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Grae’s limbs hummed with tight, restless energy as he paced before Erdansten’s northern gate.
“Sit still,” Kristan said from where he sat on a rock nearby. “Your pacing is making me dizzy.”
Grae bared his teeth at Kristan, but the gesture was half hearted. “I’m trying to think.”
“About Mam’s idea?”
Grae flicked one ear in affirmation, but he didn’t look up.
“We don’t even know if the council will accept it yet,” Kristan said lightly. “Better to wait and worry about it then.”
Grae shook his head like he was trying to get rid of a bloodfly and pointedly turned his back. The pack’s scent was barely more than a whisper on the gentle breeze. Such a reminder might have been a comfort once, but now he just felt guilty.
“I cannot simply forget my worry,” Grae snapped and turned to face Kristan. Kristan rolled his eyes, a gesture that Rostfar had never made. Grae couldn’t tell if it signified amusement, that thing called sarcasm, or some combination of the two.
“Either way, you’ll have somewhere to stay. Isn’t that what matters?”
Grae lowered his head. Eahalr was a paltry territory, little more than a collection of sunken stone dens, hidden amongst hemlocks and ash trees and water-plants. The trees were wreathed in ancient magic and the land remembered the touch of wolven feet. Grae had taken one look at the place and known he wouldn’t find what he sought there.
“I don’t want to stay with the pack, but I . . . am unsure. About whether staying here is a better option,” Grae said at last. “I don’t understand the point.”
Kristan wrinkled his nose. “Look, you don’t need to understand it completely. It’s all very twisty and cunning – which makes sense since it was Mam’s idea. Point is, you were wronged by Ethy and Faren. The people were also wronged by Ethy and Faren. Most of us don’t have the wyrdsight or any connection to it, and neither do you right now. It makes you safer to them than your siblings, so Mam reckons they could learn to get used to you.”
“It’s a good idea,” Mati said. Grae almost leapt out of his skin and whirled around. He had forgotten that Mati and Isha were still there, the latter draped in Mati’s cloak as they sat side by side on the cold ground. “I think Hrall will be for it. If we can build an understanding with your Kind, well . . . I don’t think anyone really wants war. This’ll help.”
“Rost said it was a good thing to do,” Isha added.
Grae looked askance and shuffled his feet. He slumped down beside Kristan’s rock and let his head drop onto his paws. Being so close to Erdansten still made his skin crawl, but at least he knew these humans wouldn’t harm him. Might even fight to defend him, if it came to that. It was an odd feeling.
A sudden shout of laughter made Grae flinch. His head bolted up as the smell of humans carried on the breeze. They emerged from the archway a few heartbeats later – eight pups and an adult. Grae went still as stone.
The adult shouted, and the children who had been running ahead came to a sudden halt. They all stared at Grae. One child shrank back to the adult’s side.
“Vinni,” Mati said in greeting, but his voice was stiff. He got to his feet.
“Marken – Marken says the little’uns need to exercise, because they’ve been sleeping so long.” Vinni’s eyes darted from Mati to Grae to Kristan to Isha in an unending skitter. He licked his lips and took a half-step backwards. “I thought I’d bring them out here, what with the peoplesmoot – I can go—”
“I know the exercises,” Kristan said. “Why don’t we go through it together?”
“But the wolf—”
“Grae can help,” Kristan cut in with a sternness Grae didn’t expect from him.
Grae eyed Kristan warily. “I can?”
“It’s important to stretch your muscles after lying down for so long,” Kristan said.
“Like when you wake up and stretch, and it feels good?” The girl nearest to Vinni asked.
“Exactly.” Kristan gave Grae a pointed look. “Wolves do that too, you know? Show them, Grae.”
Grae just stared at him. Kristan stood and held his arm high above his head, wriggling his fingers, then bent from side to side. The children’s eyes were fixed on him and Grae with a mixture of solemnity, apprehension and confusion.
