She didn't know how to answer his question.
No, that's not quite right.
She did know how to answer it but a small part of Teiran was thinking that her answer was probably not the one that Eik really wanted to hear. Teiran had already ventured once out into the blizzard, found one to save even if he hadn't been searching for saving. If there were others she had not found them nor evidence of them.
"Maybe, if they're smart. Or lucky," the warrior said, settling for the only truth she knew. "But, no, probably not. Not unless this ends soon and the air clears enough for them to see five feet in front of them." If this didn't end soon, even those of them safely inside the court walls would succumb to cold and hunger eventually. It was a harsh reality, but it was the one they were stuck with at the moment. And Teiran couldn't say whether her answer would ease him or not, but easing others was never her specialty.
"Then don't close your eyes," is the warrior's simple solution to Eik's dilemma, because it was the thing that made the most rational sense. Though she would never speak it, Teiran knew a thing or two about what hides behind closed eyelids. "Look at this crazy, ridiculous party that Bexley threw, look at the drunk fools searching for warmth in their cups. Look at me, but whatever you do focus and keep your eyes open." She was nothing but tough love, if that was even what you could call it, and the suggestion was more a demand than anything else.
If she was a captain then these were her soldiers, and she needed all of them. Eik may have been Emissary and therefore above her, but this was her court, he was her court, and her priority was to protect them, even from themselves.
"What is worse, to freeze or to boil?" because there is no denying that the desert in its glory had claimed lives too.
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