The fires are larger from the ground. The tents are taller. The people are more real. And the women are watching me the hardest.
The men look, yes. Some are openly curious. Some are respectful enough to keep it brief. Some are impossible to read. But the women study me with a different kind of focus. More precise. More assessing. Their eyes move over my coat, my dress, my hair, my size, the way I stand near Kaiven without yet knowing how to stand as his wife here.
I feel every inch of myself all at once. Too small. Too human.
Kaiven steps half a pace closer to me without making a show of it. That single movement changes the air immediately. Several of the watching faces lower. Not in submission exactly. More in acknowledgment.
This is what power looks like here, I realize.
A woman approaches through the firelight. Older than the others. Not old in a weak way. Strong. Straight-backed. Dark hair threaded with silver and bound back from a face lined more by weather and judgment than age. She wears layered fabric and leather, well-made and practical. Bracelets ring one wrist. A knife rests at her hip as naturally as a spoon might hang in a kitchen.
The women watching make room for her without being told. I know before anyone says it that she matters.
She stops in front of Kaiven first and speaks in Tigris. Her voice is low, controlled, and not warm. Kaiven answers with thesame steadiness. No tension shows between them, but I can feel something there anyway. Not open conflict. More the shape of long familiarity and old authority rubbing against new change.
Then her eyes turn to me.
I have been looked at all day. By officials. By guards. By Kaiven. This is different. This look does not care about contracts, biology, or legal signatures. This look asks one thing only. What are you, and what will you do to this household?
Marat mentioned Oshara on the shuttle. First Mother. Senior woman. Matron over the women’s side of the horde before or beside a king’s mate.
I understand now. This is her.
Kaiven says something, probably the formal introduction. She listens, then addresses me in careful English smoother than Kaiven’s.
“You are the human wife.”
Not exactly a question.
“Yes,” I say.
Her eyes do not leave my face.
“I am Oshara.”
There is no title attached. None needed. The whole camp already gave it to her by the way they moved around her.
I nod because I have no idea what the correct response is here.
“It is good to meet you.”
Oshara’s gaze flicks once over the oversized dark wrap around my shoulders. Kaiven’s.
“Is it?” she asks.
The words are mild. The meaning underneath them is not.
Heat creeps up my neck.
“I did not mean offense.”
Oshara says nothing to that. Her gaze shifts to Kaiven, then back to me.
“You are thin.”
There is no cruelty in the words. That somehow makes them worse.
I keep my shoulders straight.
