She doesn’t want to leave. Not her mother, not her brother, not the Badlands – her home. But more strongly than that…she doesn’t want to see her father when he returns. Something in her broke when he lost the Badlands. For her entire life, she’d been at his side, seen him as nothing but a bastion of strength and success and power.
Then he’d just…drifted. As if suddenly they weren’t enough, as if there was nothing keeping him in the Badlands or on Salem any longer. As if none of them - none of his family - mattered.

She’s pissed. Suddenly, Xafira understands why her mother always has a low-level amount of rage burning, why even though she is drawn to Rafe and the Badlands, she hates it. Because Xafira hates him too, now, and hates herself even more for loving him still.

Raegar and Arsinoe divide and conquer - he takes the remains of the herd to safety in the Hills, and she stays back to scout the competition. Perhaps she will play pretty and dumb, beg for safety and then try to kill him in the night (it’s what Xafira would do). But knowing her older sister, she’s got another plan in place. As if to prove Xafira’s assumptions right, both she and Eloísa are held back from the trek to the Hills. Eloísa is reluctantly dispatched to the Dunes, and Xafira waits eagerly for orders of her own. Something to do – anything to do – that isn’t waiting meekly in the Hills and accepting her fate and the downfall of the family.

She’s given what she wants - sent to the Desert to figure out who rules in Nyimara’s stead, since they cannot count on the often-missing witch. She does so with relish, itching for a fight and to get the buzzing under her skin to stop for just five blessed minutes.

Xafira has no idea where the herd here is lurking. She doesn’t really care - instead, she crosses the border like she owns the place, making a determined beeling for where the scent of the ruling stallion is strongest. She’ll find him, and demand a place for herself here. And then when Nyimara returns (she always returns), Xafira will secure her ongoing support – for Arsinoe or Raegar or Evrain, whoever it is that winds up the new head of their family. And after that…well. Xafira cannot think that far ahead - for now, she has a stallion to find and a place in this herd to demand.