“I adore all my offspring equally. Even you, my love.”
Brannie rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Mum.”
Ghleanna fingered the ends of Brannie’s black hair. “This is getting a bit long, don’t you think?”
“No. I like my hair to reach my shoulders.”
“Just gives them more to grab for in battle.”
Brannie pulled away from her mother. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me hair.”
“If you say so.”
“I absolutely hate when you get that tone!”
“What tone? A tone that would suggest it wouldn’t kill you to make your hair more appropriate for a captain of Her Majesty’s Army?”
“Am I supposed to believe that Uncle Bercelak or Auntie Rhiannon give one single fuck about the length of my hair?”
“I give a single fuck about the length of your hair. Not as your mother, but as general of Her Majesty’s legions!”
“Oh for the sake of the gods, Mother, give it a rest!”
“Don’t speak to me in that tone, you spoiled brat!”
“You just told Keita there are no spoiled brats among your offspring.”
“I lied!”
“Excuse me,” Keita cut in. “Are you two done with the gossip? Because if you are, I’m going to find Talaith and see if she has anything good.”
When Brannie and her mum simply stared at her, Keita waved her hand, gesturing between them and gleefully noted, “Like twin mirrors of rage, you both are!”
“Human?”
“Dragon.”
“Really?” Kachka sighed. She’d had no clue there were so many dragons in the world. Dragons who pretended to be human.
But while sitting on this table with her sister, their long legs hanging over the edge while they ate some ridiculously delicious—and definitely decadent—dessert, they’d been guessing which were the dragons and which weren’t. And sadly, Kachka was learning that dragons were everywhere.
“What about that one?” she asked. “Human?”
“Dragon.”
“No!”The dessert the sisters had been indulging in was some kind of fried dough covered in powdered sugar. The pieces were bite-sized so the pair had been throwing them up in the air and catching them in their mouths for nearly twenty minutes. Although Kachka didn’t have the heart to tell her sister that she now had multiple dots of powdered sugar on her face from when her aim had been off.
But Kachka refused to feel sad about that. She had her sister by her side and she was actually happy, even without her eye. Already they’d had much more time together than they’d had since they were children.
As soon as it had become clear that although Elina excelled as a hunter for food but not a slaughterer of humans, the pair had spent less and less time together. Something Kachka was sure their mother had arranged. Not because she held any great hopes for Kachka either, but because she simply wanted Elina to suffer. To be as alone and separate as she could be without it being too obvious.
It no longer mattered. though. They were still Daughters of the Steppes, always would be, but they were outcasts now. No longer accepted by their own, they only had each other to turn to. Something that didn’t bother Kachka as much as it probably should have.
“What about that one?” she asked, pointing out a tall, broad-shouldered, but young-looking male. “He’s not a dragon, is he?”
“No. He’s not.”
“See?”
“He’s a Northlander.”
Kachka snarled in disgust and spit on the floor to ward off nearby evil.
“I was trying to pretend I wasn’t listening,” the one they called Izzy stated from nearby, “but now I must ask, why such a reaction to Northlanders?”
Elina motioned the woman closer, and she practically skipped over in excitement. Did these Southlanders have nothing better to do with their time than have their servants cater to them and involve themselves in gossip?
“Back, many centuries ago,” Elina explained, “we used to raid the Northland territories for jewels and husbands—”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t just call them slaves?”
“We marry them, do we not?” Kachka asked, not appreciating the brown one’s judgmental tone.
“I was just asking.”
“But they did not have many jewels and the few pretty men we found tended to die on the way back to the Steppes.”
“Why?”
“Because they tried to escape and often tried to take a Daughter or two with them. And the Daughters usually killed them out of annoyance.”
“Aaah. I see. But why did Kachka do the dramatic . . . spitting? Which, by the way, the servants will be forced to clean up.”
“Keep that tone, Southlander,” Kachka warned, “and I will make you lick it up.”
Elina placed her sugar-covered hands against each one’s chest to stop them from charging each other. Not because she wanted to stop them from fighting, but more likely because she wasn’t finished telling the story yet. Elina hated when people interrupted her stories.
“But we continued to raid their lands—”
“Wait,” the one called Izzy said. “If there were few jewels and the men kept dying . . . why would you continue to raid their lands?”
“They were there and practice makes the perfect. Anyway, a group of powerful Northland hags finally had had enough and they conjured up some Northland demon to rain vengeance down upon our heads. It wiped out a good chunk of our people at the time. It was very bad.”