They were nearly at the edge of the market before Mak finally slowed, Flisety and Kalia halting either side of him. Finally, Flisety gave in to the tug from behind, turning and stretching her neck to find the stall. Another wolf had paused beside it. The Mystwylf seemed to have no problem chatting pleasantly to them.
“That’s Garel’s chief jeweller,” Mak said, drawing her attention to him. “He watches over Lunerda’s mines and makes sure the miners don’t take anything. Jewels are worth a lot in trade. The Earthwylves make all those things for him, and he sells them on or gives them as gifts. But he gets all the credit,” he added quietly, his tone laced with bitterness.
“I see,” Flisety muttered. She had more to say, but swallowed her barbed words when she caught sight of Kalia. She was unnervingly still.
Shifting her paws, Flisety looked back over at the stall. The rubies sparkled even from across the street. A recent memory flashed at the back of her mind: a necklace, like the one draped over the stall, but thicker and hung with a fat diamond. It was likely this jeweller would have given some of his stock to the son of Garel.
She bit back her growl, forcing her awareness to pick up on Kalia watching her. Did such gifts mean anything to Rowtag? Or was his necklace nothing but a show of power? He’d certainly seemed to wear it with pride of a sort.
Something worth a fortune in trade, an object most wolves could only gaze at from a distance, yet he received it for nothing. Her magic stirred within her, pricking at her claws. She gave her head a small shake. It wouldn’t get the better of her, not again, even if this wolf did deserve it.
But she couldn’t ignore its demands, not entirely. The jeweller’s attention had long since been drawn from the three of them. While he stood oblivious, her magic was a tool at her disposal, and poised for a little revenge.
Reaching for it, she narrowed her eyes, but a nudge at her shoulder jolted her focus. Mak cast her a glance. “No point dwelling on it. Come on, let’s go explore the rest of the market.”
“Wait.” She took a step forward, edging out of his reach. Unseen to any but the tug of her soul, a trail of her magic swept through the crowd, reaching towards the Mystwylf.
“Flisety, come on!”
Without lapsing her concentration, Flisety cast a brief glance in the direction of Kalia’s voice. “In a second.”
“What are you doing?”
A smile touched her snout. “Getting our own back.”. Her senses were stretched right to the jewelled stall, so much so that her whisper was even softer to her ears than reality, yet she still felt its fierce edge.
Mak’s shoulder bumped with hers again, but her focus was a hardened blade, sharp enough to endure it. “That won’t do any good.”
That might have been true in one sense, but good was subjective. This was just a little push. Something small to satisfy the scraping desire for revenge.
Besides, he was too late to stop her. Her mind’s power was hooked around one leg of the stall’s structure. With one forceful tug, it gave way to her magic. The thump of wood hitting the ground rippled through her a second before the sound reached her ears. It was followed by the satisfying clatter of rubies splitting into a thousand pieces.
The utter horror that dropped the jeweller’s jaw was more beautiful than any of his stolen trinkets.
Through the sudden silence, Kalia’s gasp cut the air behind her. “Did you just--”
“Let’s go.” Mak supplied the command before Flisety could. He was already marching sideways, disappearing into the throng. As she followed, she realised that most wolves had gone rigid, heads turned in the direction of the shattered jewels.
They halted again once they were sufficiently hidden by others, but there was a large enough gap that Flisety could peer through and catch sight of the jeweller. He was still frozen, his snout carved open with shock. His head jerked about the crowd, but everyone seemed too nervous to come any closer. If anything, the wide berth around the stall implied most had backed away.
A murmur began to creep across the market as wolves gained the courage to speak, and within a matter of moments the street was alive with noise again. Snouts pointed down, deliberately avoiding the Mystwylf’s gaze as he bent over his broken jewellery.
Gradually, movement resumed, until the only difference that remained was the area around the upturned stall. At Mak’s jerk of the head, Flisety and Kalia joined them, weaving silently through the crowd. Flisety kept her head down. The thrill of toppling the stall gradually dissipated, gnawed at by the nervous way Kalia’s eyes darted about and Mak’s stiff steps.
Only when they were at the opposite edge of the market to the jeweller’s stall did Mak come to an abrupt stop. He whirled to face her. She flinched at the hardness of his gaze.
“Why did you do that?” he hissed.
“Because he deserved it.” The justification didn’t feel as solid as it had before, but it was still true.
Mak gave his head a hard shake. “If he saw you--”
“But he didn’t,” she said, meeting his eyes. She hoped that the force of her stare conveyed something reassuring, that she really had thought this through and that all was fine.
Dropping his head, he let loose a growl. It cut short as he glanced up at Kalia. “Just… don’t do something like that again, alright? I don’t know about Borelton, but Lunerda doesn’t really… tolerate that sort of thing.”
Maybe that’s your problem. She swallowed the thought, and simply nodded. “Sorry, Mak. It won’t happen again.”
It was a good job Kalia’s bands didn’t allow them to see inside each other’s minds, or else the blatancy of her lie would have stood out like one of those rubies amongst a sea of dust. She glanced back through the crowd, making out the purple form of the jeweller still scrabbling about beside his stall. Even after Mak’s scolding, a smile tugged at her snout. She hurriedly hid it as she turned back to her new friends.
“We can carry on exploring the market, right?” Kalia asked, tentatively lifting her tail.
“Of course,” Mak said automatically, moving closer to her. Flisety smothered her snicker. She doubted he knew how to say no to Kalia, regardless of the situation. “Just keep your distance from the jeweller for a while, alright? At least until he’s sorted out his stall.”
With a nod, Kalia sprung back into the crowd. Mak shot Flisety a meaningful glance before following her, their voices joining in laughter as he butted her side. Flisety took a step after them, then paused, her gaze drifting in the direction of the jeweller before she could stop it.
The fragments of her earlier plan reformed in her mind, ideas cracked apart now knitted together. Rowtag, the party, the acel-bak, and now this jeweller and his precious gems. The false beauty he claimed as his own now lay scattered in pieces at his paws, and perhaps that was a suitable kind of revenge. A rather satisfying sort, in fact.
“Sorry, Mak,” she muttered, only for herself to hear, before resuming her stride into the market. “I’m afraid there’s more vengeance to deliver.” He wouldn’t be aware of this one, however. What he and Kalia didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.
She spared her claws one subtle glance. The plan was stupid, but now it had latched onto her mind, there was no stopping the path it carved.
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