Iglux̂ lays the bird and its soft white down at the child’s feet.
“Ptarmigan,” she names in lanzadoii, thinking how she had failed with Caan and wondering if Fa'liya would suffer the same fate with her. Iglux̂’s heart still smarted. In a way, youth hadn’t really registered. Childhood had scarcely touched crying wind. It was a thing she did not know how to nurture, and yet it was seemingly native to all other women.
A wind whips tiny snowflakes against them, ruffling their napes.
“Try it,” the woman invites.
