She waved a hand, tired but not unwilling. "Go on." What were you doing out there alone? Woman like you. Chief's daughter figured somebody'd have you surrounded by a dozen guards, not off wandering canyon country by yourself.
Something flickered across her face. Guarded, quick, gone, almost before Wade caught it. I wasn't supposed to be alone, she admitted finally. I'm a scout. Best in the camp, though my father would never say so out loud.
Because saying it means admitting his daughter's better at such something than half his warriors. "That true, or just a story you tell yourself?" "It's true." No hesitation at all in that. I was tracking a game trail two days out from camp.
Went further than I was told to. My father doesn't like me riding alone. Says it isn't safe for a chief's daughter to be unguarded. "Sounds like he might have had a point, given how I found you." The rock had nothing to do with being unguarded, she said.
Sharp enough that Wade almost laughed again. The rock had to do with bad luck and a loose ledge. I could have had 10 guards standing right beside me and the rock still would have come down exactly the same. "Didn't mean to insult your tracking." You did a little fair.
Sorry, she studied him again. That same recalculating look from before. You apologize easy for a man who lives alone in the middle of nowhere talking to nobody but a horse. Learned it's cheaper than being wrong and pretending otherwise. "Somebody teach you that?"
The question landed closer to a door. Wade wasn't ready to open. Not yet. Not with her. Not with anybody.
"Something like that," he said. And let it sit there instead of going further. And to her credit, she didn't push. So she said instead. After a moment, why does a scout go further than she's told anyway?
Seems a reckless thing for the best tracker in camp to do. Autumn Sky's mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile because I wanted to prove I didn't need the guards. Turns out proving that under a boulder isn't the lesson I meant to teach anybody. Lesson landed anyway. Lessons usually do rarely the way you plan them.
Wade huffed something that was almost a real laugh of his own. And for just one strange unguarded moment in a cabin surrounded on every side by 200 armed strangers with a chief's impossible test hanging over his head like a blade. It didn't feel like the worst day of his year. It felt oddly like the first real conversation he'd had with another human being in longer than he wanted to count. Autumn Sky drifted back under before long, worn out from just those few minutes of talking, her body still fighting its own private war against the fever and the break.