Qeya River kuugaamiut

sulukinak could see no reason why cen might keep this man or his boy.

the man looked worse-off than the river people; thin, tired, the kind of man to drain resources. of course her bias might have been more focused on the child — in the back of her mind the harvest lurked.

the man spoke a name which had only briefly existed, and this further proved to sulukinak that the man was not riverborn.

he is uncle, not husband. resisting the urge to wrinkle her nose at the idea. she shakes out the tension in her shoulders.

where is wife? she asks of the man, motioning to where the boy was roaming; if the child was here, why not his mother too?