It was an hour later when Annatta finally returned to camp. Her eyes avoided his as she took a seat by the fire, helping herself to some of the roasted dorēsah.

The silence dragged on interminably until, able to bear it anymore, Ihra spoke up. "So, did you find anything while 'scouting'?"

The Djinn glanced up at her, her lips twisted in a wry grin. “Unfortunately, yes. I headed deeper into the hills, following the course of the river for quite some ways. Given all the tracks found, the dorēsah are clearly very active in the area.”

Jasper shrugged. “So? Didn’t we just kill them all?”

Annatta refused to look at him, shaking her head as turned back to the fire. “I don't think so. There were tracks in the mud from much smaller dorēsah. Younglings, I believe. We certainly saw none of those last night, and if there are young, then it is likely that at least some of the adults stayed back to watch over them while the rest of the flock hunted.”

“So do we have to track the cave down after all,” Ihra asked.

She hesitated, toying with her food before answering. “Have to? I suppose not. Last night's slaughter probably thinned the flock enough that they will leave the villager’s flocks alone, at least for the next few years. There is a decent amount of game available in these hills, and animals that large generally do not breed quickly. The problem is solved for the moment. But if we leave the rest alone, it is only a matter of time before their population rebounds, and they start preying on the cattle again."

"Lord S̆arrābī's primary concern was making sure Jasper hit a hundred, which he likely has, so the decision is his to make. If you want, we can head back to the capital.”

Jasper had no desire whatsoever to face more of these birds. The last fight had just about cooked his goose, but even though Annatta hadn't asked them to stay, he could tell she thought they should.

"What about those, uh-" he paused as his mind drew a complete blank on the name of the noble group Annata claimed they belonged to. "Uh, whatever that group was, what they would do?" he finished, lamely.

"They'd stick around until it's done."

Well, crap. But it was what he had expected to hear. It just wouldn't feel right to accept the villagers' thanks knowing he hadn't truly fixed the root of their problem. “Alright then. I guess we need to go finish the job. So, how are we going to go track the rest down?”

Annatta’s gaze snapped up to meet Ihra’s. “Lord S̆arrābī's dossier lists you as a runic mage. Is that true?”

Ihra shrugged. "I'm not sure I'd call myself a runic mage - that seems like a title for someone much more accomplished than I - but I've done a few rituals.”

The Djinn nodded thoughtfully. “There's a few runic mages in the guard. On a mission I took a few years back, one of them was able to cast some sort of tracking spell on a corpse. Can you do anything like that?”

Ihra frowned. "Maybe? I've never done anything like that, but I can look." Annatta's eyes widened as Ihra reached into her satchel and pulled out the ritual book Aphora had given her, as well as the one she had taken from the temple of Nahrēmah.

"Whoever mentored you must have been generous indeed, to give you full tomes," she said.

Ihra bobbled her head back and forth. "Eh, let's just say they owed us, big time. It was more of a guilt payment than anything else." She flipped through the pages quickly, letting a triumphant yell only a few minutes later. "Got it." She held the book open, showing to the two of them. "This ritual should do the trick."

“Good. Can you do it by yourself?” Annatta asked.

She shrugged. "I suppose. Why?"

The Djinn reluctantly turned to face Jasper. “Then perhaps we should leave Ihra to perform the ritual and head back to the village in the mean time. If there’s a nest of young birds as I suspect, this is a golden opportunity to make some money and meet your peers.”

“My peers?” Jasper echoed, not grasping her meaning.

“Other members of your House. Aside from the manor your mother left you, you have little in the way of possessions. Most of her wealth was liquidated before her unfortunate departure, and while the royal house will pay you a stipend for your service, you'll likely find yourself wanting some more money. Unless you want to beg Lord S̆arrābī for it.”

He shook his head. “No, definitely not. So, these birds are valuable?”

She nodded briskly. “I imagine so. Nobles always appreciate exotic pets, and I had never even encountered a dorēsah before yesterday. We can sell most of them for a tidy profit, and perhaps set a few aside to be given as gifts. It wouldn't hurt you to make a few friends in the court.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be in the province very long,” he countered.

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The Djinn shrugged. “The choice is yours.”

In the end, Jasper agreed to her plan. Ihra stayed behind at their camp, slowly prepping the area for the ritual, while Jasper and Annatta made the trip back across the plains to the small village in hopes of securing cages, or at least milled wood.

As they galloped across the flat, dry lands, little Dapplegrim struggled to keep up with the brisk pace set by the Djinn’s royal steed. But Jasper wasn't bothered by it; the guild at Hargish may have given him the little horse as an insult, but the prospect of hitting a hundred and with it, Dapplegrim’s evolution, was finally right before him. For a change, he was even looking forward to meditating; the prospect of reaching that milestone was sufficiently exciting to outweigh the dread he usually felt anytime he had to enter Kas̆dael's realm and face the inevitable torment of having his heart ripped out.

