The trio walked along the ground between the mountains, two hooded figures walking behind a single, tired-looking foxgirl.

  Ibex horns protruded out of the tops of their hoods, a clear visual indicator to anyone who saw them that the two figures following Vidalia were fellow beastfolk. Distant onlookers would have no way of knowing that some person who could manipulate bones had made horned helmets for the two hooded ones.

  “I just have one thing, a simple favor to ask you, darling,” Vidalia said slowly, breathlessly. They had been walking for a long time, and her stamina was near the bottom. “Just, when you see the catfolk, and they start offering themselves to you, please don’t take any of them as wives. Pretty please. It sounds simple, because it is, but I know they’ll be easy on the eyes.”

  “Vidalia, you already said this the other day,” Tybalt said from under his hood. “Did you really feel like you needed to repeat it now? I’m not a dog who can’t resist the smell of a woman or something.”

  Plus, you’re all right with me having a bunch of wives. Are the catfolk truly so much worse than others…?

  “I—I know, darling, I know. I just… I get really nervous about the catfolk.”

  “What is it about them in particular?” Mariella asked from beneath the other hood.

  “You’ll know it pretty quickly when you see them,” Vidalia said. “In fact, I suspect you’ll understand a lot about their culture very quickly.”

  “You think of them as being a whole separate culture?” Tybalt asked.

  The necromancer had accompanied Vidalia to clandestine visits with the ibex beastfolk elders and the harpy elders already, and those conversations had been relatively uneventful. They were just first meetings, introductions so that the elders would know who Tybalt was and know that Vidalia and Mariella were associated with him. All a part of Vidalia’s master plan, apparently.

  Both the ibex and harpy elders had not-so-subtly tried to angle Tybalt into a betrothal with some of their granddaughters, proposals which he had deftly sidestepped without answering definitely one way or the other. Saying “no” outright, without having ever met the women in question, seemed like a guaranteed way to give offense.

  The other beastfolk tribes had sounded, when he listened to Mariella compare and contrast, a lot like the fox beastfolk tribe, with the exception that, of course, the harpies were uniformly female.

  Tybalt had begun to wonder if pursuing these encounters in a certain order had just been a pointless obsession of Vidalia’s about doing things the right way rather than a carefully considered plan. Maybe she was following her visions as closely as she could, just for good luck.

  “Their ways are not like ours!” Vidalia huffed, her tone almost angry. “The way they behave, it’s indecent. Like I said, you’ll understand as soon as you see them. I don’t like to speak of it directly. I feel like I’m insulting both them and the beastfolk as a whole if I acknowledge out loud the way they’ve twisted our beliefs and culture.”

  Gods, Tybalt thought. This was the most intensely negative emotional reaction he could remember ever having seen out of Vidalia, unless one counted that alternate future version of her he’d met in a dream who had been mourning his death.

  “But you said they’re the most devoutly religious out of the beastfolk, and the only ones for whom it’s common to have a class?” Mariella said. “They guard the Valley of Martyrs, right? And your Lord Mudo has blessed them with power…”

  “Not a blessing!” Vidalia grumbled. “They fucking cheat. You’ll see what I mean.” She turned to look at Tybalt. “Please, darling. Don’t even consider bringing them into our household. Just… I thought about making a joke about being allergic to cat hair, but I can’t bring myself to take this that lightly. Just please promise me. No matter how pretty they are. No catfolk wives?”

  “I already promised you, you silly fox,” Tybalt said lightly. He stretched out a hand and stroked her hair and ears. “But I promise once again. I will not take any of the catfolk they’re going to offer me as wives. No matter how hard they throw themselves at me. No exceptions.” He looked at Mariella. “You witnessed my promise, right?”

  “Yes.” She smiled at Tybalt.

  “Right,” the necromancer said. “Now there’s someone to hold me accountable.”

  Mariella continued, “For that matter, I think we—Vidalia and I, that is, with Victoria observing and acquiescing—already agreed that the existing, um…” Her face reddened and she took a few seconds before she continued, speaking more quickly, almost rapid-fire, “We already agreed, while you were sleeping, if it’s all right with you, that the three of us would like some right of approval for any future wives you select. Please.”

  “Hm. Maybe… I discussed something similar with you at some point?” Tybalt half-said, half-asked, looking at Vidalia. “In a half-forgotten dream, I think Vidalia wanted to set that limit.”

  “Who can say if I planted that idea in your head already at some point?” Vidalia said, shrugging and swishing her tail from side to side, clearly in a much better mood with the shift in topic. “The important thing is whether it’s acceptable to you or not.”

  Tybalt chuckled at that. “I would have been all right with agreeing that it’s only going to be you three, with the minor caveat that at some point, we have to ensure we produce children to inherit whatever kind of legacy we create. Which means that in the vanishingly unlikely event that I was somehow unable to reproduce with any of you, I might possibly want to try with someone else. Though the likelihood in that case would be that I was the problem.”

  I hate much of the world that exists right now, but it’s not realistic to change everything that I don’t like in one generation. Hopefully our children can carry the torch. If not… I’ll have to either become a lich, or just give up on making a change at all. Live a life of hedonism and abandon. How miserable…

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  “Don’t worry about that, darling,” Vidalia said lightly. “Across all the timelines I’ve ever peeked at, you’re extremely fertile. There are versions of me who have double-digit numbers of children with you, you monster. Won’t leave a poor girl alone…” She pantomimed being unable to walk straight, one hand on her hip, back bent.

  Mariella and Tybalt both laughed at that, until Tybalt gave Mariella a less innocent look, eyebrows raised.

