"Watch out!"
"Get away!"
"There's a second one!"
While Bobo gaped, another tree whipped its branches at the soldiers. The edges of its leaves sliced their skin like razor blades.
These trees weren't awakened. She was positive they weren't awakened. So what was going on here? What kind of trees did they grow in South Serica?!
The soldiers scattered, but one human was too slow. The tree wrapped its branches around him and started to squeeze. He wrenched his sword out of its scabbard and hacked at the bark, but no sooner did he slice through one branch than another would loop around his chest and neck.
Meanwhile, the first tree whumped its roots down around a group of soldiers like a cage. Bobo was just thinking that trapping them that way was clever – when the roots started to compress them into the earth. The soldiers shoved back or tried to squeeze free, and their comrades fired their crossbows, but nothing could stop the tree.
She curled herself up into a ball and buried her head in her coils, but she couldn't block out the sounds. Horrible pops from cracking ribs. High-pitched screams that turned into strangled gurgles that trailed off into a silence that was even worse.
Below, a new voice started yelling. Floridiana's. Bobo peeled back a coil just far enough to peek down.
The mage had yanked Dusty away from the trees in time, and now she was shouting at the pangolin leader, "Give me my seal back! I can help! But you have to give me my seal back!"
"Stay where you are!" he snarled.
"That one! I heard it move!" yelled a soldier, stabbing a finger at a third tree.
Bobo's heart stopped until she followed his hand and realized that it was too far away to get Floridiana and Dusty.
The pangolin leader spun. "Fire arrows!"
"Ready sir!" called a group of archers whom Bobo had missed.
They'd been huddling further back – hiding, like her, Floridiana, and Dusty, she thought, until she saw what they'd prepared. Their arrows had little cloth pouches strapped behind the arrowheads, and lengths of string dangled from the pouches, which was kind of weird for arrows. Even though Bobo had never shot a bow herself, she had a vague sense that a pouch and string like that would change the way the arrows flew.
"Get back!" the pangolin ordered the other soldiers. "Loose!"
As one, the archers set fire to the ends of the strings, aimed, and released. As the arrows whizzed through the air, the fires burned through the strings, getting closer and closer to the pouches.
The trees were still lashing their branches and thumping their roots even though there weren't any soldiers in range. A cluster of fruit knocked an arrow off course by chance, and it buried itself in the undergrowth. The rest struck the tree trunks or got caught in their leaves. Just like the crossbow bolts, they didn't seem to be doing anything –
KABOOM!
The world exploded. Heat blasted Bobo, searing her tongue. She shrieked and squinched her eyes shut and spun away, trying to shield her head and her belly. Shards of bark pelted her scales. Ow ow ow!
And then it was over.
Her ears were ringing. Her tongue was scorched. She opened her eyes slowly.
Below her, Floridiana was curled into a ball behind a rock, hands clapped over her ears. Dusty reared and kicked with his front hooves in mindless panic. From the way his mouth moved, he must have been neighing, but Bobo couldn't hear a thing.
Wait. Why could she see them so clearly?
Because the forest was as bright as day. And as hot as the Sixth Moon.
Gulping, Bobo swiveled to look back at the vicious trees. Or where the vicious trees had stood.
Now there was just fire. Three separate fires that merged into one roaring column of fire.
Leaves shriveled, dried, and burst into flames. Oils in bark popped. A vine that dangled from a neighboring tree caught fire – fire that raced up its length to set the rest of the tree alight. The forest was burning.
The soldiers! Where were the soldiers? How were they going to put out the fire? Were their mages still alive? Were they casting some sort of water spell? Bobo whipped her head around to check.
She blinked.
Then she blinked and checked again, because the soldiers weren't where they had been. They were – they were – disappearing into the forest? Just – leaving? They set this giant forest fire and then just left?
Floridiana scrambled to her feet and staggered after them, calling something that Bobo still couldn't hear.
But what it was became obvious a moment later, when a small, hard object that glinted in the light of the flames sailed through the air. It vanished into the undergrowth two feet from the mage. She dropped to her hands and knees and started pawing through the leaves.
Unwrapping herself from the branch and wincing at how fried she felt, Bobo minced down the trunk.
"We have to go!" she shouted.
The ringing in her ears was fading, because she could just barely make out the mage's response: "Help me find my seal!"
The light grew brighter. Another tree, closer to them, had just caught fire.
"We can get it later!"
"No! We'll never find this place again! And it'll melt!"
Dusty stamped and neighed but was panicking too hard to run away on his own. "I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going die I just awakened I just awakened I just awakened...."
"Let's go!" Bobo urged again. She even bumped Floridiana with her head, but the mage refused to get up.
"You go ahead with Dusty! I'll catch up!"
"No! We're all sssticking together!"
That was what Bobo said, but what she meant was: No, I'm not letting another friend die! Last time, she hadn't been at the battle, hadn't even known what was happening to Stripey until it was all over and too late and there was nothing she could to do fix it. She wasn't letting that happen. Not again. Never again!
Darting a nervous glance at the flames, Bobo licked out her tongue, trying to sense bronze among the leaves and wood and earth. Where had the seal hidden itself anyway? It was like it didn't want to be found. But she'd watched it land, knew that it had to be around here somewhere....
