Cedar howled again, half for fun, half in hope that the wraiths would come back to him, and leave Ember and Ash alone.
He couldn’t see them anymore. Having led the wraiths on a long chase through winding mountain valleys, they were out of sight, although he could see the tall cone of Fire Mountain to his left. The smoke, darker in his wolf’s sight, was getting thicker, and he hoped that was a sign they had reached their goal.
It was very cold. He half-regretted the human clothes he had stripped off just before he changed. Tongue lolling, he laughed at himself. Better go to Starkling, he thought, and change back there. They’d be used to naked men suddenly appearing where an animal had stood. No doubt Elgir would give him some new clothes. He was the heir, after all.
An astonishing thought.
His muzzle came up and he sniffed. The wind had changed. It was blowing from Fire Mountain, and it was warm, bringing with it a complex interlacing of scents: brimstone, grass, hot stone, smoke, ash. Surely that was a good sign?
His wolf mind seemed to work more simply, but the worry he felt for Ash and Ember was no less. Or for the people left without fire, right across the Domains. Had they done enough? Had he done enough to help them?
He could feel strength coming up through his pads from Earth. Not a personage, as Fire was, but there, unmistakable in this form. A Power. His Power, presumably. Earth and Forest, Elgir had said. Perhaps he should go to the Forest before he headed back to Starkling, and see how different it was in his wolf’s black-and-white Sight.
He should move. But as well as strength, he was receiving a sense of waiting from Earth. Of expectancy. So he stayed where he was, and watched.
There was a tremble in the ground beneath his feet. From the top of Fire Mountain, smoke began to pour as he had once seen mist rise from the altar stone, flowing out and up, roiling. Flashes of fire, like lightning reaching upward, came from the cone, and he felt the wind rise, streaming toward the Mountain, and he knew somehow that Air was moving, as well as Fire.
They can’t hope to melt it all, he thought in puzzlement. Then the fire and the wind began to dance on the mountaintop, a dance so joyous, so alive that he flung back his head and howled in delight. She’s there! he realized. They’ve made it, and this is Fire’s celebration.
High and wild, flame and wind climbed to the blue sky, seemed to climb right to the sun which stood above them, danced and clung and spun and flickered with joy.
The Mountain, in contrast, poured out black. Flakes of black, dancing like a stream of butterflies in the air.
The lower winds took it, flung it, spread it wide over the ice, and Cedar howled again, because he understood that each fleck of black was an arrow in Ice’s heart.