I wheeled back toward Pim. Three fur-faced warriors closed in on us from different sides. Two men and one woman. Swords ready, dirks tucked into belts. Lurching prowls. Sharp, predatory gazes.
Three sets of eyes swung between me and Pim. The short, heavily-muscled man nodded toward Pim, and then all three Trogolese charged him.
I darted forward to intercept the path of the shorter man, the apparent leader. He spun toward me just in time to parry my swinging blade. My next swing forced him back a step.
He recovered quickly, lunged forward, and lashed out. The clanging swords vibrated up my arms and rattled in my eardrums.
Exhilaration flamed through me.
The swords met again with a clang and then a clash. I backpedaled a step to readjust my position...
And my back collided with the trunk of a tree.
I brought my blade up just in time to catch his swing, and metal scraped metal with a jarring screech. Before I could shift away from the tree, he whipped the blade around. Sparks burst where the swords intersected, and heat singed my face.
His furry lips twisted into a smirk as he swung even harder.
I ducked.
His blade smacked the tree trunk with a dull thunk and a billow of cedary dust. Before he could yank the blade loose, I thrust mine up through the bottom of his chin. The fur of his face spasmed like a ripple of wind through grass. Then he slumped backward and flipped onto his back.
I wrenched my blade free with a squelch and spun toward Pim.
One of his opponents had already fallen, her wide eyes a jarring white against dark fur. Pim stalked toward the last man standing. Sweat slithered down his face, and his pink scar wriggled as he flashed a brutal grin.
As I jogged toward him, I caught a streak of motion just beyond the trees to the right.
"One more escaping," I called. "I go or stay?"
"Go," Pim bellowed as he thrust his sword forward once more.
I took off into the woods.
Adrenaline poured hot through my veins, and my feet pounded an unrelenting beat against stiff grass and sticks. I hurdled logs and grasped tree branches to redirect my momentum. Although the figure ahead darted left and right with surprising dexterity, the distance between us slowly diminished.
Ahead, a pit opened up in the middle of the trees. The escaping Trogolese warrior glanced over their shoulder at me. I glimpsed scruffy facial fur before the warrior tumbled straight into the pit.
I slowed to a stop at the pit's edge and readied my blade. The Trogolese warrior scrambled to her feet and brandished a dirk.
Then her ankle twisted.
And she crumpled down onto the dirt.
My gut clenched. When I had imagined battling the Trogolese, I never imagined a warrior so small... so defenseless. This had to be some kind of trick—perhaps another ambush? I pivoted, searching for movement among the trees.
The forest stood still.
I swallowed hard and shook my head. Her looks could not dissuade me. King Makapu had ordered us to eliminate all enemy warriors we found, and I knew the Trogolese learned how to fight at a young age.
I crouched to plant one palm on the edge of the pit, swung down, and stalked toward her. She dug her good foot into the ground to scoot back a foot. One trembling hand lifted her dirk before her, and her other arm covered her furry face.
I rocked back to my heels as a wave of cold smothered my adrenaline and froze the breath in my lungs.
This was no warrior.
This was a child.
My sword fell to my side, and I choked out a hoarse command. "Drop your weapon."
Muffled by her arm, her reply was barely audible. "No."
I stepped forward once more. She thrashed the blade around blindly for a second before I caught her wrist. When I applied a gentle pressure just below her palm, the blade slipped from her grasp. Then she flung both arms over her head and cowered back, shaking.
I snatched her dirk from the ground and slipped it into my belt. Returning my focus to the girl, I forced myself to take a deep breath and gentle my tone.
"I'm not going to hurt you, alright? Look, my name is Epsa. What is your name?"
A silence hung in the air, and I rolled my eyes at my own pathetic attempt. How was I supposed to draw information from a rebellion leader when I couldn't even gain the trust of a child?
Then the girl squeaked, "Rona."
I released a slow breath. "Alright, good. Can you tell me why you are here, Rona?"
The arm over her face slipped down, and she peered up at me with big brown eyes partially obscured by bronze curls. "You promise you won't hurt me?"
My stomach contorted once more, an unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling. With one more glance around the pit, I sheathed my sword. "I promise."
Her gaze fixed on a nearby stick. "Well, I was with my parents on the ship, but then the furless men attacked, and my parents sank"—she lifted a hand skyward and then fluttered her fingers as she dropped it to the ground—"down, down, down to the bottom of the sea."
