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Roan didn’t press it. He went right back to talking about the bear—how big she’d been and how close—and I listened while he wound down. When exhaustion finally caught up with him, we both sat and watched the flames in the hearth.

“I’m happy to be alive,” he said quietly.

“Me too.”

“Also, I’m never stepping foot into the forest again.”

I laughed. “I’m sure they’d have you in the kitchens.”

“They love me,” he said with certainty. “I’ll let Baer know first thing in the morning, and I’ll be making sweet hand-pies with Indi by sundown.”

I snorted before I could stop myself. Because the truth was, Baer would rip him a new one, and we both knew it.

“He’d say…say I was a bad influence on you.”

Roan smiled. “Yeah, he’d be right.”

I rolled my eyes, but he didn’t see it. He’d looked down at his hands, and his face took on a serious quality, brows drawn and gaze focused. He was thinking hard about something. It made me nervous.

“The elders—” he started, still looking at his hands, “—they’re a different generation. They think differently than us, experience the world differently.” He looked up, stared right at me, and I couldn’t look away. “But the elders won’t be around forever, Fen. We’ll be the elders one day. We’ll be making the decisions.”

I swallowed. “Maybe you will. Women can’t be elders.”

One side of his mouth slowly rose. “Not yet.”

Chapter Twenty

Roan

She’d never looked at me with so much honest surprise on her face before. Her mouth opened like she was going to say something, but then she closed it again. Her brows furrowed. Finally, she just sighed, her shoulders falling.

“You really think so?”

I didn’t get a chance to answer.

“Fenli, baby!”

Indi’s cries drove a wedge through the moment we were having as she came through our door, her hands soon wrapping around Fen, pulling her into her chest.

“Oh, my girl! Just look at you!”

Fenli tried pushing her away, but the woman was strong.

“Ma, a little air. Please.”

“A bear, Toke above! Yeshi told me you’d been torn to pieces! Let me see your hand.”

“Ouch!”

“Stitches! And look, you’re bleeding through your bandage. We need to change this.”

“It’s a speck of blood. We’re not changing anything.”

“And you broke your wrist.”

“Isprainedmy wrist.”

“Are those bruises under your eyes?”