CAUTION: Spoils aspects of Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities, When Nothing Remains, and Usurpation of the Darkness.

Seriously, major spoilers here.

Assuming you wish to continue, read on…

Claw was dead. Killed by Lily's fire, in front of his people. In front of his victims, his mates, his children. His body lay slumped across the front of his own extravagant boulder. His blood painted a growing swathe of red across his former seat of power.

A stifling stillness seeped through the valley's inhabitants, hushing cries of fear or shock before they could truly be voiced. Light wings who had lived in constant fear of reprisal continued to fear, as was their habit. Even the fledglings; she had every pair of eyes in the pack upon her, and every single one looked away when she tried to meet their gaze. Beside her, Claw's strongest supporters were deathly silent.

Lily knew she had killed more than Claw with her flame. She had also killed any chance of rejoining the valley pack in the future, no matter how much changed. That possibility had already been limping along, sickly and malnourished because there was so much wrong that extended beyond Claw, so few good memories with light wings who still lived… but now it was dead. She had put it out of its misery. It would be impossible to live with these light wings, because they would never get over the fear she had claimed as her own.

The only way she could use that fear while living among them was the obvious one. The one that many of them were already assuming was about to happen. They feared the alpha, and the alpha's place could be taken by a challenge, a fight to the death. Lily would be alpha, in their minds, by challenge – however shaky – and by fear. The fear mattered far more than the challenge, in the end.

But that wasn't what she was going to do.

O-O-O-O-O

"This cannot be allowed!" Calci snarled, her voice wavering in disbelief at the sudden change in leadership right on the cusp of entering the valley. She let out a frustrated snarl as Stal and the other fighting light wings rose from their bow to Lily. "She is the last light wing who should be in charge now! She will do something rash and violent like she did to get us all into this mess!"

"Violent, I expect, but not rash," Stal replied, a fount of patience in the face of Calci's horror-struck indignation. "She has had enough time to plan, and nothing stops us from waiting here until that plan is finalized, however long that may take." His words were for Calci, but also for Lily herself.

"She is biased against them, obviously," Calci complained to Stal. Lily was right in front of her, but she chose to address her pleas to the one she did not fear. "She will kill their alpha–"

"Why yes, I rather think she will," Stal agreed. "I would be put out if that were not in the plan somewhere. It is certainly the first thing I would do, swiftly followed by taking control of their pack to better straighten it out. They need a solid Alpha."

"No." Lily spoke softly, but Stal, Calci, and all of the other light wings scattered around the forest edge all looked to her. "An alpha is the last thing they need. Not me, not you, not anyone here." She looked around. "No one will settle into Claw's pawprints, into his cave, into his mates. None of them, none of us."

Not even her. She could do it. She could force them to be better, root out his rules, limit her own power, lead by example…

She could do it, but it would take the next pawful of season cycles to even begin that task. It could be done, but she was not willing to sacrifice anything more to the valley. No one else here knew the valley well enough to do it in her place.

They had no willing, prepared, capable light wing to become alpha, and that might be for the best. There would be no alpha at all.

O-O-O-O-O

Standing over the body of the previous alpha stripped of life by her fire, Lily was the obvious candidate to replace him. But no matter what she was asked, no matter how it was phrased, she would never acknowledge her authority. She also would never acknowledge any claimant to the title. Any who tried to take up Claw's mantle by wresting power from her would see their bones thrown into a pit alongside his, but she couldn't imagine anyone would work up the nerve to try.

Beyond her immediate plans, she would not rule, and she would suffer no one else to take his place. The title of alpha would die with Claw. He had perverted it here, and anyone who took it up would also take up all of the dangerous assumptions and overreaching powers he had given the mantle to benefit himself.

But no one had asked about that yet. If she kept moving, no one ever would. "This," Lily addressed the crowd while pawing brusquely at Claw's chest to rock his body back and forth for morbid emphasis, "should have been done before my egg was ever laid. But it fell to me, to us, now. None of you are blameless, not a single adult in this valley. Anyone could have taken the shot." If anyone had, much suffering could have been avoided. "There will be no more killing this day. Death will be reserved for those who had a direct paw in killing others, or helping Claw kill them. But believe me when I say that each and every one of you will be required, in the days to come, to give an accounting of yourself. Do not leave this valley. Do not go fishing, fish will be brought in. Anyone who is caught attempting to leave will be assumed hostile and attacked on sight. There is a rot in this place, and it will be rooted out before it can shrink back into the shadows."

