Furia twitches, dancing from one hoof to the other.
“Whole kingdom’s buzzin’ about you,” a boy adds. He’s gangly, with more ribs poking out of his decorated chest than from my corseted dresses.
I swallow. “You shouldn’t believe every rumor you hear.”
“So you were talkin’ with a real person back there?” another branch-hugger asks. I think it’s a woman from the pointiness of her nose and chin and the delicateness of her cheekbones, but her exposed chest is all male.
“Um. No. With my horse.” My hands are so clammy they dampen the leather reins. “But he doesn’t answer me or anything.” I shrug. “Lonely people and their quirks. Anyway, I should, um, get going.”
Several people cackle, and I realize, with escalating anxiety, that everyone’s teeth are black and feathers poke out from behind their shoulders. Although I’m hoping the feathers trim their dreads, my hope is rapidly squashed when one of the women extricates a long arrow which she feeds into a bow and whose ivory tip is fantastically sharp.
“Morrgot,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“No need for swearin’, girl. We ain’t planning to kill you.”
Just eat me toe by toe . . .
“We don’t get paid if you’re dead.”
“Paid?” My heart, which has been clocking my spine since the woman dropped from the tree like a coconut, holds still.
“A bounty’s been placed on your head.” It’s the delicate-faced male who answers.
“Who—” I swallow the squeak from my voice and try again. “Who’s put the bounty on my head?”
“The king heself.”
Well . . . merda. Where the underworld is my trusty crow bodyguard? Is he keeping away, worried I’ll go off on him if he murders all these tree people?
I mean, I would absolutely be angry, but better an angry sidekick than a captive one, right? I will him to stir up some chaos, saw through a few lianas and branches, so Furia can hoof it out of here.
“Get down from the horse or we shoot it down,” the woman says.
My heart drops, then bounces so high I clamp my chattering teeth shut to keep it from flailing out. “Morrgot!”
Ask them how much gold the king has offered.
Is he serious? “Are you planning on ransoming me?” I mutter under my breath.
The woman embracing the liana arches an eyebrow, which pleats the whorls of ink adorning her forehead. “Are you thick? Did you not hear us say we are?”
No, Fallon. I’m planning on paying them off so we can be on our way.
“I really doubt I have enough on me to match a king’s bounty,” I murmur.
“What’d she say?” someone asks.
“Just chatting with my horse.” I lean over and pat Furia’s sweat-slicked neck. “How much is my going rate?”
“A hundred gold pieces.”
Oof.The price on my head is jarring, especially considering halflings are reminded daily of their worthlessness.
Offer them a hundred.
Between gritted teeth, I say, “I don’t have—”
I have it.
