Of course she does.
This is my Mih-kay-lah. Bee-yoo-ti-ful and stubborn.
She reaches into her basket and pulls out a mound of black firestone dust and a scrap of torn covering. The items look snatched up in haste, thrown together without care.
She points back toward the sick alcove where Tee-nah lies. Then to the dust in her hand.
I do not understand the connection.
But I understand her stance. The way her chin lifts. The stubborn flare in her eyes.
She wants to come with us.
“Noh,” I say again, stepping into her space in a way I never have before.
She is suddenly very close. Close enough that the heat of her skin seeps through the air between us. Close enough that I can see the dark freckle on her temple. Close enough that my body reacts without my permission.
My dra-kir kicks hard.
The pressure at my groin pulses, the flesh heavy and aware.
Something warm blooms in the center of my chest, right behind my chest bone.
I loom, letting my shadow fall over her. I have seen shadows make other females step back. My size alone should send her retreating. She reaches only to my chest-height.
How do I explain what claws and mind-speech and broken mouth-words cannot?
“You… soft,” I grind out. My throat protests every sound. “You… stay.”
It is the best I can do with the crude tools I have.
I expect her to falter. To at least hesitate.
I am a fool.
Mih-kay-lah is not like the other Daughters. I have known this since the dust first delivered her to us, all fury and fire despite her smallness.
She ismine.
And she does not back away from my shadow.
Her eyes darken, heat sparking there. She takes a step closer instead of away, closing the space I tried to create with my size.
“No,” she says, voice firm. She taps her chest. Then her skull. “I know methods. I can help.”
More words spill from her mouth. Quick. Most of them beyond my grasp. “I was a teacher,” I catch, the human term familiar from the translations drilled into us.
She taps her skull again as she says it, as if that will make the meaning sink in.
I almost tell her to stop before she shakes something loose.
“I go with you,” she finishes, folding her arms over her chest.
The motion pulls her tunic tight across her body. My throat tightens in a way that has nothing to do with speech.
She is soft. She is unarmored. She holds a basket of odd scraps and thinks it makes her ready to face a poisoned spring.
“We waste time,” Zan growls from the tunnel mouth, impatience sharp in his presence.