O-O-O-O-O

"I care less about whether she is allowed to do this, since it is happening regardless," Andes declared when Calci turned to him for support in her protests, "and more about what she intends to do. Specifically, how it will impact what I am here to do."

"There will be no alpha," Lily repeated.

"A set of advisors, a ruling circle, then?" he asked.

"You do not know these light wings," she growled. "I doubt there are five in that entire valley capable of leading their pack into brighter skies. I would be amazed if I could find two."

"This is something we could do, though," Andes suggested. "I would rather not be alpha here, I do not really like the open sky, but others might wish to stay. Some might even have come with that idea?" he rumbled.

Perhaps Quartz had selected a few of the fighting light wings with an eye toward choosing those who wouldn't mind staying to guide a new pack, but Lily rather doubted it. He wanted more competent light wings under his command, not less. It was not in his best interest for her to fix this pack and leave it here. But it was not a bad guess, from someone who had only just learned that this entire expedition was not what he had been told.

"Not that, either," she told him.

"No alpha, and no circle of advisors… Who will lead, then?" Andes asked. "I must have someone to introduce myself to." He was not here entirely of his own free will, after all. He had told her as much. Obsidian held something over his head.

"Wait and see how it all falls out," she told him. "As I am waiting for Galen and Emera to return before finalizing my plans." Before making them, though she would not admit that. She had intentions and the musings of a long journey to inform her decisions, but that wasn't enough. What she needed was inside information.

Hence her sending Galen and Emera to find certain things out, but also to find a certain light wing.

"What I can say with certainty is that we will begin by striking Claw and his supporters," she added. "You will not be introducing yourself to Claw, or his chosen successor. Or anyone who supported him."

O-O-O-O-O

Claw was gone, and his biggest supporters trapped, fulfilling her promise to Andes. Lily had total control for the immediate future, control over a pack too terrified to contest it. She would use it to bring light to all of the shadowed, hidden lies and foul deeds, starting right now.

"These three," she motioned to the light wings who had been sought out, "will be confined to Claw's caves. All others will stay out of those caves." It was the end of the cold-season, the displaced Dams and fledglings could sleep on unclaimed rocks, or on the ground. It would be no great hardship.

"As for you…" Lily glanced over at the fourth, the one who had objected to proceedings and been soundly beaten down for her audacity. "You may rejoin your pack. Let her up."

Emera stepped off the female's back, and the female shot to her paws, a near-hysteric growl bubbling up as she leaped off the plateau and fled behind the nearest little huddle of light wings, out of sight.

Lily didn't like how all of this made her feel. She was being, in person and in planning, thoroughly brutal. Not sadistic, not uncaring, but brutal. She didn't have enough firepower to allow the valley pack to grow comfortable with her or their current situation. That female's bruises would fade, but she had received them for daring to object. She might be the most courageous light wing left in the valley, and she was punished for it.

"Did you get her name?" Lily asked Emera in a hissed aside.

"No?" Emera warbled.

"Find out. Stal, if you could put some time aside to see to her injuries later today, that would be good."

Brutal, but not uncaring. She couldn't let herself see the valley pack as her enemy, and even if they were her enemies she would not treat them too harshly.

"Disperse," Lily ordered the crowd. "Remember what I have said. Be prepared to tell the truth when a light wing you do not know questions you, no matter how bad you may think it makes you look. The truth will come out."

This was where, were she here for other reasons, she might have made herself scarce. Flown off, camouflaged out of sight, and went about seeking out likely light wings to question about Crystal away from the masses. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to be driving all of this forward with harsh words and violence. Most of all, she didn't want to be in the valley.

But Quartz was right. No matter how much she didn't want to do something, how much she despised it, when it came time to act she wouldn't hesitate. Here that meant facing the full force of uneasy, extended presence. She needed to be visible. She needed to be, if not approachable, then in theory available. If she disappeared, the valley light wings would fear the worst, and they would fear her turning up behind them the moment they let their guard down. The same went for the rest of her people.

