She was six feet inside his three-meter radius.
She noted this. Filed it with the professional efficiency of a chief who understood that the warmth she was experiencing had multiple sources and the appropriate response to knowing that was to weight the information, not react to it.
"Senior," she said, in the tone of someone making a careful transition.
"Chieftain."
"You mentioned, at dinner, that you had something you wanted to show me. About the terrain west of the compound."
He looked at her with the flat, unhurried eyes of someone for whom she was not saying anything he did not know.
"I did mention that," he said.
"If you're—" She glanced at Wren. "Finished. For the moment."
The corner of his mouth moved.
A small movement. The dry, internal-amusement register of a man who found the phrasing accurate.
"I have a few minutes."
He had, in point of fact, prepared for this.
