Bearclaw Valley what you need is a sweet caress

sobeille would deserve any incoming hit, but it never came. she watched as ameline’s warring emotions coalesced across her dark face — in the end, restraint won out.

did she keep secrets from her maman? the thrust of the ball back in her court had sobeille considering this; there were things she simply did not tell mireille, because she knew her maman would worry. did that count?

she did not trust ameline, and so, without any reservation, turned and ran. sneaky as she was, she had no designs to infiltrate later. something didn’t add up — either athalia was lying, or ameline was — and sobeille suspected the latter.

as she looked up out of the valley westward, she tried to assemble the juxtaposing thoughts that jumbled around in her head. one: was athalia dead, really? and how did she feel learning things? she understood the right emotion to feel was a deep sense of sadness; she’d witnessed it in the eyes and face of her kin when death visited sapphique — but she did not feel this. she felt something ugly and inalienable; the way she might feel if someone stole her meal, times ten. athalia was hers — not anyone else’s — to take, and this injustice flamed in her heart and quickened her step. athalia had shared something in common with her — learning she was robbed of this common ground caused a smoldering in her breast.

the first tentative seeds of vengeance were laid in her mind as she returned back to sapphique.