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For almost a week, the inhabitants of Deothwicc simply drifted. Rostfar told herself this was so everyone could recover, but she knew in her heart that that wasn’t right. She had let them drift because she didn’t want to think about what had to happen next.
Thinking made the uncertainty of their situation far too real.
“Rost?” Isha said, touching his fingertips to her knee. His tone suggested that this wasn’t the first time he had tried to get her attention.
Rostfar shook herself from her thoughts and peered at him through the darkness of the den. Mati was still asleep, his quiet snuffles rising and falling in comforting waves. Isha watched her with sleepy concern, propped up on one elbow and struggling to keep his eyes open.
“I was just . . . um.” Rostfar looked around dazedly. It must have been past the middle of the night, but Rostfar couldn’t remember if she had slept. Her bag of telling-stones was clasped in her hands, and her finger joints were stiff and sore. She released her grip with a pained hiss. “Thinking.”
“Could you come think in bed, with us?” Isha pulled back the covers. With a weary sigh, Rostfar crawled into the space beside him on their makeshift bed of cloaks. She hadn’t realised how cold she had gotten until she kissed his shoulder; his skin warm and smooth beneath her cool, dry lips.
“What’re you thinking about?” He asked, his breath brushing across the top of her head.
“We could run away,” Rostfar said. Her throat was hot and tight. “Go through the tunnels Aethren was talking about to Hrafnholm, find Arketh, and flee to the north coast. Maybe build a boat and go to A’avenshka. To the K’anakh.”
Isha let out a shuddering sigh. “I thought you were tired of running and hiding?”
“I am.” Rostfar shut her eyes and buried her face in the crook of Isha’s neck. “I really am. But I’m also just – tired. Of all this. Faren has an army, and we . . . don’t.”
“You still think they’ll come, even after what happened to Ethy?”
“I think Ethy’s death gives all of them more reason to attack Deothwicc, not less. The need for vengeance does terrible things to a person.”
“We’ll fight, Rost,” Isha said gently, “if you ask us to. And the wolves will, too, I’m sure.”
Rostfar sat up and turned to look at him, studying the earnest set of his face. “That’s the opposite of what I want.” She shook her head sadly. “If the fighting starts, where will it end? When we’re all dead and there’s only the trees and animals left alive?”
Isha didn’t answer straight away. The quiet stretched on, so loud that it smothered the distant forest sounds and Mati’s gentle snores.
“Rost . . .” Isha spoke slowly, gradually turning to gaze up at her through the green dimness of the den, “we have time, don’t we?”
“I think so.”
“Then we’ll work it out.” Isha rested his hands at her hips, urging her to lie down again. “But you need to talk with us – all of us. Otherwise we can’t help you. I know I haven’t been there for you, but . . . that’s over now. I’m going to listen, and I’m going to act.”
Rostfar couldn’t breathe for the warmth that swelled in her chest. She leant in and kissed Isha full on the lips. He stiffened in surprise for a moment before his hands moved up her body, finally coming to rest on either side of her face as he pulled her in.
Mati mumbled and shifted beside them, and Rostfar reluctantly broke the kiss so she could look at him. His face was clouded with sleep, but his eyes shone with humour as he took in the sight.
“Leaving me out?” he asked.
“Of course not,” Rostfar said, and bent over to kiss him. Isha took advantage of the distraction to run his lips up the side of her neck, making her shiver. He stroked her hair back and kissed into the hollow behind her ear, right where he knew would leave her breathless.
Mati’s low laugh rumbled through the small space as he hooked a finger under her chin and coaxed her to look at him. His other hand caressed her hip in firm circles as he asked, “Is this what you want? We don’t have to.”
“He’s right. I’m sorry—” Isha started to pull away. Rostfar tangled her fingers in her hair and drew him back. Perhaps she should have been reluctant, given their situation. But it had been so long since she’d felt so safe and content and in love, and the ache she felt for them went far deeper than the yearning in her soul.
“Yes,” she said, “I really do.”
⁂
Grae was woken by voices. He flicked his ear in irritation and lifted his head, but everything was still. Kristan, Marken, Aethren, and Natta slept soundly, undisturbed. There was no sign of the raven-human, but that wasn’t unusual. She rarely slept, and often wandered the borders of Deothwicc at night instead.
