthened the wavelength of our magic just enough to communicate, but not to do much else with. “They don’t want to pay with money,” I elaborated. “They want to pay with labor.”

“We don’t do trades,” Lasis cut me off sharply.

“That’s not the problem,” I grumble, “I agree with you. But…”

“It better be a big but.”

“They’re beastmen and other… well… they seem innocent. Caught in the in-between of Antonio’s mad legislation and disappearance.”

There was a heavy pause on the other end of the rock. “Okay,” they finally uttered. “I see where you’re going with this. I’ll tally up some income dividends. How many?”

“I counted…” I ran my memory back over, trying to imagine the faces of the people bound in the warehouse. “Twenty? No more than twenty-five.”

Lasis whistles low. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do, Syb.”

“Thank you.”

“Sybil?”

“Yes?”

“... You’re a good person,” they crack out before the connection ends and I no longer feel their magic curling around mine.

Now I nod to Maggie. “Lasis was making a plan,” I tell her.

She considers this for a moment then nods. “If Lasis can put it together…” she shakes her head, “Just be careful, Sybil. This is a big undertaking.”

“I will,” I tell her when one of the guards returns.

“All unloaded,” he tells me, and I reach into my purse for a few silver coins.

“Thank you,” I tell him, and he nods and takes off. The prison wagon turns about and rolls out of town back toward Torsen.

“Wonder what hurry they’re in,” Maggie grumbles. “Probably more… jobs.” She groans. She turns to me, “At least let me interrogate them before you let them run amok.”

I shrug, “If you can, that would be fine. When you’re done, send them up my way.”

She nods. “What’s our angle?”

“They’re still prisoners, until proven otherwise,” I tell her. She throws me a thumbs-up gesture. I turn and head off toward Soleil’s, I know that I’ll find Haven there and I really need my partners’ support… and maybe a few hugs.