Repeated words, the heart of a rare animal, yes, but of all the rare animals on Caido, why a dragon? But what Deimos didn't say was almost as clear, Jigano realized. No reason for a dragon except Sunjata's decision to slay one. Why that and not one of the Landsharks that had killed several Grounders in the past year? Why not a Banshee or a Frost Giant, brutish predators who preyed upon travelers without remorse?
Why Amalia, if Sunjata intended to kill the beast and take its heart, knowing that the Shield of Safrin's duty was to protect life, not take it?
Blame duly apportioned but allowed to fall away where it had no place. Jigano nodded again, resting his fingers on the rough sketch of the black dragonling, sleeping peacefully now, as he hopefully did in Mort's halls beside Adam and Peter and Apricum. They had come a long way from past seasons of ire, but somehow kept ending up back in the same places; a spiral of anger that frayed and slipped but never seemed to break.
He drew a breath as Isuma rubbed her head against Deimos's cheek, purring harder at her companion's roiled emotions. An exhalation that wasn't quite a sigh, and then he flexed his fingers, focusing his magic and what he wanted from the world around him, calling forth a single black iron scale the size of his thumbnail. "I never asked how you and Adam met," he said quietly, turning temper and longing to lash out away and inwards, focusing on what they had come to do for the friends they had lost, rather than focusing on the man who had led them to their deaths. "Or you and Peter, for that matter. How long ago was it?"
Why Amalia, if Sunjata intended to kill the beast and take its heart, knowing that the Shield of Safrin's duty was to protect life, not take it?
Blame duly apportioned but allowed to fall away where it had no place. Jigano nodded again, resting his fingers on the rough sketch of the black dragonling, sleeping peacefully now, as he hopefully did in Mort's halls beside Adam and Peter and Apricum. They had come a long way from past seasons of ire, but somehow kept ending up back in the same places; a spiral of anger that frayed and slipped but never seemed to break.
He drew a breath as Isuma rubbed her head against Deimos's cheek, purring harder at her companion's roiled emotions. An exhalation that wasn't quite a sigh, and then he flexed his fingers, focusing his magic and what he wanted from the world around him, calling forth a single black iron scale the size of his thumbnail. "I never asked how you and Adam met," he said quietly, turning temper and longing to lash out away and inwards, focusing on what they had come to do for the friends they had lost, rather than focusing on the man who had led them to their deaths. "Or you and Peter, for that matter. How long ago was it?"
