“You think I do not see what you are fighting,” I say, voice rough with strain. “I do. I say inside.”
She shakes her head once, furious now in the way hurt females become furious when they think they are being diminished. “And I say I can help.”
What help. What task. What basket of roots is worth one storm cut across that too-soft skin of hers?
My whole body goes cold again.
No more time.
I point toward the central tents. “This is not a request.”
There it is at last. The Kai. The command. The thing I had been trying not to use because I wanted her understanding, not only obedience.
And because it comes now, it ruins everything.
Her eyes harden instantly. Not fear. Not submission. Something worse. A female hearing control where she already feared it lived under every kindness.
“Of course,” she says, quiet, furious. “There it is.”
The words are small. They open something ugly between us.
I breathe once through my nose and taste grit.
I want to stay. Force her in myself. Hand her to Oshara. Stand there until she is under shelter and every flap tied down.
I cannot.
I am Kai before I am husband when the storm hits. The whole rasha needs me in ten places at once.
I make the choice I will hate later.
“She will take you in,” I say, nodding toward Oshara’s section of tents because I cannot bear the thought of her alone if my own tent line fails first. “Go now. I will come after the outer lines are set.”
That sounds like care to me. Planning. Provision.
What it sounds like to her, I see at once. Not I will bring you. Not stay by me. Not I choose you first. Go to the women. Be contained. Be one more thing handled.
Keandra’s face closes.
I hate that more than shouting would have been.
One of the warriors barrels toward me then, half out of breath. “Kai, west line tore loose.”
I look back at Keandra one last time. “Go inside.”
Then I turn and run because if I do not, the whole side of the camp may shred before the main wall of the storm even hits.
As I run, I tell myself she will obey. She is angry. Wounded. Misunderstanding me completely, perhaps. Still, she is not foolish enough to remain standing in the open when the true storm arrives.
I tell myself that because I have to.
Chapter 28
Kaiven
Iam halfway through securing the outer hide wall when the fastening gives with a sharp crack and a whole section of weighted covering whips sideways in the rising wind. Dust and grit hit hard enough to sting exposed skin. Tors curse and lunge for the loose edge. One Torin nearly loses his footing. The sky has gone from wrong to dangerous in the space of minutes. Light flattened. Horizon erased. Wind no longer moving like weather, but like force.
I anchor the line myself, driving the stake deeper while two warriors haul the hide back into place. The gusts are getting stronger. The storm body is close now. Too close. The air already carries the sharp whisper of glass-fine grit.