Her chest swelled with a breath before she continued. "One of the crew said I couldn't follow my parents because the Paksha Sea Monster doesn't want me yet, so he put me on a little boat, brought me here, and told me to hide. But I don't like it here. I'm hungry and cold, and I wanna go home."
I stared at her, mind reeling in a numb loop of impossibilities. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I pushed out clumsy words. "Why... why were you on that ship?"
"My daddy said we were going on a vacation."
"Rona, that was a battleship on its way to attack Rakim. I guess you were lied to."
She examined me with a tilted head. "I guess one of us was."
I scoffed, rejecting her absurd words and barring entrance to the cold fingers that scraped at my chest. Voice rough, I said, "I'll go get my friend. You stay here."
Without waiting for a response, I vaulted out of the pit and started back toward Pim.
Though I had very little experience navigating woods, the bright sun above guided me. As I picked my way through shrubs and stepped up and over logs, I marveled at how quickly Rona had conquered all of these obstacles before falling into the pit. Maybe she was trained as a warrior. Maybe she was involved in some secret scheme.
Or maybe she was just a scared girl who wanted to go home.
My daddy said we were going on a vacation.
Suppressing a shudder, I forced myself to refocus on scanning the trees around me.
A minute later, I found the clearing where the Trogolese warriors had ambushed me and Pim. Pim squatted in the middle of a circle of corpses, swiping his blade through the grass to clean off the blood. He jerked to standing as I approached and grinned at me. Pulling back his shoulders, he swept his free palm to gesture to the gruesome carnage.
"Well, I think we got them all!"
"Yes, we... well, we..." I bit my lip.
He frowned, and his feathery brows scrunched. "Epsa?"
"We didn't..." I cleared my throat. "Get them all."
"The one you were chasing escaped?"
"Not exactly. I just... Pim, she's young."
His pale eyes drilled me, and an expression of scornful disbelief twisted his features. "Epsa, what is this? You really didn't eliminate an enemy just because she's young?"
I sighed. "You better come see."
The underbrush strained beneath my feet and broke beneath Pim's behind me. His incredulous huff brought to mind little Makari chasing Karoo.
"Epsa, the Trogolese sliced open my face and murdered your mother."
I hopped over a log and pushed back a branch. "I remember."
"And young or old, the Trogolese can all fight."
"I know."
"Then how can you possibly—"
Pim jerked to a halt.
We had reached the edge of the pit, and Rona huddled in the dirt ten feet away, knees tucked to her chest, forearms on her knees, and face in her hands. She parted her fingers to peek up at Pim through the cracks.
For a moment, Pim just gaped, motionless and silent. Then he sucked in a long, shaky breath. When he puffed the air out again, his entire body deflated.
"Epsa, she's—" He waved his arms about as if attempting to snatch words from the air. "She's tiny."
I nodded. "And she's hurt. She can't walk."
He gnawed on one side of his thin lower lip. "So... what are we going to do?"
"We can't leave her here. More Royal Guard members will enter the forest this afternoon, and if they find her, they will—"
"Don't! I know. But..." He cocked his head toward Rona, raised his eyebrows at me, and whispered, "Don't say it."
Pim hooked my elbow, spun me around, and dragged me a few steps away from the pit before speaking again.
"We need to report this to King Makapu."
A protest danced at the tip of my tongue, a bizarre knee-jerk reaction I quickly swallowed. "Right, of course. The King should know."
"But maybe we could..."
"Wait a while to tell him? With the visitors from Fooja, the famine, the rising rebellion, and all of the Trogolese warriors still roaming the forest, it could be..."
"Too much stress. The King is very busy, too busy to worry about one enemy child. But if we can't kill her..."
"And we can't leave her here, then..."
He glanced over his shoulder one more time and then turned back to me and said, with quiet resolution: "She will have to stay with me."
I furrowed my brow, taking in the set of Pim's jaw, the determination in his pale-eyed gaze. "Pim, that could be dangerous."
"If you really think I can't defend myself against a child the size of my arm—"
"I'm not talking about Rona attacking you."
His gaze softened and voice dropped even quieter. "Her name is Rona?"