They needed the ingrained fear to keep the valley under control, but if they pushed it too far she had no doubt that they would lose control anyway. Claw was a known, accepted, acceptable source of fear, as vile as the idea of accepting his actions was to her. She was just as terrifying, but with none of the twisted force of custom to legitimize her.

She had ordered them to disperse, so disperse they did, but slowly and with great reluctance. Not because they wanted to defy her, but because they felt even less safe turning their backs on her and her retinue.

All that mattered, in the end, was that they went.

O-O-O-O-O

Everyone had returned from scouting the valley and its pack, and Lily knew all that she was going to know without infiltrating them herself. And with that knowledge she had landed on a plan.

Now she had to convince the others that it was a good plan. They were under her command in theory, but in reality her grasp was tentative and nothing she did would maintain it if they thought she was making a grave mistake. Stal had ceded leadership, but this was not a one-time transfer and could be undone if she lost their trust.

As such, she knew that she would only be able to enact her plan if enough of them believed in it. Meaning they had to know it, all of it.

"This valley is sick," she began, speaking clearly and concisely to an audience of light wings arrayed between the trees. From Agate to Stal to Calci, everyone was there. Everyone was listening.

Everyone except the one light wing she most wanted to be there. Galen and Emera could not find Crystal, or her parents, or any clue as to where they were. So there would be no informed insider knowledge, and Lily had to put aside the growing fear for her friend's life.

She had to put it all aside, because if Crystal was dead there was nothing she could do about it now, except what she was already doing. And she had to get this right. "Light wings have not lived here for much longer than a single generation, but already they are steeped in customs of their own devising. Of one male's devising, concocted to suit him and his whims. He kills and he takes and he abuses, as he wishes, while the rest of them do nothing. Make no mistake, Claw must die for his crimes, but he did not act alone. Everyone who lives there has a paw in allowing his atrocities."

She did not pause for breath, not there, not now. Calci's glare had intensified and she was about to interrupt, so Lily left only a heartbeat between the end of her condemnation and the beginning of her solution. "Only a few deserve death. Claw for sure. Perhaps others. Galen and Emera have brought the names of those who act as Claw's eyes and ears. We do not know for sure the true extent of their collaboration. Everyone else… Only one light wing should die tonight. The one we know for certain deserves it. But what should come after? Who will lead, who will be punished, what will we leave behind when we go home? What kind of pack will inhabit this valley?"

There. Calci shut her mouth, stymied by what Lily was sure she saw as unexpected mercy. Lily didn't know what she, personally, had done to earn Calci's enmity, but she suspected it was more Sulfa's voice in Calci's ear than actions she herself had observed.

"I say," Lily continued with a growl, "that packs who live in one place tend to avoid change. I further say that this is safe and good when they have good customs, but a problem when they have bad ones. If I were to go in there, kill Claw and his supporters and leave, I believe they would have another like him within a turning of the seasons. Because that is their custom."

Of course they would. Gold was gone, but there would be others like him. If custom said that they could, then they would.

"If we went in and broke their customs, putting new ones in their place… I still do not believe that would be enough," Lily said darkly. "We would be forced to stay and hold them to better standards, until the new light wings who grew up under our rule outnumbered the old."

Maybe not. Maybe they could change. But she had no faith in that. So long as most of them remembered Claw and his rule, someone like Gold could step into his place and tear down anything she and her group here built in the interim. They would be forced to stay, to keep things stable and quash any backsliding… "I am not willing to spend the better part of my life fixing a place, a pack, that I rejected. This valley, through Claw, has taken too much from me already. I will not sacrifice my life or any great portion of yours to fix people who should never have allowed themselves to be broken."

"You could make me alpha," Agate suggested. "I would not mind staying here for a long while if I was in charge!"

"No alpha. No ruling group." Lily looked around, meeting the curious, angry, or neutral gazes of every light wing present. Then, and only then, did she continue. "There was evil and cruelty among them before they settled in this valley, but not like what Claw has wrought. So long as they stay in the valley they will think of him. So long as they stay together, one big pack, his rule will haunt them. Tempt some of them."

