Swiftcurrent Creek turquoise

he gave. he gave, in a deluge of words she had never expected to hear from a man previously regarded, however briefly, as a captor.

jakoul was the name of mae's mother, but they had not been married. a dead wife. a wife who had left him. five children, and one blinded. he described them also all as eaten by loathing, which muskrat wondered was a reflection of his own mind.

his eyes found her own. she held them. "my heart broken, once. he is dead. i am here." voice eloquent despite her grasp of the language, she sent her shoulders backward in a loose stretch that suggested apathy.

yet her eyes did not.

and she was not ready to say the rest, and fiercely fought against the notion of sharing it with another. "but even before, i know i was warrior first, then woman. do not want it. you, tuta runa, you see why we raid. to be — alive."

to feel the serenity of a life lived and the adrenaline of success rather than pass the years haunted by dead wives. "to marry not for us all. other things to be."