Not because I hate the idea of children. Because I cannot stop feeling how much my body means in this world before my feelings do. A female shortage. A king’s line. Heirs. Daughters. Healthy births. A practical spring discussion near the fire.
I want to say I am more than that. But the words stay stuck because I am not yet sure who here would understand the complaint.
By the time I return to Kaiven’s tent later in the day, I am tired in a way food and sleep have not fixed. Not just physically. The kind of tiredness that settles behind my ribs when too many thoughts have had nowhere to go all day.
The tent is quiet when I step inside. For one moment, I simply stand there, grateful for the walls, the shade, the temporary stillness. Then I notice one of the blankets has been shaken out and folded differently. A freshwater basin has been set in place. The fruit bowl near the brazier holds something new, cut open in bright slices.
Small changes. Practical changes. The kind that have already begun appearing around me whenever Kaiven passed through before I did.
I should not notice them so much. I notice all of them.
I set down the bundle Oshara told me to bring and sink onto the edge of the bedding for one long breath.
This is the dangerous part. Not the monsters beyond camp. Not the weather. Not even Kaiven’s size, scent, and overwhelming physical presence. The dangerous part is that his tent is starting to feel easier than the camp. Easier than the women. Easier than the practical talk of wombs and children and spring birth.
That dependence presses against my pride until it hurts.
When Kaiven enters not long after, he notices immediately that something is wrong. He closes the tent flap behind himand studies me once from the doorway, taking in the untouched fruit, the way I am sitting, the fact that I do not rise at once.
“Who spoke?” he asks.
The question is so direct it almost startles a laugh out of me. Not because it is funny. Because it is so very him to go straight to the center of it.
I shake my head. “No one said anything wrong.”
His gaze does not move. “That is not the same as saying nothing was said.”
I look down at my hands. There is a tiny rough place on one finger where the root knife rubbed the skin wrong earlier. Such a small thing. Easier to stare at than him.
“The women talk about children,” I say finally.
I keep going because once I start, the words feel like they have been waiting all day for somewhere to land.
“They talk about it like it’s nothing. Like the weather. Like food stores.” I press my lips together for a second, then force the rest out before I can stop. “I know children are expected. I know what the contract said. I know what Marat said. I know what you said. I’m not stupid. But sometimes it feels like that is the first thing anyone here sees when they look at me.”
His face does not change.
That should help. It doesn’t.
So I say the ugliest part too.
“Like I mattered because I could carry children before I ever mattered because I was me.”
The words hang there between us.
For one terrible second, I think he will answer with practical truth again. Yes, children matter. Yes, that is how the horde survives. Some version of reality so blunt it cracks something inside me for good.
Instead, Kaiven crosses the space slowly and lowers himself into a crouch in front of me. Bringing himself down until hiseyes are level with mine. The movement alone hits somewhere vulnerable in me that I do not want touched.
“You think I do not see you,” he says.
My throat tightens. “I think everyone sees what my body can do first.”
His jaw shifts once. “The horde speaks of children because children are life. They speak of food because food is life. They speak of the weather because the weather decides life. This is not an insult.”
“That doesn’t make it feel better.”
“No,” he says quietly. “I know.”
