With a sigh, she held her head high and made her way to Jabbar’s side.
He watched her with a calculating gaze. Everything she did was weighed and measured by this man. He didn’t care if their people prospered, not really. Now that they all had a warm place to sleep at night and food in abundance, his mind had turned to darker thoughts.
“Have you finally come to your senses?” he asked as she reached him.
“No,” she answered bluntly. “There is no reason to create a warband. There is no reason to attack the Earthen folk.”
“They held your people captive. I think that’s enough reason right there.”
“With the understanding of our own Beastkin. The captivity was an agreement on both sides. It is no longer an agreement we wish to stand behind, and so we left. They have not followed us, nor have they put up any kind of fight when we tried to free our sisters.” She put heat behind her glare. “Leave it be.”
“We cannot attack anyone without your agreement, Sigrid.”
“And my answer will always be no.”
He shook his head, but his eyes were watching her as if he could see right through her thin control. “You’ll change your mind eventually, dragoness. I’m trying to save you an outright war. Even your own sisters agree with me. Attack the Earthen folk. End this before you regret your decisions.”
She wouldn’t. Sigrid was confident in that regard, but perhaps she was the only one who was. The Earthen folk were not going to attack the Beastkin. Why would they be so foolish? They had seen firsthand what Sigrid was capable of. Rumors and myths traveled fast in these places. No one would take such a risk when there was a dragon willing to burn their cities to the ground.
Her stomach twisted as guilt ate at her gut. The screams of Bymerian women and children filled her ears until she had to blurt out words just so her own voice would overpower them.
“Why does the great hall resemble a barn?” she asked, her tone icy and her voice hard.
“I don’t think your people would like you comparing them to farm animals.”
“Then perhaps they should start acting like humans.”
He raised an eyebrow, then sucked his tongue over his teeth. The sound cracked into the ceiling. “Careful, dragoness. You don’t want your people thinking ill of you. They are, after all, the ones who made you so powerful in the first place.”
It wasn’t the Beastkin who had made her powerful. It was her mother. The woman who had passed down the ability to shift into the great, serpentine beast she was.
But this wasn’t what Jabbar was referencing. His words were a whispered threat that even a dragon could be taken down by Beastkin if they wished. There were enough creatures here that they could have their own uprising if she didn’t do exactly what they wanted, whenever they wanted.
More and more, she resented setting them free. They wanted her to do everything. They expected the world to be handed to them.
The Wildewyn Beastkin were like this, because they had been waited on hand and foot within their old lives. The Earthen folk hadn’t wanted to anger them. They were too powerful to make angry, but they’d also treated them like pets. She knew of only a few who could even clean up after themselves.
The Bymerian Beastkin hadn’t ever had anything as nice as this place to live. They treated it as they would have any of the ruins they had lived in. This was just another thing to destroy until they found another, more suitable, home.
Sigrid nudged a larger chunk of meat, clearly inedible at this point, with her foot and pointedly stared at it. “Even you can’t want to live like this.”
“I see no problem with living the way we were meant to. We’re animals, Sigrid.” He gestured at her with the hunk of meat. “Perhaps you should try it sometime. You’re holding onto the old ways, and it’s making the others nervous.”
A surge of anger made her cheeks hot. “Is it?”
“Indeed. There aren’t any good memories from their old lives, but here you are waving it in their faces. Memories of things they don’t like are bound to stir up trouble.”
“I grow weary of your thinly veiled threats,” she growled.
“What threats?” Jabbar licked a drop of blood from his arm. “I’m merely telling you how your people are feeling. If that information makes you uncomfortable, dragoness, perhaps it’s because you know I am correct.”
She might have flown at him if the doors hadn’t slammed open. She spun on the intruder, her skirts whirling around her like petals opening around a flower. Although the movement might have been graceful, it was filled with deadly intent.
She remained stiff and poised for battle even as Camilla raced toward her. Her friend’s eyes were wide, her jaw ticking. That could only mean one thing.
Trouble.
“What is it now?” Sigrid hissed.
Out of breath and clearly disturbed, Camilla snapped, “Greenmire calls for you.”
“Greenmire?” she repeated. “The Earthen folk haven’t called for me since we took our people back. There’s no reason why they should need to speak with me.”
“And yet, there is a courier standing in front of the castle. I think…” Camilla’s eyes darted toward Jabbar, then she lowered her voice. “You should probably get out there. The others aren’t happy that a human is here.”
“Children,” she hissed. “They should greet any guest with kindness.”
“I don’t think they see it that way.”
Jabbar began to chuckle, the dark sound filling the great hall with a promise of more bloodshed to come. “They don’t want humans around here. Beastkin lands should remain in Beastkin hands.”
“Is that what you’ve taught them to chant?” Sigrid asked, already stalking away from him. “You should remember that prejudice has a way of coming back on you.”
“They’re weaker. Soon, they won’t be around anymore.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” She waited until Camilla was at her side, then slammed the doors behind them.
Let the foolish man rot alone in his keep, thinking that he’s far more powerful than he actually was. She didn’t care what he wanted to do with his free time. Their people needed someone with a softer heart than that. Someone with a more open mind who would guide them into a future where they could live in harmony with the other race who inhabited their lands.
“Was that wise to say?” Camilla asked. She spoke quietly and low, making certain any other Beastkin wouldn’t overhear them.
“No,” Sigrid replied honestly. “But eventually, this will come to blows between the two of us. He wants to destroy all that I hold dear, and I won’t let him.”
“What is there to destroy? This place has never existed before.”
Sigrid gestured around them and began the quick walk down to the front of the keep. “All of this. This place, these people. They are seeds we have planted into the ground. If we don’t water them with kindness, let the sun kiss their face with honor, shelter them from storms which would rip out their roots and history, then they will blister, die off, and eventually become something twisted and wrong. This, I believe. Pouring poison into the soil like Jabbar wants us to do… that will only end in madness.”