Leyus gazed into the distance, as if looking into the past. “Maikana trusted Craigson. When I heard rumors about a halfblood in his caravan’s care, I immediately suspected.”
How had this Makvani man, the same one who looked at her and other humans with such derision, ever been intimate with a human woman? “What did you do to her?” Kyra whispered.
Leyus turned furious eyes to her. “Is that what you think it was? That I ravished her like some base human bandit? Watch your words carefully, Kyra. I will not be insulted again.”
The strength of his outrage caught her off guard. Had he actually cared about her mother? “I don’t understand.”
“It is not for you to know,” he said. Under the anger in his voice, there was a layer of pain. Kyra stared at Leyus, drawn to this crack in his mask. But he looked away, and when he turned back, there was no more trace of that pain on his face. “Take care you do not put too much stock in your bloodlines, Kyra. And do not expect to hide behind your parentage. Blood relations are earned. Respect is earned. Do not expect any special treatment from me.”
She widened her stance, as if somehow it would lend her strength. “Why haven’t you let me die, then? You’ve had plenty of chances.”
The smile he gave her had very little humor in it. “Misguided hope, I suppose. Maikana was a capable leader and stronger than any human I’d met or have met since. She knew who she was, and she knew what she wanted. She didn’t run from her troubles.” He said the last part as if it were a rebuke to Kyra. “It looks like that trait was not passed on to her daughter.”
The judgment in his words was unexpected and so harsh that her uncertainty turned to anger. Heat flooded through her. “I’ve known my mother’s name one day, and you’re expecting me to live up to her example?”
“As I said, blood relations are earned. It shouldn’t matter who gave birth to you, though it’s a disappointment that you are so different from what you could have been. Physically, you have the strength of our people, but you shrink away from your fights, worrying about what you are and wavering between choices. Your mother would never have done that.”
He was being unfair. She knew this even in the midst of her confusion, but knowing that a knife had an ill-made edge didn’t make its cuts hurt any less. “You speak of my mother as if she were some heroine. But wasn’t she your enemy? If you thought so highly of her, why are you on this side of the mountains?”
“She knew her duties, and I knew mine,” he said. “In the end, it came between us.” He looked at her again. “You’re a child of mixed fates. Our blood could bring you strength, but instead it feeds your fear. That does not make you someone I would be proud to call my own.”
Leyus left Kyra after their conversation, disappearing into the forest without a second glance at the daughter who stared after him, gutted by his words. When it became clear to Kyra that he wasn’t coming back, she gathered herself together and headed to her cave. She wasn’t aware of much of the rest of the journey, just that it was dark by the time she arrived.
She longed for Flick, Idalee, and Lettie desperately that night, but of course they were safe at Mercie’s house. To make it worse, the temperature dropped and she woke up shivering violently, her limbs stiff and her toes going numb despite the layers she’d wrapped around herself. She realized that she either had to stay active all night like her Makvani kin or find a better way to keep warm. Her pouch of supplies with her flint inside lay enticingly within reach, but the cave had no good outlet for smoke. Of course, there was one other way she could keep warm, one that she had thus far been avoiding….