Overhead, Dusty continued his litany. "I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die...."
She tasted bronze. Here! Lodged in a crack in a mossy rock!
"Found it! Floridiana!"
The mage scrambled over, tripping and falling the whole way, and snatched her seal. "Let's get out of here! C'mon, Dusty. You're not dying. None of us are dying."
"Where're we going?" whined the horse.
Bobo automatically looked to Floridiana for instructions, but the mage acted just as confused.
"Let's go that way," Bobo suggested, pointing her tail in the direction Rosie had taken.
"Okay. Let's go."
And the three of them hurried through the forest as fast as they could. The inferno behind them lit their way.
Smoke from our incense sticks wafted up to Heaven, carrying Anthea's and my oaths with it.
"Okie, that's done! How do I get the Kitchen God his offerings?" she chirped.
I gave her a reproving tip of my head. I swore to tell you how if you save my friends and Lychee Grove. Did you already forget the oath that we literally just made?
Since I was completely in the right, there wasn't too much she could say. But that didn't stop her from baring her teeth like a harmless racoon dog pup. How very cute.
And by that, I meant "not."
Per the terms of the oath, this is where you wake the queen and tell her to call off the earl, I said, just in case she needed reminding.
For all I knew, she might – with Anthea, who knew?
The wretched pup pouted and planted herself on the edge of her bed for one moment longer, just to prove she could. Then she rose with no particular hurry; perused the silk dressing gowns that hung in her wardrobe; selected a scarlet one embroidered with lotuses, clouds, and those colorful ducks we'd seen on the way south; and draped it over her shoulders, settling it just so, with the elegant folds of her nightgown peeking out.
If you're trying to impress me, you're doomed. I've seen better silk. Stars and demons, I've seen better embroidery, even in this day and age.
Anthea cast a languid glance over her shoulder, one calculated to irk me. What happened to that eager, excited raccoon dog who'd greeted me? What happened to being "best friends forever"? Clearly, "forever" to Anthea meant all of five minutes.
She took a bronze mirror out of her current, inferior mirror cover and pinned up her hair into elaborate loops. "If you keep taking that tone with me, you might get used to it, and it might slip out when you're talking to someone who matters, dear." Her voice dripped honey, venom, and condescension.
Both the tone and the words were familiar. I'd heard them before somewhere – oh. I was the one who'd spoken them to her, all those centuries ago, when the attention she was getting from Aurelia's sycophants started to turn her head, and she forgot what she owed me. Centuries came and centuries went, but you could trust Anthea to hold a grudge.
If beaks could curve, mine would have curled up in a poisonous smile. Unfortunately, they couldn't, so I settled for a poisonous tone. I hardly think that would be a concern in this day and age, little one.
"Says the demon who's so desperate that she came begging her nemesis for a favor."
Ah, it was good to trade barbs with someone who knew me – really knew me – again.
I spread my wings in feigned shock and deliberately craned my head as if I were searching her bedchamber. Nemesis? What nemesis? I see no nemesis here. I let my gaze land on her at last. Only an inexperienced young raccoon dog pup.
"Ugh!" She flung aside her comb so hard that it cracked down the middle. She'd need to get a new one carved. "I can't believe you!"
Still haven't learned patience, I see.
"You know, Piri, the oaths don't bind me to use your assistance. I could still refuse to help and get the Kitchen God his offerings myself."
Her act might have been a lot more convincing if she hadn't been storming towards the door at the same time. I didn't bother to respond.
Wrenching the door open, she flounced into the garden. Her grand exit was spoiled, however, when she nearly tripped over the high threshold. I could have warned her that one of her embroidered silk slippers was loose – but why?
"Well? Are you coming or not?"
Why would I come? You're the one who's friends with the queen.
"You're the one who needs to tell her what's going on in that precious city of yours."
I already told you what's going on. Just relay that information to her. Her gods-cursed uncle surrounded it with an army, remember?
Her scathing glance expressed scorn that anyone might expect her to remember anything. "You kept blathering on and on for so long that my mind wandered. You'll have to tell her yourself."
Yep, there was the Anthea I knew.
She had taken my long-ago lessons to heart after all, because she'd wormed her way into the confidence of the queen thoroughly indeed. So thoroughly that the queen's guards let her into the main hall even in the middle of the night. Even without a bribe.
She just simpered at them, and let the lamplight play over her rosy cheeks and glint off her long lashes, and they bowed deeper than they should have to and went to wake the queen. They didn't question her about the sparrow who rode majestically on her fingertip, an oversight if I ever saw one.
We were shown into a miniature waiting hall, another attempted facsimile of one in Cassius' palace. The queen, too, arrived in nothing more than a dressing gown.
"Annie, what's going on?" she asked once she was seated across a low rosewood table. "What is this urgent request that can't wait until morning?"
I scrutinized her, trying to determine if she'd been rousted from a sound sleep, or if she'd already been awake and awaiting news from Lychee Grove. But I knew so little about the habits of modern-day South Sericans (okay, not just modern-day ones) that I couldn't tell.
Setting down her teacup, Anthea straightened her back and squared her shoulders. "Jullie, please call the Earl of Black Crag off Lychee Grove."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, James, Jojiro, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, TheLunaticCo, and yoghogfog!