The Kings Mistress Chapter 119

[ … words ]

Perhaps Alistair’s words reached her ears, or she already had a plan from the beginning. After all, a good knightess always has a backup plan. In war, things are often unpredictable. No one knows what could happen one moment from the next.

As such, Sierra had learned to not rely on the first plan she concocted. She always had something brewing at the back of her mind, just in case. This situation was no different. Upon realizing she could not rely on the largest catch from the hunt, she immediately changed her strategy to focus on one of the three types of herds she could hunt.

A herd was a lot more difficult to stalk at times, especially on horseback. As such, Sierra kept Midnight in a cave and told her mare not to go anywhere.

“I will call for you at the opportune moment,” she whispered to her horse.

A low hissing sound alerted Sierra at once. Opal, her snake, had been resting in her pouch on her belt for the entirety of the hunt. She wanted to be let out to hunt too.

“I’m sorry Opal, I can’t let you out right now,” Sierra apologized as she peeked into the pouch to see her pet snake lower her head.

Though snakes do not have facial expressions, Sierra could sense Opal’s emotions. Those senses only grew stronger after she received a blessing from Dravin. She could also tell her little snake seemed a little bored.

“How about this, you can go accompany Alistair for me, how does that sound?”

Just as she finished speaking, overhead, the bell rang throughout the forest. It was the indication that there was only an hour left in the hunt. Pressing for time, Sierra gently took Opal out of her pouch and placed her on the ground.

“Be careful, there’s a lot out there,” Sierra reminded her before gently booping her nose before sending her on her way.

Opal hissed twice, letting Sierra know she would be careful. With that, the little white snake slithered off. Sierra got back up to her feet and turned to examine the tracks she had found.

There was no doubt the ringing of the bell might have caused the herd she was tracking to move. She quickly made her way through the forest while following the trail.

“Gotcha!” She exclaimed with glee as she carefully observed the herd she had been searching for from a distance.

It was a herd of wild tusk boars. Sierra counted all of them. There were twenty in total and each of them was worth 10 points. Should she successfully annihilate the entire herd, she would gain an additional 50 points.

“This should help bring up my score in no time,” she chimed as she drew her bow and took aim.

Knowing full well the first squeal of the wild boar would set the rest of the herd off in various directions, she had to speed up to minimize the time it took to kill all of them. She drew her bow with three arrows notched and released them into the air.

She took careful aim, which allowed her to hit each boar square on their windpipe. This stopped the shot boars from making too much noise. Though it required more arrows, she used the second set of arrows to hit them square in the head or heart to ensure they were dead.

Using this method, Sierra successfully took out all 20 tusk boar in a matter of minutes. Once she was certain they were all dead, she got up to her feet and celebrated triumphantly. But the test was far from over. She still had work to do.

She whistled for Midnight, who came to her promptly.

Next, Sierra headed over to the target board area where Myra, Taita, and her had first previously been at. She had told them not to focus on the hard ones previously, knowing the difficulty and the amount of time required for them to hit it would not have been worth the effort.

But for Sierra, all of them were easy.

She was surprised to find some of the princesses still trying to hit the targets. But she paid them no mind. She notched her bow and launched her arrows through the air one after another.

The princesses who were still trying their luck were stunned to hear the arrows wheezing past them. They looked on in shock as every arrow hit the center of a moving target.

Once Sierra was satisfied, she moved on, leaving the princesses completely stunned and staring.

At the spectator stands, everyone watched in stunned amazement as Sierra’s name reached top three on the charts in a matter of seconds.

“How’s that possible?”

“I heard she’s got demonic powers. That’s how she’s able to swoon the King and that must be why she’s so good at this contest too!”

“She must have stolen someone’s kill! How could she have gained so many points in so little time?”

Alistair was annoyed at hearing all the rumors and nasty comments the nobles had for Sierra. He knew full well she had never been a favorite to win any test as she came from a kingdom most of them had never heard of. The other princesses such as Cassandra and Agnes had large followings.

Not only did they debut in high society, but they also had many powerful allies. Roxine could see that the comments were getting to Alistair. She turned back and shot the crowd a quick cold glare and immediately the voices hushed.

“It won’t make a difference,” Alistair sighed as he shifted in his seat.

Looking over to the scoreboard a small smile formed on his face. He could not wait to see the look on Sierra’s face when she returned. He could not wait to hear all about how she was able to achieve such high points in a short period of time.

Just then, a hissing noise caught his attention.

“My my who do we have here?” He chuckled as he held out his hand.