Stal, she suspected, was following so well his thoughts had leapt ahead to where she was about to go. His gaze was too knowing for him to be ignorant.

"We will kill Claw. Hold trials for the worst of the rest. Ensure they are shown, at length, where they went wrong. And then?" Lily clawed at the ground. "We will make the valley unlivable and drive them away. They have endless space here, above the ground. Let them live in smaller groups wherever they will. Let them go back to wandering all together, or separately. At worst, let them find somewhere else they can all live together, a different place. Let them do anything but fall back into the same customs as those we will be breaking, under the shadow of these same mountains."

Let them do what she had done, venturing into the unknown. Leaving would not heal their thoughts, it had not healed hers, but it was better than staying. A first step, not a solution, but better to force them to take that first step than to let them wallow in their failings.

"They could return here, after we leave," she concluded. "But we will wreck this place so that they cannot live here. Hopefully that, along with knowing what went wrong and being free of Claw, will be enough. In any case, we will not be able or willing to watch over them once they are dispersed. So we can go home."

O-O-O-O-O

The valley pack was still reeling from the dawn execution, but the day flew on, irrespective of the confused, terrified pall that lay over the valley. The sun would not wait for them to come to grips with the changes that had come and were to come, and neither would Lily's people. A pair of the fighting light wings were guarding the prisoners in the cave system. Others were flying, visible in the sky above the valley. Andes, Calci, Shell and Agate were setting about their individual tasks within the valley, or so Lily assumed.

Stal and one of the other fighting light wings were beginning to tackle the long, arduous task of dragging the truth out of the valley light wings, one by one. Lily was with them, to lend the weight of her presence and provide insight if necessary.

She was also there because she needed to know what had happened to Crystal, and she didn't want to receive the news, whatever it was, second-paw. Not if she could help it.

Stal had called up a single light wing at random, picking her out of the fleeting dregs of the crowd. He was not unkind in demanding her presence on the plateau, and Lily had spoken of them being questioned, but the female was a raw bundle of nerves as she paced in a tight circle around one half of the former alpha's perch. Worse still, she was that nervous now, before Stal had asked a single question.

He started simple. "What is your name?" he asked.

"It, uh…" The female, who Lily was mostly certain was called Darci, was not a flighty young thing. She was solid in every sense of the word, and if Lily was correctly remembering, had a mate, though no children. Her voice was steady, but her tone, the way she snuck terrified glances at Lily… Not conducive to easy answers, even when the answers were set in stone to begin with.

"Your name, the thing everyone else calls you," Stal said with a curious tilt of his head.

"Why do you need to know?" the female said timidly.

"So that I know who I am talking to." Lily would have said Stal was a patient light wing, but he was tired and could probably see an entire conversation with this stilted, uncooperative demeanor laid out in front of him if he didn't fix it somehow, so she didn't blame him when he stifled a growl before continuing. "I just want you to tell me about yourself, and a little about what has been happening here of late."

"Can you have someone else do it instead?" the female asked, glancing again at Lily.

So much for this part of the plan being easy.

O-O-O-O-O

"Who is Crystal?" Stal asked, after Lily sent Galen and Emera into the valley with their list of things to confirm or investigate. Not everyone had stuck around to listen to her give them orders; Calci had stormed off into the forest in a huff, and two of Stal's fighting light wings had followed to make sure she didn't get into trouble. Andes and Agate – an unlikely duo, to say the least – were muttering together by an old tree stump. In the end, of those who had listened, only Stal questioned her at all.

Perhaps her new authority had something to do with that, or perhaps they all were waiting for her to explain but only Stal was impatient enough to prompt her. In any case, her answer was simple. "Someone I trust to give me a full, informed recounting of what has happened in my absence."

"One light wing's word is not always reliable, you yourself just sent a second set of scouts to check the first," Stal remarked. "Will this light wing's word be reinforcing their findings? An inside perspective would be very helpful, I agree."

"Yes, and more besides." She didn't think she had ever told anyone here about Crystal. "She was in much the same position as I was before I fled this place. She will be as close to him as one can be without liking him."

"If she lives," Stal said quietly.

"Don't say that." Claw didn't kill those he lusted after. That would be self-defeating. She was far more worried about what condition Crystal would be in, body and mind.

