“That’s fair.”
“What do you want?”
She looks off into the horizon. “To go home.”
“There is no going back.”
“That certainly works out well for you.”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I like or what I want.”
“You seem to be awfully cozy with Grixis.”
My eyes narrow at her. “He’s been a blessing to us all.”
“My parents were arranging my match to the prince’s cousin.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because some of us left our lives behind.”
My mouth gapes in shock. “You think I didn’t leave anything behind?”
She rolls her eyes at me as she turns, but I grab her arm and force her to look at me.
“You think I had nothing, don’t you?”
“You were a servant.”
“With a mother, and friends.”
“Don’t act like your sacrifice is near as great as ours.”
“I was almost raped over a barrel!”
“And now you’re shouting orders.”
“Well, if you want to make a boat, I’ll ask some of Grixis’s men to help you.”
Her eyes turn glassy. She’s about to cry.
“Or you can make the best of it. With us.” I look out at mine and Grixis’s people, daring to let hope in. “And we can build our lives better than what they were.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Amber storms off, and while I may not like her, I don’t want her upset. Every single one of us is a resource, and strong emotions like that could make us look bad.
Grixis walks from our tent over to me. “How is my Elena doing today?”
The last two days I’ve been so busy with fishing, hunting, tanning, and fire making, we’ve barely been able to spend any time together. To make matters worse, yesterday he was needed back with his tribe, so I spent last night alone.
“Your Elena is anxious for a home.”
“My Elena is impatient.”
“So, what will we call ourselves? In Penticar we were the Penticari. Here…I guess we can be the Melgrims? What do your men go by?”
“We are Tempest. You can call yourself what you’d like.”