Shadowwyn Moor smooth pebble

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.