"Are there others we could look for, if she cannot help us?" Stal prompted. It was a genuine question, and a valid one under other circumstances. But here? In this pack?

"No." Lily shook her head. "There really, truly, are not." The only one she might have considered was far too close to Claw and some of his biggest supporters. If they could not find Crystal, there would be no replacement.

O-O-O-O-O

"I will go check on other things," Lily said. She could see that her presence was only hindering Stal's efforts, and the very intimidating reputation causing problems here was absolutely necessary to keep the valley light wings in check, so she couldn't solve the immediate issue without sabotaging herself in more important ways.

Stal and the others could find out what had happened to Crystal. It wouldn't matter whether she heard it first-paw or not, Crystal would be just as–

Lily shook her head and took to the air, flying low over the valley. There were other things for her to do. She could check on the guards on Claw's caverns, or look in on Agate and Shell. She could fly around and see whether anything important had changed, anything she would notice but two rounds of scouts would not. Calci was down here somewhere, and Andes. All people who would not be terrified of her – not like the valley light wings.

She had come to resolve her own issues, but it was going to be hard to do that when everyone else involved in those issues shied away from her. It was tempting to just leave the valley entirely and let everyone else do all the work, but that was giving up. She would not have a third chance to set things right.

Lily was still very much undecided when she caught sight of Andes. Convenience broke through her indecision, and she angled herself toward him. Andes was standing atop a nearby rock, attempting to have a discussion with an older male in a mostly empty part of the valley.

"What about succession?" he asked, as Lily dropped down to land on an empty rock nearby. He saw her, flicked his head in acknowledgement, and continued with his slightly irritated line of questioning. "If he choked on a fish, who would take over?"

"Someone? There was no plan for that." The male was a smaller light wing, and he had the lowered head and soft voice of one who had become accustomed to letting his mate do the talking for him. Whoever his mate was, she was absent now, and he looked rather uncomfortable answering questions with his own opinions instead of letting her speak for the both of them.

This was an attitude Andes probably had never encountered before. "No plan? What if you were attacked? If he fell off a rock and hit his head? Forget plans, who would have taken over running this valley? If he was asleep and said not to disturb him, and there was a problem you could not solve, who would you turn to?"

It was a good line of questioning, and Lily admired Andes' foresight in trying to root the question in different circumstances to provoke different responses, but she knew personally that he wasn't going to like what the male took a moment to work up the courage to say. "I would wait for Claw to wake up," the male admitted. "Or ask my mate to handle it."

"What if it was urgent and something bad would happen to you if it was not dealt with before Claw woke up?" Andes persisted.

"Then something bad would happen," the male mumbled.

"What if Claw told you to find someone else to deal with problems while he was asleep?" Andes tried, though a growl was beginning to creep into his voice. "Who would you pick, and why?"

"My mate, because she is my mate." The male shook his wings out. "I am going to go find her, she can answer any more questions you have."

"No, I wanted–" Andes cut off with a small snarl as the male hurriedly leaped into the air. "I wanted you to answer me, because you are here and she is not and why am I even bothering?" He looked over at Lily. "You saw it. I tried to find leadership here. I cannot be blamed if it does not exist." Specifically, Obsidian could not blame him.

"I would have said Claw would never give anyone any power, not even if they were meant to answer to him," Lily said. "I would have been wrong. His camouflaged mates seeking out dissent were probably the closest thing he had to backup leadership." She didn't know how much power Cressa and the others really had, but it was more than any light wing had possessed under Claw at any time before she left.

"I want to leave this place," Andes announced. "Everyone I have spoken to has made me feel like there is something wrong with me. They act like I am unaccountably outspoken and courageous to speak ill of a dead light wing, or to ask them about who else might be important, or to insist that they are perfectly capable of forming opinions without their mates – three males flew away from me when I told them to give me their opinion, not their mate's opinion. Three!"

"I would point you toward a few reasonable light wings if I knew any," Lily said wryly.

"And does that not say so much about this twisted place?" Andes murmured. He shook his head, hopped down from the rock, and then up onto the one Lily had landed on to come face to face with her. "Please tell me you are normal, and not just pretending."

