The voice stopped his swing mid-arc.
He turned.
Elena came walking across the sand toward him, hands clasped behind her back, heels clicking, her smile arranged with the precision of a woman who had rehearsed this conversation in a mirror.
"What are you trying to do here?" he growled.
"I am just trying to clarify one thing, half-born." She stopped a few paces off, looking him up and down with the detached interest of a horse trader. "Emperor Leo has taken an interest in you. He wants you recruited as one of his allies. You should be blessed. Mountain clans do not usually get invitations to anything but the mines."
"I have no interest in any of you humans." He hefted the hammer back onto his shoulder. "You are all the same. Bastards, the lot."
Her eye twitched.
