He shakes his head. “There is never a fifth.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Your mother never had a child after you?”
“A daughter.” My mother’s last child.
“What if the baby had been a boy?”
“They do not live to be named. No fifth.” It was sad, but better than even more warriors without mates. Many families, if they had three sons, were careful when the woman was in heat even though that was hard on both mates.
“So fourth sons leave, and what? Roam around on their own, hoping to snatch up a woman and go home?”
“Yes. Some are killed for hanging around their tribe, some are killed by animals, or the cold, or lack of food and water. I have been expecting to die since I was old enough to hunt.” I shrug. “That does not mean I want to die, only that I have made my peace with it. One day I will join the other banished who watch over us at night.”
I glance up at the sky, peeking between the dark leaves. We need to get moving if I am to find water before dark. Giving her five days was too generous. Maybe I will carry her back to my brothers tomorrow.
She follows me silently, but I can almost hear her thoughts churning over the noise of my own. Why does she want to go back to a tribe that she has no love for, and that clearly does not love her? The only answer I can come up with is loyalty…but if the tribe has no loyalty to her, they do not deserve it from her. I cannot imagine forcing a woman to do anything.
The men of her tribe do not deserve what they have.
I try to imagine a tribe where women outnumber the men, where women must fight over the right to choose, because there are so few warriors…but that’s not what her tribe does. The men choose, and discard, and choose again.
“Why do your men not choose once and stay with you? Is there no mating bond?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“If I mate with a Honey woman, I will go into rut. I will need to be with her, and it will hurt to be without her. And when she goes into heat, she will need to be with me, her mate.”
Ruby snorts. “Human women don’t go into heat. And we can get pregnant every month…every twenty-eight days.”
“That’s a lot of babies.”
“It takes nine months for it to grow.”
That’s not so different to Honey women. “But you can get pregnant straight away?”
“Yeah. So you only want sex with your mate? No one else?”
“That is correct. Your men do not go through rut and bond with their mate.”
“Not at all.”
“Huh.” That explains why they do not care about their women. “A Honey man must prove himself, before he is chosen. For a woman to no longer want him, he must have done something terrible. Losing a mate can kill a warrior.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It means we do everything we can to protect our mate. And our children.”
“Except for the ones who are banished.”
“I was taken care of. Though some tribes send the fourth away to a special place to be raised as soon as they are weaned.” Hrad’s tribe did that. He barely had a mother.
The trees thin and give way to a grassy plain. Not far away is the mountain she was trying to reach.
“We’re almost there.” She moves to stand next to me.
“No trees, no food.” And the grass reaches my knee. “And we are exposed to predators. I do not like it.” I hand her the bundle of agur and draw my sword.
“Are there snakes?”
