By the time the first hint of dawn touched the cave entrance, Kristen had returned to her nest.
She hadn't slept but that didn't lower her confidence.
Lucia stirred first, lifting her head slightly before rising to her feet. Olivia followed soon after, stretching one wing at a time. Neither of them commented on Kristen being awake. If they noticed the faint tightness around her eyes, they didn't mention it.
They ate breakfast silently before going deeper into the cave to continue the training from yesterday. The time passed by fast as she went through drills and repetition, honing her skills.
It was a tough and brutal process of always being beaten down, but she knew that it would probably be worth it in the end.
When the time came to leave they all gathered at the entrance of the cave.
"We need to go to one of the trade roads," Lucia said simply.
Kristen nodded. She was a little quieter than usual, but not in a bad way. "I'm ready."
They left the cave just as the sky began shifting from black to deep blue. The air was colder at this hour, thin and clean in her lungs. They flew low again, keeping close to the ridge lines until the dirt road came into view.
A dead tree overlooked the bend.
They perched in near silence.
It didn't take long.
A small caravan approached from the east. Two wagons, four humans walking alongside them. Nervous energy clung to their movements. One man kept looking over his shoulder.
"Merchants," Olivia murmured.
Lucia didn't respond. Her eyes seemed to be fixed on the tree line opposite the road.
Kristen followed her gaze.
'Movement?'
The poor merchants never saw it coming.
The road bent sharply around a few rogue rocks, forcing the wagons to slow as the wheels bumped over uneven ground. One of the horses snorted nervously, ears flicking toward the trees.
The men walking beside the carts were already tense, hands hovering too close to the weapons at their belts.
Kristen watched everything from her branch.
The bandits moved with the confidence of men who had done this before. Three stepped out onto the road, blades catching the early morning light.
Two more emerged from behind the wagons, cutting off retreat. They weren't sect cultivators. They had no spiritual aura and no disciplined formation, but they were practiced and that was enough for their lifestyle.
The horses started to panic first.
One reared, nearly throwing its harness loose as shouting broke the quiet morning. A merchant reached for a blade at his belt but fumbled it in his haste. Another tried to pull a crossbow free from the wagon's side.
One merchant dropped the reins in panic.
"Should we go to them?"
Kristen blurted out as she watched the scene unfold.
"Why aren't we helping?" she continued under her breath.
"Because this isn't our fight," Lucia replied evenly.
A tone of finality was in her voice so Kristen refrained from asking any more questions.
One of the merchants tried to run.
He didn't make it far.
Dust rose into the air as the bandits overturned crates, grabbing what they could carry. They didn't linger long—just enough to secure valuables before retreating back into the trees in scattered directions.
Within minutes, it was over.
Silence returned slowly, broken only by the wind moving through tall grass and the uneven breathing of the remaining merchants. One of the wagons had tipped partially onto its side. A horse lay still.
Kristen stared.
It would have been easy to dive. Easy to scatter the bandits before they regrouped. She could feel the strength in her wings, the speed she'd built through training.
But she didn't move.
Lucia remained steady beside her. "Watch what happens next."
The merchants wasted no time after that. They scrambled to gather dropped supplies, urging the horses forward with shaking hands. Within minutes, the wagons were rolling again, wheels crunching over dirt as they hurried away from the bend.
"Fear makes them have a harder drive," Olivia said softly.
Lucia nodded. "The road will quiet for a few days. Fewer caravans means fewer bandits gathering in one place."
Kristen looked down at the bend in the road again. It appeared almost ordinary now. Just dirt and wheel tracks and scattered splinters of wood.
"If we had acted," Kristen said slowly, "they would've known something hunts them."
"And they would adapt," Lucia finished. "Smarter prey makes smarter predators. We choose when to be visible."
They stayed in the tree longer than necessary, committing patterns to memory. Which direction the bandits favoured. How quickly they moved. How they divided stolen goods before disappearing.
When they finally lifted from the branches and returned toward the mountain, the road below looked unchanged.
The experience was quite eye-opening for Kristen as she hadn't actually seen crime in first person, but seeing those bandits made her realise that most of them were actually quite trained. Even if they didn't have cultivation she was sure that they would be hard to deal with in the future.
They got back to the mountain just before the day ended, just in time for a delicious dinner made from the goods they stole in her first mission.
Lucia moved to the flat planning rock again and sat down, relaxing. Olivia settled near the shallow pool, dipping her claws into the water to rinse off dust gathered from the tree bark.
Kristen remained standing there for a moment before finally asking, "How do you decide?"
Lucia didn't pretend not to understand. "Decide what?"
"When to act. When to watch."
The cave was still except for the steady drip of water.
Lucia regarded her carefully. "We aren't their saviours."
At this Olivia stood up and started to prepare dinner. It was a quick one this time, just some warm meat to gulp down without much thought.
After eating their fill they let sleep take them under.