I had to sigh for a second time. I loved this woman dearly, but I bet even Lilyanna knew Kitsara wasn’t a good girl like Blossom. Out of all my missuses, she needed the most guidance on how to become a proper woman.
<… All right, you eccentric creature. Enough chatting. Let’s roll.>
Rowdor, leader of the three-man scouting party that Kitsara decided to impersonate, should only return to Emberfang a little before sundown. Their schedule, their habits, their interactions with other scouts—it was all known to the city. The lionkin inside Emberfang wouldn’t question their return if she made it seem natural. They had no reason to.
Kitsara knew this, and she played her role to perfection.
Draped in the illusion of the broad-shouldered lionkin warrior, she strode along the perimeter of Emberfang, making her scout rounds with the two subordinates at her side. From the outside, they were identical to Rowdor and his two men we saw before the ladies pounced on them: their armor was a bit scuffed from the strain they’d been put through, bladed weapons rested in their sheaths strapped to their waists, and their eyes were on the lookout but also weary from the day’s work.
The significance of growing more tails for Nine-Tailed Sorceresses had never been so apparent to me beforehand—her two tails that detached from her body played the other two scouts perfectly well; they even exchanged brief conversations to make them seem more natural. She could control her dopplegangers from a large distance, even after they left the range of her physical senses. Such was the might of her class.
Every so often, another scout patrol would pass by.
She offered them a nod, keeping things brief, professional, and dismissive in the way a man who’d seen nothing but the same boring surroundings day after day would. They responded in kind.
Her pace never wavered, her steps carrying her exactly where Rowdor would go. Past a broken section of palisade that had been under repairs for weeks. Over a small ridge where scouts often paused to relieve themselves before continuing their patrol. Through a dried-out streambed that led directly to the front gate of Emberfang.
And then, at last, the city loomed before her.
Emberfang’s walls weren’t particularly tall, but they were made to be sturdy, intended to withstand sieges laid on the city by both machinery and the destructive spells of high-level combatants. The true strength of the city, however, wasn’t its walls but the beasts within.
War-trained mounts and creatures of battle, bred for generations to serve as both cavalry and weapons of war. Even though she’d just approached the city with the beast kennels nowhere in sight, the air still carried their scent: musky and raw, the smell of powerful predators kept in captivity.
Kitsara stopped just outside the gates, with her lionkin tail swaying behind her in what would appear to be impatience.
A lionkin guard approached, eyeing her with the disinterest of a man who’d performed the same routine countless times.
“Rowdor,” the guard greeted him with a grunt. “Anything?”
“Nothing worth a report,” she said, mimicking Rowdor’s deep voice with a perfect tone of mild boredom. “Same as always. Boring job, this one is.”
The guard shrugged his shoulder with very little care. “Better that way. Be happy you’re not on the northern or western front… I hear it’s madness there. Go on in.”
And just like that, the gate creaked open.
However, Kitsara and her mimics hadn’t stepped in just yet. The guard’s statement earned her curiosity. “Did we get news since I started my shift?”
“News? Hah! The only thing I’m hearing are nightmares.” The lionkin scoffed and leaned against his spear, beginning to explain with an exhausted sigh. “The whole damned country turned against us. It’s lionkin against beastkin now. The war is here.”
Kitsara—Rowdor—furrowed her borrowed brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that,” the guard muttered. “The bearkin outright demolished a city that hadn’t been besieged since my great-grandfather was a royal guard fifteen hundred years ago. They didn’t just take it, they razed it. Nothing was left standing, not even the bones of our kin. Just dust and ruin.”
He paused for but a second. “And the wolfkin? They’re like a plague. Fast, relentless. Taking over large swathes of our land, slaughtering every lionkin they find in the smaller settlements. Butchering our people.” His claws dug into his palm as he clenched his fists. “They’re not even stopping to fortify their gains—just moving forward like rabid beasts, destroying anything in their path.”
“And the tigers?” Kitsara asked. They were the most similar to the lionkin in their physical build, a long-standing rivalry existed between these two species as a result.
“They’re already on the move. Heading straight to meet up with the bearkin and join forces. Once that happens, I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop them.”
Kitsara swallowed, making her reaction to match the persona she wore.
“And if that wasn’t enough, a damned human organization sided with the uprising,” the guard continued, spitting onto the dirt in disgust. “They’ve occupied our disgusting allies in the west. They’re keeping them busy, so we don’t even have them at full strength to help us fend off all the beastkin banging on our walls.”
Her furred ears twitched as a very real unease crept into her posture. “Then… if all of them signed the war declaration, that means our neighbors to the east might attack Emberfang!”
The guard shrugged his shoulders, oddly nonchalant about the topic. “Then so be it. Let the doggies take this town.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re speaking as if it doesn’t matter.”
“What does it matter?” His voice was quiet but hollow, devoid of the usual pride lionkin had. “Leohtar Sunfang has brought this upon us with his endless greed. He turned the world against us.” He let out a bitter chuckle. “I’ve been hoping for years that someone with more brains and less ego would kill him in an official duel and take his place. If that had happened, maybe we wouldn’t be in such a horrible situation.”
Kitsara hissed, glancing around warily. “You can’t just say things like that out loud!”
He shrugged again, completely unconcerned. “Both my children died in his armies. Pressed into service for his conquests, cut down for his ambitions. If someone wants to torture me for speaking the truth, let them.”
A heavy silence settled between them before Kitsara and her two illusions stepped inside, vanishing into the heart of the city without uttering a word in response.
She didn’t waste time once she was inside the city. The moment the gate shut behind her, she exhaled, adjusting her stance to something more casual—something a tired sentry after a day’s work would do.
“Good job today. Go grab some food.”
The illusions obeyed without problem. They’d spend the next few dozen minutes filling their faces with whatever slop the locals served, giving her one less thing to manage. Controlling multiple bodies while moving through an unfamiliar city would have been too much of a strain on her brain. Telling her mimics to just sit in the corner and gorge on food required much less constant fine-tuning.
Now, she could focus on the task at hand.
Emberfang was… different from what we expected.
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