1
Sigrid
Dappled sunlight played across Sigrid’s face. The warmth of the sun stroked her cheeks and left lingering heat in spots on her bare arms. Birds sang bright and clear, their songs lifting up to the clouds, twirling in the wind that toyed with her loose golden curls.
How long had she felt trapped here? How long had she lingered in the shadows of this land hoping that someone would leave her alone long enough so that she could feel this one more time?
“Sigrid?” a voice called out.
And there went her peace.
She rolled onto her side. The skirts of her simple overdress twisted through her legs with her movement. A white undershirt kept her arms warm. The chill of autumn had arrived. Thankfully, the afternoons were still filled with the sun, if she could find a private spot to linger in solitude.
“Camilla,” Sigrid called out. “You’re supposed to be at the feast.”
Her dearest friend, the only person she would truly call her sister, pushed aside a branch and ducked into the small clearing where Sigrid waited. Camilla, as always, was dressed like a wild thing. She’d taken to wearing furs now that it was colder out. A hide skirt revealed the long expanse of her bare, dark legs. A leather corset paired it, and she’d placed a sheepskin over her shoulders for a little extra heat.
One of the other Beastkin had braided her hair into rows at the top of her head. When had Camilla’s hair gotten that long? The ends hit her hips as she walked and whirled like whips when she turned too quickly. The look suited her, although it made her perhaps a little less approachable.
Sigrid and Camilla had always liked being intimidating, however. Perhaps this was her friend’s way of continuing to push people away.
Her onyx skin gleamed in the sunlight like the sheen of her warhorse after battle. Camilla’s face split into a grin, and she shook her head. “The feast? You mean the one which can’t start without you?”
“They know very well I don’t care for those kinds of revelries.”
“And they’re still waiting for you.” Camilla crunched through the fallen leaves, then landed hard on the ground next to Sigrid. “They’d rather have their leader eating amongst them.”
Sigrid hated it. She’d somehow managed to gather herself an entire kingdom of people who wanted her to be something she wasn’t. They wanted her to be lethal, a dangerous creature who thirsted for blood and wanted to burn all the kingdoms to the ground.
She might be a dragon, but she wasn’t a monster.
“Well, even leaders need to get away from everything sometimes.” She rolled onto her back and stared up through the red leaves rattling above them. “Maybe I should disappear in the night and not return for a few days. Would they starve themselves, you think? Or would they somehow manage to survive?”
Camilla smacked her shoulder with a laugh. “Get up, you. They’re going to start gnawing on each other’s arms if we don’t get back soon.”
Good. Maybe they would relax once the blood started flowing.
Shaking her head, and knowing it was a bad idea to stay, Sigrid sat up and rubbed a hand on the back of her neck. “Help me with my hair then?”
“They don’t care what your hair looks like, Sigrid.”
But that was the difference between her and Camilla. Her owlish friend could walk among them and no Beastkin would ever question why she was there. They would look at her and laugh, no matter what clothing or style she chose. If she wanted to walk through the camp naked with her face painted, she could.
Everything Sigrid did was a sign to them. If she changed her clothing style, then suddenly everyone in the camp was wearing the same kind of dress. If she wore her hair down, they wondered if she was sick. If she wore it up in a different way, they wondered if something was changing.
Each detail of her life had suddenly become an omen. She had to watch what she said or did.
This was worse than Bymere. At least there, the people had looked at her as if she was some kind of nightmarish creature. They’d wanted nothing to do with her and, because of that, they’d freed her from the cage she’d always lived in.
It seemed that she’d traded her freedom for yet another cage.
Camilla must have seen all the emotions playing across Sigrid’s face, because she sighed and twirled a finger in the air. “Turn around then, you fool. If that’s how it’s got to be, then I’ll make sure the braids look normal this time. Do you remember what happened when we tried a different style?”
Sigrid snorted. “I don’t want to see that many people running around looking like we were going to be attacked from every direction. Did you know that you’d given me a traditional battle hairstyle?”
“Of course I did. That’s why I gave it to you. I thought it made you look fierce.”
She didn’t need anything else to make her look fierce. Sigrid was a perpetually terrifying creature with eyes like steel and a second form that could raze kingdoms to the ground. Of course, her friend didn’t see her that way. Camilla only saw her as the little girl who used to play with her through the corridors of the castle, finding all the secrets hidden within the walls.
And Sigrid loved her endlessly for it.
The soothing touch of her friend lulled her into a false sense of security. The forests here were lush, untouched by man and barely touched by beast. When they’d first arrived, the leaves had been so green they looked like emeralds hanging off of each branch.
She enjoyed seeing the seasons change. From the bright colors of spring, the warm tones of summer, and now to the burning, fire-like qualities of autumn. But she wasn’t looking forward to winter, when all her people would be cold and would have to hunt for meat that would inevitably become harder to find.
Camilla stroked a hand down her hair which was now half up and braided in random strands. “There. I suppose you look a little more like yourself.”
Together, they stood. Sigrid immediately placed a hand on her hip, only to find that her mask was no longer there.
The item had become a symbol of slavery. A symbol of all the things the Beastkin had suffered and all the mistreatment at the hands of both Earthen folk and Bymerian.
She still missed it.
Camilla’s keen eyes stared at Sigrid’s hand on her hip. “You still look for it?”
“Every day.”
“Why?” Camilla had always had a hard time understanding it. “Those things were on our faces, hiding who we were, for centuries. Not just us, but all the Beastkin who had come to the Earthen folk’s halls for safety.”
“I don’t know how to explain it.” Sigrid shook her head and started back toward the keep. “The mask was more than just something to hide my face. It gave me a sense of… safety, although I’m sure that’s the wrong word. I wasn’t a woman when I wore that mask.”
“You aren’t a woman now. You’re a Beastkin, and a dragon at that. You are so much more than any other woman.”
If she heard that one more time, she was going to scream.
Sigrid forced her face into a mask, changing her features to remain still and cold. Even to her best friend. “Then we should get back to the feast as soon as possible. They’ll want me to be among them.”