Lily stared at him. Even in jest… That wasn't something she felt she could or would say. She wasn't normal. This place still had its claws in her, else none of them would be here now.

"Eh." Andes looked away. "Never mind. You are normal enough for me."

At least he had the tact to try and pull his paw out of his mouth after accidentally sticking it in there to begin with. Still… "You were Obsidian's choice for his successor?" she asked.

"Those are some strong words there," Andes replied. "Choice, for one. Successor. Doing very heavy lifting. I am here because he knows what makes me move and what keeps my mouth shut."

"How bad is it?" Lily asked, on a whim. "The thing he is holding over you." There was one, and Andes seemed okay with her knowing it existed.

"Bad enough that I do not want it spread around, but not so much that I would get into any trouble over it." Andes looked around. "In hindsight, it is not nearly so important to keep secret that I should have let him push me all the way here with it. Honestly… If you wish to know, I will tell you." There was no one within earshot so long as he spoke softly, though more than a few light wings were anxiously watching Lily out of the corner of their eyes while pretending to do other things. No one had come close to her or Andes since she landed.

"Not that I would know whether you were telling the truth," Lily remarked.

"Perhaps not," Andes conceded. "But, if we are to work together in the future… I would rather not lie. The truth is, I am a coward. Not by the standards of these light wings, their spines have mysteriously disappeared," he paused to cast a suspicious glance at a distant light wing feigning sleep, "but by our standards back home. Obsidian is a distant relative on my roots, and things I told my Dam in confidence after learning how to scout made their way back to him. My chances at finding a mate will drop into a pit and never resurface if he decides to ruin me with true stories, which he very well could."

That was far less severe than Lily was imagining, but she could see how it could be used to control Andes. "Even as Rose's advisor of Peace?" she asked.

"It would make life very lonely," Andes confirmed. "I might even find myself kicked out of… certain circles." He blinked and looked at her with a renewed interest. "Actually, do such things exist here? I could maybe find more reasonable light wings by following those connections."

"If you want influential light wings, look no further!" a female crowed as she slunk between two rocks and into sight, from where she must have been eavesdropping. "I am as important as one can be – now."

"You know what I speak of?" Andes asked, as Lily examined the newcomer. She was familiar, in both the sense that Lily felt she ought to know who this was from before she left the valley, and in that she had seen her recently, after returning.

"I know that I am very curious to hear all about your special circles of… light wings." The female pawed at the ground. "Perhaps you and I, alone, could talk about it? Away from–" She glanced at Lily, and their eyes met for a moment. "Her."

Lily recognized this female as the one who Emera had beaten down on the plateau, the sole objecting voice during their takeover of the valley. She'd gotten her own minor wounds tended to, the only remaining evidence a tattered edge to one of her ears. Lily had thought it a brave act originally, but the sheer hatred she caught a glimpse of in that moment implied much darker motives. Did this female speak up out of some moral obligation to defend her home, her people, or did she speak up in support of Claw? Lily hadn't been there. She didn't know.

"I would like to meet any circles of such light wings you may know, not join them," Andes said dryly. "But thank you for the invitation."

"Join them? I meant we could go somewhere. Alone." Diora grumbled quietly. "Since you all killed – Claw." She tossed her head. "I can help you."

"Okay, then," Andes agreed. "What is your name?"

"Diora," the female said.

That name sparked a belated recognition. "Pearl's Dam," Lily said aloud.

"Yes." Diora avoided meeting her gaze again. "Come along, then. You can tell me your name once we are properly alone."

"Andes," Lily answered for him, her next words already flowing before she'd even considered them. She did not remember anything particularly positive about Diora, and she recalled quite a few disparaging comments Crystal had made. "Perhaps not."

"No?" Andes shrugged his wings. "Okay, then." He could have offered to take Diora up on her invitation some other day, but he did not, leaving an awkward silence in the wake of his words.

"What?" Diora rounded on Lily, her pupils narrow slits. She moved erratically as she stalked up to the rock Lily stood on. Lily had been slow in remembering her identity, but she had thought that something was off since Diora's introduction, and now she was certain of it. "Why not? He does not have to listen to you, you, you –" she exhaled through her nose and made to jump up onto Lily's rock.

