Ouroboros Spine kimmaktuk ∝

zane caught her there, at the junction between knowing and saying. she had left herself unsaid, but now the knifehunter had her at his point.

the woman shifted, tightening limbs together as a wind flickered through the milky tresses of her ruff. "because i do not understand why you do not choose this place, with your freedom. i am wrong to want this thing of you. it is selfish. but if i do not know when i will wake, that i will find you here," the moonbird went on, the shimmer of green upon him, "then i do not know if i can send you to sivullik, to be made a hunter in his party. or if i leave moonglow for a short time, because i must, i do not know if i may say 'please put your eyes upon this land until i am back.'"

zane was not dependent because he had not chosen moonglow as she had, as the others had. nothing bound him save his own want. she could not lean upon him. he would be always an arrow fletched with blue when the others were green.

his question caught a breath in her throat. "sialuk and me are what is left of moonspear. all others have gone. we — i — will carry the name of ostrega forward this year. it is respectful of those who have gone to the dancing lights, that we honor them with moonglow."

her eyes were filled, inexorably, with tears.