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They came out to try and defend their homes, I realize.
The mob has grown larger. There has to be about seventy or eighty naga mixed in with one another.
The mob is tightly pressed together, body against body, our breath mingling together, and when I look ahead, I see that we’re surrounded by a ring of fire.
“Stop!”
Prince Zalith’s voice is loud, deep, and piercing. And it is commanding.
It is the voice of someone who will one day be King.
I look over at Lasta and Slyth, who are looking at Zalith with what I can only describe as pride on their faces.
The mob slows down and spreads out, and soon, the Lodrian Royal Guard is surrounding the naga from Yadat.
The group becomes smaller and smaller as the Lodrian naga move back to their homes, taking the dead and the injured with them.
“You will all be arrested! You are committing treason!” Zalith bellows, and some of the Yadat naga look around and whisper among themselves.
Somewhere in the distance, a few people are trying to put out the fire. And then the scream, a high keen, ripples through the air.
We all turn.
It is an older naga woman. She has fallen to her knees in the center of the town near the fountain. She is cradling a dead, dismembered naga in her arms.
And she doesn’t stop screaming.
When I look at Zalith, his face is pale with fury.
I jostle my way out of the crowd as the naga from Yadat remain surrounded by Lodrian soldiers.
“Threats of treason won’t work,” I tell Zalith.
“And why exactly not?” he barks.
“Because they’re not from Lodra. Like I said before, the rules of Lodra do not apply to them.”
I speak more loudly, and some of the naga in the mob, some of them from Lodra, begin to look uncomfortable.
“They’re loyal to Kriseri. They don’t care about your laws. They’re just trying to stir up trouble.”
“Trouble?” Zalith spits and then turns to point at the bodies of the dead. “They killed people.”
And you helped them.
He doesn’t say the words out loud, but I know he is thinking them.
The mob starts to disperse as more and more of the Lodrian naga leave to join those who are tending to the injured.
But not all of them are leaving, I realize then. Some of the Lodrian naga have been swayed by the dissenters from Yadat.
And they want a fight.
A yell breaks the momentary silence, and then, in something akin to a flood, the remainder of the mob moves towards us.
I jump into the fight without thinking.
You helped them. The words, and I do not know if they’re mine or if they’re words I imagine Zalith speaking, ring over and over in my head. You helped them.