What did bother him, though, was the awkward silence that stretched between him and Annatta. Once or twice he tried to start up a conversation, but the Djinn would barely look at him, let alone speak to him beyond the bare minimum required to answer his questions. At first, he let it go, understanding that she probably felt awkward after the events of the previous night, but as the hours ticked by, his impatience slowly mounted, until at last it bubbled over.

“Why are you avoiding me, Annatta?”

“How am I avoiding you, Lord Yas̆peh? Are we not riding side by side?”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean, Annatta. You’ll barely even look at me. Or speak to me. I know you're not my biggest fan, but honestly, I can't stand this anymore. Either you find a way to work with me, or I'll be asking Lord S̆arrābī to assign someone else when we get back to the capital."

Her shoulders stiffened, the words tumbling out of her mouth immediately. “Don't do that."

Jasper shrugged. "Believe me, I have no desire to do that. He and I are not exactly compadres, but this isn't working."

She bowed her head. "You should not have had to save me.” He started to speak, but she cut him off. “I completely failed at my duties last night. I didn't notice the dorēsah’s patriarch until it was too late, and it very nearly killed you. Then, to add insult to injury, I passed out from the smoke, and rather than protecting you, you ended up saving me. Do you realize that if you had died, I would, mostly likely, have been killed too?”

A touch of pity, mixed with disgust, welled up in him. “Why? It wasn't your fault the dorēsah patriarch attack me. None of us could see anything through all that smoke.”

She snorted. "Perhaps, but my commanders in the guard will not see it that way, and Lord S̆arrābī...” Annatta hesitated. "After I left you two at the springs, S̆arrābī told me that if anything happened to you he would kill me," she said quietly, finally meeting his eyes.

He wasn't sure what to say. "I'm sorry?"

She shook her head. “You don't need to apologize. You've saved my life last night. After months of resenting you, you saved my life."

Her words piqued his curiosity. “You've resented me pretty much from the start, haven't you? Was it just because of your party?”

Pain blossomed in her eyes as he mentioned her partners' deaths, and the Djinn glanced away, though not quickly enough to hide the tears that had sprung up.

Damn it. Why did I have to bring that up again? He cursed himself out as silence fell over the two again, with nothing but the howling of the wind across the flat plains to break up the monotony. But to his surprise, after a few moments, Annatta replied. “No, I understand that the blame for my friends' deaths does not lie at your feet although,” she smiled bitterly, “the truth is rarely a balm for pain.”

“But if I am being honest with myself, blaming you for their deaths was easy because I already disliked you.”

Jasper cocked his head to the side, trying not to feel offended. “Why? Am I really that obnoxious?”

She shook her head. “No. It's nothing you've done; it's simply who you are. I’m a royal bastard, too, just like you, just like so many of us in the royal guard. But unlike you, I’ve lived in the palace my whole life. I joined the royal guard as soon as I was old enough to hold a sword, and have served the king faithfully ever since.”

“Then you came along. Where had you been while we were training for the guard? Where were you when we rode from one end of the province to the other, carrying out the crown’s every order? It was obvious you knew nothing of the palace." She paused, meeting his eyes searchingly. "Had you ever even been to the palace before the last few weeks?"

He shook his head reluctantly, and she nodded. "That's what I thought. You had no real connection to the palace, yet you were given the ultimate reward that many of us wait our whole lives hoping to receive.” She glanced up at him, and Jasper was surprised to see tears streaming down her cheek. “There were even rumors that you were being groomed for something more, a position with considerable power and honor. If this is all my hard work has accomplished - watching strangers receive honors while my own father will not even acknowledge me - what am I even working for?” Her voice trailed up in a laugh bordering on hysterical.

“And then, after resenting the hell out of you, it was you who ended up saving me. Sure, the fire wouldn’t have killed, but the clouds of smoke from the arantu-grass?” She sighed, biting her lip, before reluctantly acknowledging the truth. “I doubt I ever would have woken up. Now, I don’t know how to feel.”

Jasper wasn’t sure how to respond. He had had no idea that Annatta was a bastard. And many of the others in the guard? Do they resent me to? He suddenly realized how little he really knew of the new world he had been forced to. “I did not know,” he said quietly.

She frowned. “I know you didn't; isn't that the problem? You know nothing of the palace, yet the king himself showed you favor. But only a churl could still begrudge you now.” A faint smile graced her lips. “And I may be a bastard, but I am no churl.”

The rest of their ride to the village still largely passed in silence, but the ominous cloud that had hung over them had lifted. The villagers were surprised to see them return so quickly, and even more surprised to learn that they had already killed most of the beasts. Unfortunately, they had no traps sufficiently large to ensnare even the smallest of dorēsah, but when they learned that the three needed them in order to thoroughly eradicate the issue, the villagers were more than willing to help them construct some.

In the end, they had to stay the night, but by the time they left in the morning, thirty or so brand-new crates sat in Annatta’s bag of holding. Jasper could only hope that they would work and, more importantly, that he finally brokered peace with the Djinn.