“You ready?” she asked, her mouth crooking into a lopsided grin. Nervousness and excitement formed a heady cocktail flowing through her blood. Soldiers gathered around them, bows strung across their backs.

“More than ready,” Mari said. “The Lion is eager for blood, and so am I.”

Stasia took a step back to give her room. She had witnessed her sister’s transformation countless times, and in multiple forms in nations outside Thanet, but the Lioness was the most frightening. There was a wildness to it the others lacked, a savagery previous gods and goddesses had not imparted. Mari’s spine snapped rigid, and she screamed a cry of pain as her body changed. Her clothes, a simple ruddy dress bought for the occasion, ripped and tore to make room for muscle and claw. Pale gray fur sprouted across her skin. Her jaw unhinged, teeth growing, sharpening, while her knees broke backward. Wings sprouted from her back as she dropped to all fours. Bones pierced through her flesh to form armor akin to plate.

The word-lace about her neck shimmered blue.

“The Lioness shall lead this hunt.”

The archers with them muttered prayers, for while they knew the Lioness battled on their side with Endarius’s blessing, they had never seen such a sight, nor known Mari was her true identity. Some cursed in shock. Others wept. Stasia clanged her axes together to draw their attention.

“Move out,” she told them, then lifted her mask over her face. “Save your awe for later.”

They had already placed ladders in preparation, and the collected twenty men and women climbed them to the rooftops. Ahead were the homes that lined the northern border of the chosen clearing for the hangings. Those homes had been swept repeatedly, hence why Stasia and Mari’s group would reclaim them only moments before Thorda’s whistle. The Lioness led the way, dashing across rooftops as the group stealthily approached their destination. They slowed only when reaching the gap of the road splitting their current cluster of homes and their destination. While the archers remained crouched low atop the shingles, Stasia and Mari crawled on their bellies to the edge so they might observe.

“Just three,” Stasia said, and pointed. The soldiers stood watch, but their eyes were on the roads to either direction, not above. A fatal mistake.