Silver Moraine [m] I a[m] the edge of the blade,

he said nothing.
but a man like faust did not need to speak for understanding to pass between them. his eyes—glacier-carved, steel and silence—met hers with the weight of a vow. there was a flicker of something more in them, there and gone: not doubt, not fear—but reckoning.
he understood what she offered.
and what she gave up.
he had seen it in the fire of her limbs, in the bone-deep resolve of her stance, in the pride she wore like armor and the brutal grace that flowed from her like meltwater off the ice.
this was not a union of softness. not a romance spun by gentle mouths and warm beds.
this was something primal.
he nodded.
he had lived long enough to know what such unions could become. what they could cost. but he was a practical man, and tikigâk was strong. useful. capable of bearing more than young—she could shoulder a role in darukaal.
if this was what she wanted, he would not deny it.
a week, he said simply. and then the glacier would call again.
a week for unbidded time. a week that he would not offer to just anyone.