Shadowwyn Moor addir melek

Sulukinak halted a short distance away, her limbs caked in layers of clinging mud that cracked as she moved. She stood at an angle, her stance more braced than poised, her weight balanced as though expecting some shift in the land or the stranger before her. Her copper eyes, warm as burnished iron, fixed on him with a steady, unreadable intensity.

One of Sun Eater's wolves, the comment repeated in her mind. The mud itched against her skin, but she ignored it. Her eyes swept over him in a careful, deliberate way—no stranger to assessing potential threats. His words carried that calm drawl, the kind that made her hackles want to lift out of principle. He had the air of something sharp and cunning, she thought, like the glass shards left in riverbeds.

He is my uncle. She shared. Maybe a part of her wanted recognition of that fact; maybe by linking herself to him repeatedly before strangers, they would take what fear they had of him and include herself. Was there fear there? She did not know. The man looked so self-assured; he had certainly encountered the Saatsine at some point, to know of them, to see how they followed the caribou. It left her wondering.

What do you seek, if not what the Saatsine chase? There was her curiosity coming alive, tugging at a thread of knowing.