Page 22 of Daring the Drakarn Warrior Lord
"No. I'm mated to his Strategic Advisor." Vega's eyes narrowed. "Which means I deal with plenty of political bullshit myself. And I've learned that trying to meet impossible expectations is a waste of energy. Focus on what you're actually good at, not what they think you should be good at."
I turned away, frustration building in my chest. "Easy for you to say."
"Is it?" Her voice had an edge now. "You think I don't get challenged? That warriors don't question why Zarvash chose a human? I get plenty of shit. I just don't let it dictate my choices."
"Because you don't have to." The words came out sharper than I'd intended. "You're not the Warrior Lord's consort. You're not the visible symbol of human-Drakarn relations. When people look at you, they seeyou. When they look at me, they see Darrokar's weakness."
Silence fell between us.
Vega studied me for a long moment. Then she sighed. "You're right. Your position is different. The scrutiny is worse. But that doesn't make the Skalanth a good idea. If anything, it makes it worse. You fail, and it confirms everything they believe about humans being weak. You succeed, and they'll say you cheated or that the trials were made easier for you. There's no winning move here."
I knew she was right. Hated it but knew it.
"So what do I do?" I asked. "Just keep taking the harassment? Keep letting them treat me like I don't belong?"
"You keep doing what you've been doing. Living your life. Doing your work. Being competent and capable and refusing to apologize for existing." Vega pushed off the wall. "We can't win them all over. Some people are always going to hate us. But we don't need everyone's approval to build a life here. We just need enough people to see our worth. And you've already got that."
She was making sense. I didn't want her to be making sense, but she was.
"I need to think," I said.
"Good. Think hard. And when you're done thinking, come to the same conclusion I already reached." Vega grabbed her jacket. "Don't do the Skalanth. It's not worth it."
She left me alone in the training chamber.
I stood there for a while, sweat cooling on my skin, listening to the distant sounds of Scalvaris. Voices echoing through corridors. The rush of the underground river. The ever-present hum of geothermal vents.
Vega was right. Iknewshe was right.
But knowing something and accepting it were different things.
I grabbed my jacket and headed out, no clear destination in mind. Just walking. Letting my feet carry me through the familiar passages while my brain spun in circles.
The market district sprawled ahead of me before I'd consciously decided to go there. The scent hit me first. Spices and smoke and something sweet I couldn't identify. Then the sounds. Vendors calling out their wares, customers haggling, the general chaos of commerce.
I wove through the crowd, human-small among the towering Drakarn bodies. Most ignored me. A few nodded in acknowledgment. One vendor tried to sell me something that looked like dried meat but smelled like sulfur. I politely declined.
Then I saw Orla.
She sat in a small courtyard just off the main market flow, cross-legged on the ground with some kind of device spread out in front of her. Tools scattered around her. Her hands moved quickly, adjusting something, tightening something else.
Three Drakarn children clustered nearby, watching with open curiosity.
I stopped at the courtyard's edge, half-hidden behind a pillar.
"What does it do?" one of the children asked. Young, maybe eight or nine. Her scales were bright green.
"It measures heat signatures," Orla said without looking up. "See this part here? It detects changes in temperature and converts them to visual data."
"Why?"
"Because sometimes you need to find things that are warmer or cooler than their surroundings. Like tracking someone through a tunnel system. Or finding a heat vent that's about to fail."
The child leaned closer. "Can I touch it?"
"Gently." Orla guided the small clawed hand to a safe part of the device. "Feel that? That's the sensor array. Very delicate."
The child touched it with surprising care. Her eyes widened. "It's warm."