“Come on Grae!” Kristan called. Realising that Kristan wasn’t going to let this go, Grae reluctantly got to his feet. He stretched himself out as he would after a long sleep. The muscles along his back unwound then settled again, and he shook himself involuntarily.
“I want to do it like that!” The boy nearest the front tottered forwards on short legs, ignoring the “Magna, no!” from Vinni, and got onto all fours. His arms gave out as he put his weight on them, but he seemed to think landing face first in the mud was delightful. He sat up, laughing, and clapped his hands.
“I think we should start with something simpler,” Kristan said. He appeared to be fighting back a smile.
What followed was one of the most bewildering and embarrassing experiences of Grae’s life. The rest of the children hung back at first. Kristan got Grae to roll on his back and put his legs in the air, then told him to run back and forth between two rocks. Isha and Mati joined in, too, and one-by-one they apparently decided there wasn’t anything to be afraid of.
Grae remembered his own puphood with his littermates: rolling around, gnawing one another’s tails, hunting insects and flies, and generally hurtling headfirst into the world without a second thought. Human children, Grae soon realised, were exactly the same. They darted around, chasing one another in lieu of prey, and made a lot of noise.
Grae eventually slunk a few paces from the humans and lay down again. The children’s laughter gnawed at his heartstrings. Nobody had thought these children would walk or run or laugh ever again – but they had been given a second chance. Something that Unwolf’s pups had never gotten. Something that he wasn’t sure he would get.
“You know,” Kristan said casually as he dropped down next to Grae, cheeks flushed and hair tousled by the wind. “If you do stay here, you’ll have to get over your fear of children.”
“I’m not scared of them!” Grae protested.
Kristan grinned. “You’re looking at them as if they’re going to bite.”
“It’s more like – I feel that I shouldn’t be so near to them,” Grae admitted.
Kristan’s expression turned serious. “Because you feel tainted.”
Grae considered that, and eventually bowed his head in agreement. Tainted was perhaps too strong a word, but he wasn’t sure how else to phrase it. These children knew nothing of the horrors he had been a part of.
“Is that why you don’t want to go back to your pack?”
“No. Yes? I think – I need to find my own space, and my own path. None of them know what it feels like to lose the wyrdsight. To be that lost – what are you – why are you laughing?”
Kristan’s body trembled as he shook his head, apparently unable to speak. He was laughing, yes, but he didn’t smell or look amused. Grae watched him nervously, wondering if this was some sort of affliction.
“I never – thought I’d find comfort from a wolf,” he gasped out. “But you get it. I mean, you really get it. Maybe I didn’t have any wyrdsight to lose, but I think that’s sort of what I went through, too. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” Grae said slowly. “I think it does.”
Kristan slid down the boulder onto the ground beside Grae so that his shoulder touched Grae’s side. He didn’t say anything, but Grae thought he understood anyway. Thank you, that touch said.
They sat in silence for a while. Kristan watched the children and Grae listened to their chatter and the gentle buzz of the land around them. Being here was strange, but it wasn’t unpleasant. If Grae could have cut the guilt out of himself, he might even have said he felt peaceful. He was slipping into a light doze when he felt Kristan stand abruptly. Grae got to his feet, one paw lifted in readiness to run or fight.
A raven hurtled down from the sky towards them. Its outline warped and blurred as it drew near, and then one of the raven-humans dropped from the air. She landed daintily on her bare feet to a chorus of gasps from the children.
“Thrigg and Flannað are almost out of the Wyccmarshes,” she said, “and they have the child with them.”
Mati froze in the act of stooping to let a little girl get off his shoulders. Isha’s mouth dropped open. Kristan grinned, elated like Grae had never seen him.
“Mati,” Isha said and reached for Mati. His voice was high and strained.
“I know.”
“Mati.”
“I know!” Mati laughed and took Isha’s hand.
“Should I—?” Isha pointed to the archway.
“Go!” Mati released Isha’s hand and gave him a tender push. Isha ran.
