The Best Day, Ruined
After the meal, they went out to see the city—and walked straight into something none of them had expected.
"Hah—! M-my lady! We greet you!"
"F-forgive us for daring to leave a stone in my lady's path! We'll clear it away at once! You wicked stone! You wicked stone!"
The people of the domain, who had been smiling and bowing to Sirka a moment before, went white to the lips and shook the instant they saw Sabrina.
"I didn't do anything."
Every time it happened, her beautiful face twisted. In truth, she had never once tormented the domain's people. A handful of them had simply witnessed her beating hyena beastkin to death with her bare hands.
The trouble was that Bariya had heard the story from Sirka and been moved by it.
I should become a wildcat like Sabrina—someone who makes everyone tremble in fear just by standing still.
It was a resolution that would have horrified Sabrina and Sirka, had they known.
All the same, Bariya's first outing was a thorough delight. Taking dessert away to eat beside the lake, feeling ice cream melt in rivulets and soak her hands—every bit of it was new. Not long ago, she could not even have imagined being allowed a peaceful outing like this.
If it hadn't been for those hyena bastards, I might have gone on a picnic with Mother, too.
The only regret was that she had never shared this joy with her mother.
"Sleepy?"
Evening had come, and they were in the carriage again, bound for the mansion. Bariya had been watching the world slip past the window and nodding off without realizing it when Sirka asked.
"A little. I think I can hold out until we get to the mansion, though."
The enormous yawn that split the sentence in half did nothing for her credibility.
"It's fine. Sleep. Want me to lend you my lap?"
He asked it playfully, certain she would refuse.
She didn't.
"All right. Let's see it, then."
Bariya yawned once more and laid her head on the lap of the man sitting beside her. The obedience of it startled Sirka more than a refusal would have.
"I really didn't think you'd lie down."
"You told me to use it as a pillow. Was that a joke?"
She started to sit up, and he caught her at once and eased her back down.
"No. I'm glad. Use it whenever you like. My lap is always open to you, little one."
"I'm only using it today. It's hard, and it's too high. Honestly, it's kind of awful."
Her small hand smacked his thigh in displeasure, once and then again. He was so solid it felt like striking a wall.
"I'm relaxing as much as I can."
Sirka sounded genuinely put out, but Bariya didn't even pretend to listen. She closed her eyes. The carriage rocked, and the pillow was far too hard and far too high, and still sleep came creeping in, soft and irresistible. Little by little, the tension left her body. She was fully slack, sliding slowly under, when—
She shot upright.
Her eyes flew open.
"Little one? What—"
"Shh."
She hushed Sabrina and Sirka mid-question and pricked both ears. The drowsiness was gone. Her pupils had already drawn out into long, narrow slits, and at that proof that a beastkin's instinct was answering hard, the other two went grave. They strained their own hearing to its limit and caught nothing but the carriage running the forest road.
Bariya was different. Every hair on her body stood on end. A filthy feeling rose in her, strong enough to turn her stomach—a foreboding so ill that she wanted to retch. It was a warning sent by her mother's power, the strength of a Divine Beast dwelling inside her.
"The hyenas are coming."
The enemy was hunting her.
"I can't sense a presence. I can't hear a sound."
Sabrina's eyes were sharp on the dark beyond the window, and Bariya bit her lip.
What do I do? I can't tell them I'm something close to a Divine Beast.
She knew now that Caliph was not the same as the hyena beastkin who had tormented her. But once they learned what she was, would they go on treating her as ordinarily as this? Her life was too precious to stake on a hope she couldn't be sure of. It was the life her mother had bought by offering up herself.
"But you're certain."
At the words that followed, Bariya's head came up. In the carriage after sunset, where there was nothing but moonlight, Sabrina's pale blue eyes were shining. There was no suspicion of her in either of them.
"You're certain those hyena bastards are actually daring to come for us."
"Yes..."
Caught by that look, Bariya nodded. Sabrina's face hardened, fierce and sudden.
"I was sure we'd dealt with every last one of them. And still they insist on getting in the way."
"What should we do? I could have us at the mansion within thirty minutes."
If they were far enough that even Sabrina's senses hadn't caught them, it would take the bastards some time to arrive. Wouldn't it be better to get Bariya safely inside the mansion first, and deal with the hyenas after?
"Little one."
