“Sir,” she responded amicably.

“You’re going to hold them back.”

“I won my spot, sir.”

“You stole your spot,” he snarled. “You stole it from someone who deserved it, and you show no remorse for your actions. I don’t know what you did or said to the rest of the council to get them to approve you, but I will never approve of you. And I will be here every day of your training, reminding you of exactly what you took from the rest of them.”

“Yes, sir,” she got out.

If he wanted a reaction from her, he wasn’t going to get one.

“Training is all about working as a set, a group. Someone that your teammates can rely on. It’s not all going to be as easy as running and footwork, which you are already abysmal at. You’re going to have to trust each other, fly formations together, and anticipate each other’s moves. If you hold them back, the entire unit suffers,” he spat. “Remember that.”

“Is that all, sir?”

The fury on his face at the fact that she wouldn’t rise to his bait was quite satisfactory. Though something else must have shown in his posture because Alura finally stepped forward.

“Kerrigan, you eat with your team as you do everything else.”

Kerrigan bowed her head to Alura. “Thank you, sir.”

She was halfway across the room when she heard Alura and Lorian getting into it. Lorian famously detested his daughter’s girlfriend, a human who lived in Venatrix territory on the western sea. He’d trained Alura into the biggest, baddest fighting machine, hardly seeing her as a person, let alone a daughter—until the moment she’d defied him. Kerrigan was taking the brunt of his anger right now, but she couldn’t imagine Alura dealing with it all those years.

By the time she made it into the dining hall, everyone else had already dug into their meal. Kerrigan filled her plate with food and took the open seat next to Audria. She drank three full glasses of water before getting any food.

“What did Lorian want?” Fordham asked stiffly.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Roake asked. “He wants her gone.”

“It’s practically barbaric, the way he was treating you,” Audria said.

“Seems in line with what I’ve heard of him,” Noda said. “Someone said that last year, he beat a half-Fae girl in Venatrix near to death for supposedly stealing from a vendor in Edgewood Market.”

Audria gasped. “He’s a Society member!”

“Which means no one would say anything about it,” Noda said.

“Isn’t the Edgewood Market magicked against stealing?” Roake asked. He pointed a drumstick at Noda. “Why would someone be stupid enough to steal there?”

Noda shrugged. “Just what I heard.”

“Anyone would steal if they were desperate enough,” Fordham said.

“And how would you know?” Roake asked. “You’re royalty.”