It took Grae another moment of watching and listening to realise that the voices were coming from Rostfar’s den. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but their tones were low and heavy with intimacy. Not something he should listen to.
With a short huff, Grae got to his feet and carefully picked his way around the sleeping humans. If he couldn’t sleep in peace, then he would take advantage of the night-time stillness to hunt.
He didn’t notice Yrsa until he was almost on top of her.
She was crouched at the edge of the clearing, half in the act of turning away with one paw in the air. Their eyes met. And then she turned and ran.
Grae hardly knew what he was doing as he took off after her. She was as swift and quick as ever, but the forest floor was littered with sun-dry leaves and it wasn’t hard to follow her pawsteps. Further into Deothwicc she ran, past the dens and clearings and scrapes, past even the Speaking Tree’s clearing. Grae kept as close behind as he could and never lost her trail.
At last, Yrsa skidded to a halt at the base of the large rock mound where Rostfar cooked her food. Her breath came hot and heavy in the air and her hackles bristled, but she didn’t seem afraid. If anything, Grae might have said that she was . . . angry. Guilt ran through him. He couldn’t shake the feeling he had tainted her, somehow, as if his anger was an infection.
“Yrsa—”
“No.”
Grae tensed, expecting her to flee again. But Yrsa stood her ground. She had always been small by wolven standards, but now she looked shrunken, worn down like a rock by a constant wind. That, too, was probably his fault.
“Why didn’t you come back?” Yrsa burst out. Her body quivered from head to tail. “Why did you run away?” From me hung in the air between them, unspoken but no less cutting.
“I couldn’t. I didn’t.” Grae felt like his very soul was trembling. He sucked in a breath that burned all the way down. “This isn’t my home anymore, Yrsa. After what I did . . . you know I couldn’t come back.”
“Well,” Yrsa said stubbornly, “you can come back now.”
“You know I can’t.”
Yrsa’s whole body drooped. She looked at him with mournful eyes. Pleading. “I don’t see any reason why you can’t come home.”
“Yrsa . . . I betrayed Estene’s wishes and acted against the pack. I am—” he choked off, wondering why the words were still so difficult for him to say. He took a pained breath and started again. “I am unwolf.”
“But you’re not blood-crazed and mindless like Unwolf, or an abomination like Other. You’re still you.”
“Am I?” Grae looked away from her. Maybe Yrsa was right – or did he just want her to be? He had been waiting and waiting to lose his mind, to wake up and not know who he was. That hadn’t happened. Yet.
Yrsa crept up to his side. Grae could feel her scrutinising him through the wyrdness. Her gaze cut beneath his skin and peeled back his flesh, leaving him raw and vulnerable. He felt sick with the realisation that this was how Unwolf must have felt when they first met. The faded scar on his shoulder throbbed with a ghostly pain.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said at last.
“But—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Yrsa said again, louder.
Something in her voice irritated Grae like a fly bite, and he snapped, “It matters to me.”
Yrsa recoiled with a stunned stare. “What do you mean?”
“I mean – I’ve changed, and I want . . . I want to grow. And I can’t do that if I pretend that what I’ve done doesn’t matter.” He hesitated, expecting her to argue, but she continued to stare at him with blank non-understanding. “You want to me to come home. I don’t want to. I don’t—”
(belong here)
“—think I can do better if I stay here. There’s too much old pain.”
Yrsa didn’t say anything at first. She circled Grae, eyeing him with unreadable coldness. When at last she came to stand in front of him again, her body was tense.
“Then why are you here now?” The question was sharp-edged and accusatory.
“I needed to know if you were all right.”
“And now you know,” Yrsa responded, but although her voice was hard, it wasn’t cold. She didn’t seem to want to say anything more, and Grae couldn’t bring himself to break the silence.
Realising that the conversation was over, Grae turned to leave – but Yrsa’s head suddenly snapped up, her ears pricked, hackles up. Her eyes had a look that told him she was seeing something through the wyrdsight, but he had no idea what.
“What is it?”
Yrsa didn’t look at him. Her eyes were wide with terror.
“Humans,” she said. “They’ve come.”
