The guards moved.
And when the guards moved, the air changed again.
These were not soft city men wearing armor and pretending at strength. These were beastmen and beastwomen raised in a hard world, and once they accepted an order, their bodies changed with it. Claws came out. Tails stilled. Ears pressed back with focus. Their gazes sharpened, and several of the guards who stepped forward already looked as if they had become more beast than human from instinct alone.
The traitors started struggling then.
Too late, of course.
One cried that he had only spoken a few words and done nothing. Another begged. A third one cursed loudly until a tiger beastman guard kicked him down so hard his words broke into a cough. Their fear turned the whole scene ugly very quickly, but nobody from Isabella's people stepped forward to defend them.
Not one.
This was because everybody there understood something those kneeling fools had not.
This place had become home.