Instead of answering Sirka, Sabrina looked at Bariya.
"What do you want to do? You may go ahead to the mansion with Sirka, or you may stay and watch us deal with them."
"Mother."
Sirka looked troubled. The choice was Bariya's, of course, but showing her a scene that brutal was another matter.
Sabrina asked her all the way to the end.
"You won't have to join the fight. We aren't that incompetent, and there's no need to stain these tiny hands with blood so soon."
She bent and took both of Bariya's hands in hers. Bariya flinched before she could stop herself. For all that Sabrina looked as soft as someone who had never done a hard day's work in her life, her hands were rough past roughness, crowded with scars—and warmer than any hands Bariya had ever known. From the moment instinct had seized her, her body had locked stiff; under that warmth, it began, little by little, to thaw.
"So choose. Will you go back to the safety of the mansion, or will you stay here? Whichever you pick, I will respect it."
Bariya knew. Even if she chose to go on ahead, Sabrina and Sirka would never blame her. They would be relieved, and tell her she had decided well. They were that kind of people.
"I'll stay."
And so she did not make that choice.
There were people who would help her. There were people who would protect her. She didn't want to run anymore.
"All right. Then that's what we'll do."
Sabrina nodded at the choice. Worry sat plain on Sirka's face, but he didn't argue.
Knock, knock.
"Stop the carriage where there's a clearing."
Sirka gave the order to the coachman, and before long the carriage halted.
"I can feel them now. They'll be here shortly."
At this pace, they would arrive in less than ten minutes.
I don't know how the little one sensed them, but her instincts are sharper than mine. Remarkable.
Bariya clearly didn't want to explain, so Sabrina said nothing—but inwardly, she was impressed. She was beginning to understand how the child had escaped the hyenas at all.
Sirka stepped down first, and three tiger beastkin dropped out of the trees.
"My lord, what's happened all of a sudden?"
It was Jake, Sirka's right hand, and two knights—the ones who had guarded them from out of sight through the whole outing.
"Hyena bastards are closing in. I thought we'd wiped them out, but it seems they've already sent another batch."
Jake's face crumpled.
"Those things really need their heads examined. They die every time they're sent, so why send more? If you ask me, they're the reason people say predators are stupid."
Everyone agreed, deeply. Caliph was not being guarded by just any beastkin. Sabrina was here, and she carried a powerful Authority. If she were absent, perhaps—but the most terrifying tiger of all was with them now, so why waste men on a useless errand?
"The coachman guards the carriage. Jake, you guard the little one. We finish every last one of them here, then go home."
"We're not taking the young lady back to the mansion?"
"She says she wants to watch us deal with those bastards with her own two eyes. Isn't that admirable?"
At the proud curve of Sirka's smile, Jake and the knights glanced toward the carriage. Bariya had the window frame in a hard grip, both eyes wide and fixed on the dark outside. The child's nails had risen to sharp points, and Jake's expression went uneasy.
I always think it, but the young lady isn't very catlike.
A cat was a predator too, if you wanted to split hairs, but still. There was a spirit in her that felt, someday, as if she might crush a hyena all by herself.
"They're here."
Masked figures showed themselves, one after another. Sirka's pale blue eyes swept the dark around them.
"...Fourteen. Fifteen. Counting the ones we can't see, about twenty-five."
Against that, the number on their side who would actually fight was four. Sirka's face held nothing but irritation.
"These bastards truly cannot learn, Mother."
"I know. Perhaps this time we ought to open their skulls and see how large the brains are. They're so stupid I don't even want to waste words on them."
Sabrina stepped down from the carriage. That alone was enough to change the tension among the attackers. She shut the carriage door and took them in one by one—the men swallowing hard in the dark.
"I am in a truly foul mood."
Standing at the very front, her face twisted, vicious and ugly with it.
"Today's outing was more enjoyable than I expected. If we had simply gone home like this, it might have been the best day I've had in years. You bastards ruined it."
No one answered.
"Strange, isn't it. Killing the lot of you used to be the most delightful thing in the world, and now I'm only irritated that you interrupted a pleasant afternoon."
Her nails lengthened. She had not yet done a thing, and already the air seemed thick with the stench of blood.
The words had barely ended when the neck of the attacker at the very front snapped with a crack. He was dead in an instant, and Sabrina's beautiful silver hair streamed through the air together with the spray of his blood.