"I'm talking about what would happen if anyone finds out you are harboring a Trogolese child in your home. We are not the only ones who have been hurt by the Trogolese, and we don't know how people would react. You can't put yourself at risk."
He shook his head. "Epsa... her parents were on that ship, weren't they?"
The image of Rona's fluttering fingers passed through my mind. Down, down, down. I nodded mutely.
"Then I might have been the one who..."
I swallowed hard to clear the lump in my throat. "You were protecting Rakim, Pim."
"I was. But now I will protect Rona."
Pim started back toward the pit and carefully lowered himself in. Eyebrows knitted and eyes locked on Rona, he slid his feet forward one at a time. Despite his care, leaves crunched and twigs snapped beneath his giant boots. When he came within five feet of Rona, she tucked her face farther into her hands and emitted a soft whimper.
"Oh," Pim breathed as he sank down into a crouch. "Oh sweetheart, please don't be afraid of me. I promise I won't hurt you."
Rona remained frozen, face hidden from view.
Pim clucked and drew in breaths several times with false starts of conversation. Then he spoke with strained cheer. "So, there once was a talking fish. She swam around all day in the Paksha Sea looking for someone to talk to, but none of the other fish appreciated her glorious ramblings. Then finally, the fish found a talking frog. The two of them sat down together and prattled on all day, and..."—he drumrolled his fingers against the dirt—"Happy forever more!"
When a silence followed, Pim pressed his lips together and glanced up at me. I shrugged and shook my head at him.
Then from behind her hands, Rona whispered, "Can fishes really sit?"
A small smile tugged at the corners of Pim's lips. "Of course they can. How else would they eat their breakfast? They sit on their little tails and scoop porridge into their mouths with their little fins."
The girl's shoulders trembled with a muffled snuffle. She was... crying?
No.
It was a giggle.
Pim's smile stretched across his face. "So, you liked the story?"
She lifted her head from her hands and nodded at Pim, brown eyes sincere. "I loved it. Do you have any more?"
I snorted a laugh, a helpless burst of humor colored dark by the pinching in my gut.
"I might have... a few more," said Pim, "But why don't I take you back to my house and give you something to eat first?"
A distant memory I did not realize I had retained now washed over me with perfect clarity. King Makapu knelt beside my bed, outlined in dark smoke and smiling that sad, sad smile.
In my home, you can have cinnamon crisps every day.
Rona nodded, and Pim crawled forward to pull her into his arms. As he pushed to his feet, her arms snaked around his neck, clinging tightly.
Pim cradled Rona with one arm and used the other to hoist himself over the edge of the pit. We trudged back through the woods. When the clearing approached, I stopped.
"Pim, why don't you head that way?" I pointed slightly off to the left from our path. "I'll catch up to you in a moment."
I jogged off toward the four corpses we had abandoned. When the first came into sight, a mangled body with a twisted spine and crushed skull, I briefly imagined seeing the carnage from Rona's eyes. My stomach roiled, and I pushed the thought aside. I would not let these strange new feelings derail my mission.
While Rona could be innocent, Snuggles had murdered my mother.
I ducked down next to the corpse, laid one hand on his chin and the other on his nose, and wrenched his jaw open.
Normal teeth.
I trotted toward another corpse and squatted down once more. A third time. A fourth time. No wooden teeth. With a sigh, I set off to rejoin Pim.
Pim had stripped his coat and laid it over Rona, who was still cradled in his arms. He glanced at me as I approached.
"No Snuggles?"
"No Snuggles."
We trudged onward. Over the monotonous crackle of our footsteps, the subdued bird calls and rustling bushes now sounded more somber than threatening. As we neared the edge of the forest, the bundle of Pim's coat squirmed, settled in against his chest, and stilled.
Pim tucked his chin to his neck and peeled back the coat a bit. Rona's head lay heavy against his chest, eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar.
Pim hissed a breath. "Sweet Acrad—" He sideglanced me and cleared his throat. "Sweet Goddess Rashika. Do you see this, Epsa?"
"I see it."
"She's... she's just so..."
"I know."
We located the horses and set off back toward the Kingdom with routine efficiency. But even as the horse hooves pattered the grass and the sun blazed high overhead, a heavy silence hung between us—an unspoken shared realization.
A door had just cracked open to a dark, uncharted room.
A room I was afraid to enter.