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Jasmine
A PANG OF TERROR SEIZEDmy mind as I heard the angry howl. I saw the same thing in Fiona and at once, I knew the fear did not belong with me. The fae inside the inn became very still, as if they hoped to hide from whatever was outside.
“Come on!” The man shouted again, his voice full of dreadful amusement. “We won’t bite!”
“What is it?” I asked Kieran as he stood up to look outside the window. His expression turned bitter at once.
“Brigands,” he replied. “They have a cage.”
“What?” Fiona got up and moved next to her brother as we all did the same.
I had to walk over the table to stare out the window. The patrons moved behind me as I did so. Avoiding the one with the broken glass, everyone came to the windows to look outside.
Three men stood in the middle of the road.
They had armor and weapons, but that wasn’t the problem. The fear inside the inn multiplied as more fae saw it.
The men had brought with them a cart pulled by a horse. On it, there was a large iron cage with a monster viciously attacking the bars. The bars were slightly bent already.
The monster looked like any other, with twisted wings and torn skin smeared in blood. The red glow in its eyes was the first thing I saw in the dark.
The monster growled and howled until I heard the dark-eyed girl’s command.
Stop.
It did. The townsfolk felt awe and shock at the sudden way the monster had stopped moving, but the bandits didn’t seem to realize it as the man with a beard and unleashed dark green wings shouted again.
“Come out!” He repeated, his glimmering eyes full of bloodlust. “Or we’ll let it out.”
The innkeeper took a few steps to stand before the broken window.
“What do you want from us?” He shouted outside the window. He put on a brave face, but his body was tense with fear.
The men laughed. The bearded man who spoke kept staring at the inn and us as the two giant men behind him made a threatening move toward the cage.
“If you don’t pay us,” the man said. “We’ll release the monster on you. Your town is a pitiful one. I get it. A hundred coins will do.”
The innkeeper hesitated. A murmur traveled across the crowd.
“Who is going to pay?” Someone mumbled.
“We don’t have that much money here,” the innkeeper raised his voice. My magic told me he was telling the truth.
“You have an hour to find it!” The man shouted again. “If all pitch in, you might see the morning.”
“We should do something,” Kieran said to the rest of us, keeping his voice down.
Dearen nodded.
“Let’s go,” I replied.
We all got up. The innkeeper turned to us as if the sudden motion frightened him.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
“We’ll take care of it,” Kieran said, reaching for his sword. “We—“
“They’ll release the monster!” A woman from the crowd said with a shaking voice. “If you lose—“