O-O-O-O-O

"Claw's supporters will be a problem." Time was growing short, but there was so much to consider that even now, with the sun having fully set, Stal was bringing up totally new considerations before they set out. "Even after he is dead. Anger, revenge, bad business if we are going to stick around for any length of time."

"They would not kill him to save their sons from him, I doubt any will fight for him in death," Lily said. "But," she raised a paw to stymie Stal's objection, "it might happen no matter how unlikely I think it is. Even if it does, their only recourse will be surprise attacks. They stand no chance against us, any of us, in a fair fight."

"We do tend to favor striking from out of sight," Stal cautioned. "They may well be good at it. Worse, putting one down – that might set off a landslide of fighting back."

She thought that unlikely too. Still, it did not hurt to have a plan for unlikely scenarios, so long as one kept the planning proportional to the threat and the likelihood of it happening. "There are ways to slap down an enemy without inciting a riot," she said. "We will use those if we must."

O-O-O-O-O

Lily let Diora join her on the narrow rock barely big enough for two. She stood, entirely still, as Diora panted in her face, hot breath brushing against her forehead, and twitched for a full five heartbeats.

This was not the clever assassination or brutal retaliation Stal had envisioned. It might be nothing at all, an ember flung from the flames to smolder out in the grass. Or–

Diora let out an angry yelping screech and bit at Lily's face, her sharp teeth seeking something, anything to latch onto as she pushed her neck forward.

Lily moved almost before Diora did, turning to the side to swipe the leading edge of her wing down diagonally across Diora's head, knocking the pitiful attack away a moment before the rest of her wing made contact with Diora's side and shoved her right off the rock. Such a narrow perch made for a sudden and inevitable fall, and Diora took it with her wings pulled in, hitting the ground side-on. She scrabbled in the dusty dirt, disoriented and gasping as she righted herself.

A more violent, trained light wing would have continued the fight. Scratch that; a trained light wing would never have attacked from such a position, and would not bother to continue from such a low, confined space.

Instead, Diora burst out into a gasping sob loud enough to raise ears halfway across the valley. "You monster!" she squalled, flopping back down on the ground. "Beating the mates of a light wing you murdered!"

It was so pathetic it was almost dangerous, that same spark tossed into a pile of dry wood. Almost. In another place, with more volatile light wings closer to the edge of violence, it might have incited a riot.

Here, the only thing out of the ordinary was that the one who had been struck was allowed to cry out in defiance without further punishment. They were used to Claw. Even if they did think Lily had struck an innocent female, that was only on par with his casual cruelty. If that.

The spark was flung into the forest, but the forest was soaked through and nothing would willingly burn without a veritable inferno engulfing it first. "I do not take kindly to teeth seeking my throat," Lily said solemnly.

"I would never!" Diora wailed.

"I saw you do it," Andes loudly declared.

Diora wilted, going limp on the ground. "Claw would never have let this stand," she whimpered.

The sheer selfish hypocrisy stung badly enough that Lily had to retort. "I imagine he would have killed you for your impudence, so in that sense you are right. He would never stop at defending himself." Not while the target of his rage lay defenseless in front of him.

"This," she continued, raising her voice for the light wings within earshot, "is not acceptable. You may consider this your one and only warning as a pack. Claw is dead, and any who strike in his name may very well join him for the offense!"

Diora whined.

"Not you." Lily looked down at her. "This is a one-time mercy. Make sure there is not a next time." Either by mending her thoughts, or by stamping them down deeply enough that they never surfaced again, Lily no longer cared.

After a moment of total silence, Diora whined again and dramatically struggled to her paws. Lily watched impassively as she limped away.

A cold rage was growing within Lily, one whose source was not Diora. Not directly. Her little show, playing the victim…

Crystal was missing. There were only a few different reasons that might be, and all but one of them would make what Lily had done to Diora look like a gentle caress. What Crystal had already suffered threw such a long shadow that Diora's mockery of pain was just that – a mockery.

It was not even Diora that Lily hated. Stupid, blind, selfish, hypocritical – she was hateable, but she was also unimportant. Pulling on wounds left raw by another. It was Claw, dead and gone but still clinging to more shards of depravity, left in her path to trip her up and bloody her. One by one, as she uncovered the truth, as Stal pulled it out of dozens of recalcitrant witnesses, bit by bloody bit.