  “I can’t imagine that being my fault,” he said. “I think I’m almost the innocent one in all this, surrounded by other people who are far more baby-obsessed than I am…”

  The fire mage seemed to remember their conversation of a couple of days prior, and she averted her eyes, cheeks turning pink.

  “Ahem, well, it’s not that I wouldn’t like to try and set some records, to be clear,” the foxgirl added, giving Tybalt an unmistakable come-hither look.

  The necromancer returned Vidalia’s gaze with a similar kind of expression.

  I’ll take you anytime you like, you little vixen, he tried to convey. You want me, come and get me… as long as you’re willing to accept the consequences you’ve mentioned before.

  The atmosphere among the trio became strangely heated for a minute, each of the three looking back and forth between the others. The walking slowed down as each one contemplated some slightly different variation of the same indecent thoughts.

  That was when the fire mage came to a sudden stop.

  “Wait, what are those?” she asked, pointing.

  They had just rounded the curve of another mountain. They were far from the mining camp while still being on the desert side of the mountain range rather than the beach side.

  After only a slight delay, Vidalia and Tybalt returned to paying attention to their actual surroundings rather than looking at each other hungrily.

  The necromancer was the first to recognize what Mariella was talking about, as he’d been facing forward already.

  “They look like statues,” he said in a low voice. He wasn’t quite certain he truly understood what he was seeing.

  “They are statues,” Vidalia confirmed, her voice shaking slightly. “Consider them the landmark that indicates the beginning of the Valley of Martyrs. Also the marker for catfolk territory. From here on out, be on your guard.”

  “Are they really so scary?” Mariella couldn’t seem to resist asking. “I know you don’t like them, and they bother you a lot, but- ”

  “In addition to being the beastfolk tribe that disturb me the most, they’re also excellent fighters, and they defend their territory almost like they’re undead who have been given an order, if that makes sense,” Vidalia said in a slightly testy tone. “As soon as they know who Tybalt is, they’ll fall all over themselves to do whatever might please him, but we have to actually get past the introductions without dying for that. They’re a bit standoffish.”

  “So, stick close together for now, then?” the necromancer said, unfazed.

  Vidalia cracked a thin smile. “Yeah. That’s probably wise.”

  As they closed the distance to the statues, Tybalt felt like he could sense movement from nearby. He turned his head, looked backward and up the cliffside, but he saw nothing, from ground level to thirty feet off the ground. But then, the sun was on the other side of the mountains now. It had taken them most of the day to walk this far, and sunset would come in a couple of hours.

  There were plenty of shadows for catfolk stalking them to hide in.

  Why did Vidalia tell me I shouldn’t bring any undead with me for any of these meetings? Tybalt thought, uneasy for the first time since they had begun this campaign to connect with each of the tribes. If I had just Heimar and Raybeck here, or even Baldwin, I’d feel a lot safer.

  “I think we have company,” the necromancer said.

  He still couldn’t see the one trailing them, but he’d bet money that there was someone.

  “We probably do,” Vidalia said. “Stay close to me. They won’t hurt me.”

  “Would they hurt me?” Tybalt asked. “Or Mariella? We look just like beastfolk with the horns and hoods.”

  “Your accents, your smells, your height,” Vidalia replied. “There are a bunch of details that might give you away to someone talented in noticing disparities between people. The disguises are good, they’re just not necessarily enough.”

  Tybalt swallowed, then stepped in close and clutched Vidalia to him from behind, one hand wrapping around her neck, the other around her waist.

  “Yeah, grab me like that,” she said in a voice that did not seem to be considering the situation with nearly the seriousness required. “You can lower your right hand.”

  He lowered it slightly and squeezed her ass.

  “Mm, yep, that’s good,” she said quietly.

  “Are you being serious, you horny vixen?” he asked, lightly nibbling the tip of her ear. “Is this actually making me safer, or are you just trying to get some attention?”

  “Um, yes.”

  Mariella stepped in close from the side and put an arm around Tybalt’s waist, squeezing in close to Vidalia. As if she had read Tybalt’s mind, she whispered into the foxgirl’s other ear.

  “We should keep walking, Vida. You and Tybalt can spend some alone time after we get through this, right? I already did the things we bet on. Twice. So it’s your turn. But stay focused for now, yeah?”

  The necromancer gave Mariella a surprised look, and she beamed with a sort of shy pride back at him.

  See, look how sexy I am, she seemed to be saying. I’m flirting with your other woman.

  Tybalt took one hand from around Vidalia and put it around Mariella’s hips.

  I can’t wait to spend some time alone with the two of you…

  The trio kept walking until they were only ten feet out from the first statues. Figures of beastfolk of various tribes lined the cliff faces, including tribes that Tybalt guessed must be extinct. Wolves, tigers, bears…

  In the distance, the Valley of Martyrs beckoned. Tybalt could see small caves pitting the walls of that area.

  There was a loud whizzing noise, and a cut opened up on Tybalt’s cheek.

  Embedded in the stone of the cliff face beside him was a wooden arrow, but not just any arrow.

  That thing looks like a fucking ballista bolt!

  The arrow was far too large to be wielded by a normal human or beastfolk.

  Someone with a class was stalking us.

  It wasn’t the attack that came as a surprise. It was only a warning shot, after all. It was the simple size of the weapon used.

  “Let the fox go!” came a stern female voice from behind them. “The two humans, release your hold on her, and drop to your bellies in the sand right now. I won’t ask a second time! Three. Two. One!”