Shadowwyn Moor smooth pebble

"@Suliya."

for now he was alone; for now. he had left the others behind to follow along a backtrail until the paleness of her coat was evident to his single eye.

"river walker asks for a wife," he grunted when he had come near. ignorant to the toil of her mind; as always pinned upon himself, he exhaled into the cold air. "mate to ghost talker only gives up her children if he says the spirits will it."

a way to spare her the coming travail of lanzadoii woman.

suliya stood still, her pale coat blending with the frost-bitten surroundings, her expression composed. she watched sun eater approach, his presence commanding, as it always was. though the words she wished to say burned behind her lips, she kept her tone steady, her anger tucked beneath a veil of calm.

the ghost talker, she began softly, her eyes steady on his. is he old enough to bear children? to guide them with the wisdom they will need?

her question was light, almost curious, though it carried the weight of deeper meaning. she let the silence stretch between them, her breath visible in the crisp air. the tension in her limbs eased as she took a slow, deliberate breath, waiting for his answer with an unreadable expression.

"when the hot sun comes." this time would grant the two many months to know one another, to refuse one another. after all, river walker had asked to be given a wife. and suliya was not one to be given.

"speak to him." his tone was even, and by his comfortable stance it showed that he did not intend to press her upon this.

morwenna; she filled his thoughts and his chest. "it may serve you to have his favor all the same." 

she and her muradoii blood! he should command it. but would not the spirits be angered if he gave a wife to river walker in deceit?

suliya listened, her jaw tight and eyes sharp, though her face betrayed nothing of the storm twisting inside her chest. she nodded, giving her agreement in a smooth motion. i will speak to him, she said simply, her voice calm, measured—entirely detached from the tangle of her thoughts.

winter's wake.

his image flitted through her mind like the wind through dry leaves. the man of the seasons, his sharp wit and playful nature, stark in contrast to the rigid walls of lanzadoii tradition. for a fleeting moment, the thought of vanishing into the wilds with him whispered in her mind—muradoii ways.

but she anchored herself, held steady. disappearing without thought was not her choice to make, not yet. she had obligations, if not to the spirits, then to herself.

still, a boy husband was not what she wanted. the thought curdled in her chest, though she kept it unspoken. her place was to listen, to learn, to remain.

instead, she flicked her tail, changing the subject with precision. and your new wife? her tone was light, but her gaze sought sun eater’s face with purpose. does she please you? it was not idle curiosity but something deeper—a question born from the tension she felt at his proclamation, from the shifting dynamics she now found herself tangled within.

swiftly she acquiesced — his narrowed eye turned over the threading herds in contemplation. sun eater did not profess to know suliya; he was innately suspicious, and she had already roused it once in him.

"she has left her home to become saatsine. she will leave her name here." 

heartbeat; heartbeat; his thought of subduing until contrition remained the inkspill state of sun eater; morwenna's affable nature did not have a resistance in it that he could see. "i do not know if she will please me."

quietly the chieftain drifted closer; "she is not lanzadoii."

suliya should have taken him the day she admitted her muradoii blood. he wanted this pale caribou woman and whether or not the words were uttered, sun eater knew its truth: he did not desire to see her possessed by the ghost talker or grey man, but himself.

he was powerful; he had killed. he had earned the attention of the sun clan women.

his lightness always for morwenna; but suliya knew things of their people the starweaver might never understand.

suliya's gaze did not waver, her features composed in a way that belied the storm beneath her pale eyes. i know, she replied evenly, her voice carrying no jealousy, no envy, only the weight of something far more profound. it was not the woman—this morwenna—that stirred her, but the man who now stood before her, his word undone by his own hand.

that much is clear, she continued after a beat, the edges of her tone sharpening, though she remained outwardly calm. there was no malice in her words, only a cold, analytical detachment that revealed her disquiet. she thought of the lanzadoii, their voices she had once believed to guide her, and the muradoii echoes that whispered truths she could not ignore.

it was not anger she felt, but a deeper sense of mistrust, of disconnection. she had accepted the muradoii in her blood, their love in all things—a love that shaped even their cruelty, their violence. it was an ethos sun eater seemed to grasp only when it suited him, and this inconsistency gnawed at her like a carrion bird picking apart flesh. i wish you happiness, for what it is worth.

had she been forced to choose between sun eater or the boy husband, she would have chosen the boy. not because of affection or loyalty, but because he represented something sun eater had not proven to her: a clarity of purpose.

the muradoii, for all their shadows, did what they did for love. and in this moment, suliya could see no love in the man before her, not for her, not for her culture. she did not say this aloud. instead, she simply watched him, waiting to see what weight her words might bear.

there it was; as if blood tinged water, the sharkish air of the chieftain snapped toward the subtle shift in suliya's tone. her beauty continued to infuriate him, and her words — they muddled.

"say what you want, ice woman. there is no one here to speak but us," sun eater rumbled, another step commanded until their breath formed a single cloud in the air.

on the eve of his honeymoon he wanted the lanzadoii woman who had not seen fit to have him, and this enraged sun eater with a greater flame. "this is our way. i made grey man and ice diver and ridgeback into saatsine. she will become like them or she will not be happy."

now a fanged smile crossed his arrogant face. "you are jealous," he decided, the remaining eye darkened with many things. "i did not chase you. now you are angry," he teased suliya with vague malice.

not too late.

suliya flicked an ear at his words, her expression unchanging, though her sharp eyes gleamed like frost on a winter morning. she let his taunts roll off her like water, her demeanor steady as the ice she claimed in her blood.

you think too much of yourself, sun eater, she said smoothly, her tone free of the venom he likely hoped to provoke. the muradoii women hold no loyalties to their men. the everdark claims it as such. my mother knew it. her mother knew it. the bond between man and woman is no chain. only the ice binds us—to the sea, to the hunt, to the spirits.

she turned her head slightly, as if to consider him in a different light, though the faintest flicker of a smirk betrayed her. even the ice killers—those you recoil from with disgust—dance to the game of courtship. it is something they need. it is the way of things, is it not?

she fell silent then, her presence as cold and immovable as the ice she spoke of.

his laughter was cruel and dangerous, cutting across her too-familiar talk of the everdark. in this moment there was nothing of lanzadoii in suliya; he saw her for the creation she was, monster's blood and fishbones mired in cold water.

"i give you power to make another saatsine. to make a man lanzadoii. only i can give this. but i see you are not worthy of it." he stepped aside, lashed his tail once, and addressed the caribou woman in ultimatum.

"do not speak of the muradoii again. i forbid it. only becoming a vessel for lanzadoii blood will save you. they have no spirits of their own, and those of the saatsine will devour your heart."

submit. to him. to the glacier runners. to what he knew was right and true. sun eater stared hard at suliya, then turned away to leave the pale woman behind.