“A minor detail.” Leo ran his hand over the sacks of loot that were neatly stacked on the hay cart.
“We made good progress tonight,” Lorelai said as Gabril counted the sacks full of the village’s meager food supply—a food supply Irina had demanded as taxes, even though her garrison already had enough food to feed every village in the Falkrain Mountains for several months. Not that the starving villagers would see a bit of it. Irina would use some of it to feed her army, and let the rest of it rot as a message to remind everyone that she owned Ravenspire down to the last stalk of wheat. “That makes six robberies in two months. Six villages of people who are now loyal to us and will support me when I go after the throne. If we keep up this pace, we’ll have gained the loyalty of the entire Falkrains by spring.”
Leo gave her a charming, lopsided smile. “Think how much easier it would be to earn the peasants’ loyalty if we had a name to go with our reputation. We could be the Daring Duo—”
“You could be hanging for your crimes if we don’t move on to the next village,” Gabril said quietly. “Now let’s focus on what needs to be done so we can leave at first light, just in case you were seen.”
“We weren’t,” Lorelai said as her white gyrfalcon soared in through the open loft window and perched on the princess’s shoulder, her talons digging into the leather brace Lorelai had fashioned to be worn on her shoulder. A dead mouse dangled from the bird’s beak.
“I hid in the treasury wagon before it left Felsigen. Sasha distracted them with a fake attack when they were an hour outside the village.” Lorelai ran a gloved finger down her bird’s back. “And Leo—”
“Did the most incredible impression of a Morcantian farm boy you’ve ever heard.” He sped up the cadence of his voice, hitting his consonants hard and running all the sounds together. “I was a Morcantian peasant angry that the blight in Ravenspire is seeping across the border and killing my goats.”
“He yelled at the treasury officers long enough to give me time to hide in the wagon, but they never got a good look at him.” Lorelai shoved the dangling mouse away from her face.
Gift. For you. Dinner. Sasha’s thoughts flitted through Lorelai’s mind with quick precision.
Thank you, but I don’t eat mice. Lorelai’s throat closed as the little body brushed against her hair while images of Sasha’s beak enthusiastically shredding the mouse’s skin to get to its internal organs blazed from her bird’s mind into hers. She swallowed hard to avoid insulting Sasha’s gift by gagging out loud. Most of the time she was grateful for the day nine years earlier when she’d found the dying baby gyrfalcon and sent her magic into the bird to heal her. But sometimes the telepathic link that had formed between them as a result gave Lorelai far too much information about the inner workings of her bird’s mind.
Strange human. Delicious mouse. Sasha spread her wings and glided to the barn floor, where she tore into her prize with relish.
“My performance was impeccable.” Leo looked smug as he wiped dust from his curly black hair.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Lorelai said as Gabril finished inspecting the bags and then limped over to a sizable crack in the barn’s wall to peer outside. “You’ve never even been to Morcant. You overheard one conversation three years ago, and you sound like you were born there. I couldn’t do that if you aimed an arrow at my heart.”
Leo grinned. “That’s because you’re good at magic, and I’m good at everything else.”
Gabril turned from the door. “Enough talking. Lorelai needs to practice while there’s still light left to see. Leo, take the sacks up to the loft. My contact in the village will collect them and distribute the food to those in need.”
Leo looked aggrieved. “I’m always the one who has to do the heavy lifting.”
Lorelai’s smile was smug. “That’s because I’m good at magic, and you’re good at everything else.”
“That was cruel, Lorelai.” Leo sighed dramatically and hefted the first sack. Gabril fetched a bundled-up blanket from the corner of the barn and laid it on the floor. When he opened it, several items lay beneath the dim light filtering in through the cracks in the walls. There was a length of rope, a tinderbox, and a brilliant green jewel half the size of Lorelai’s palm.
Lorelai’s stomach clenched, and the air felt too thick to breathe as she slowly crouched beside the blanket and pulled off her gloves. The fabric stuck to her suddenly clammy skin.
It wasn’t enough to rob treasury wagons and build loyalty among the peasants. It wasn’t enough to escalate the robberies and gradually move further south—closer and closer to Konigstaadt, the capital of Ravenspire—to widen her base of support while she weakened the queen’s.