"I am reminded of something I told Gilla," Andes remarked to the empty air. "Never stick your tail into a cave that might bite it off. I think I will not look for any groups like the ones I knew after all. They may as well all be crazy, I would not know until it was too late. The worst are blocked into those caves, but the rest?" he looked around, his eyes wide and fearful.

The worst were cornered in the caves…

Who knew what had happened to Pyre? Who knew what had happened to Lily's own tail? Who knew the truth of those things?

The same light wing who probably knew everything Lily needed to know, every little detail of Claw's depravity. She would be uncooperative, but since when had that stopped Lily?

"Andes, I want you to go to Stal, up on the plateau, and take his place asking questions of the light wings there. Tell Stal I am moving up the interrogation of the prisoners to now."

"Why?" Andes asked.

"If there are any more like Diora waiting to strike, I want to know about them." Which was not untrue, but it was also not her main motivation. It was just the one Andes would most empathize with.

Claw's actions littered her future like spikes on the forest floor. Cressa could tell her where they were, because if anyone had helped him lay them it would be her.

O-O-O-O-O

It was bright and sunny out, but Lily's eyes adjusted easily to the gloom of Claw's caverns as she and Stal walked past the two guards. All three of the captive females were somewhere inside, but only one of them had chosen to lurk in the first, largest chamber. That this female happened to be Cressa was not a coincidence. She had set herself up as Claw's second in control, and now in Claw's absence was in charge in his name.

His absence was permanent and his name lower than dirt, but these things didn't matter to Cressa. Lily saw it the moment she met her Dam's bitter gaze. Here was a light wing who knew her future was bleak, and chose to cling to the thing that made her past so bright. A dead light wing's authority.

Cressa did not speak, not as Lily and Stal filed in, but once they stopped just shy of the exit she laughed. "I should not be surprised that cowards flock together in places they think safe."

"They do, at that," Lily agreed, her tone steady and even. "Else this valley's light wings would have fled in every direction long ago. Claw is dead, Cressa, and if it were up to me you would follow him today. If you do not cooperate, it will be up to me. Make of that as you wish." Bluff, or pure truth?

Cressa growled, but the growl of a light wing was far less intimidating when she was cornered and outnumbered, and she knew it. She had to be wondering whether Lily was serious, whether she had the power to have Cressa killed. But in Cressa's mind, the conclusion would be as obvious as it was distasteful. Claw had that power, so why wouldn't Lily?

Stal circled around the chamber, coming to stand with his back to the wall. Lily circled to the other side, and Cressa chose to watch her, missing the two camouflaged light wings who came in while she was distracted. It would be foolish to conduct an interview with two hostile light wings plotting deeper in the cavern. They would be found and accounted for.

"You were close with Claw, were you not?" Stal asked. "Very close."

"I was his favorite mate," Cressa claimed, never taking her eyes off Lily. "Not that you would care. You would not know anything about me beyond what this liar told you," she hissed.

"I could think of nothing more damaging to say about you than the truth, so why would I lie?" Lily retorted.

"I should have ripped your tail more thoroughly when I had the chance," Cressa spat. Her back arched, but she made no move to attack. Outnumbered and with no conviction that she would survive a failed attack, her weapons were limited to words. If Lily knew one thing about Cressa, it was that she wouldn't quit while she thought her barbs were drawing blood.

"You should have," Lily shot back. "Killing Pyre wasn't enough for you? Wanted to kill me too? You're sick!" She put a little waver into those last two words, adding a vulnerable tremble that she didn't feel. Cressa was horrible, but this was not something that bit at her the way she made it sound.

"Claw deserved better, but he wanted you and he got what he wanted. I would have liked to see you broken under him." Cressa tossed her head. "Pyre? Claw put him out of his misery, and good riddance."

"Good riddance to Granite too then?" Lily demanded. "To Bone, to all of the males who so much as thought about standing up for themselves?"

"Oh, to so many more than that," Cressa hissed. "To all the weak fools who opposed Claw in any way."

"To Ice?" Stal asked. Lily jolted at the mention of Crystal's Sire – she hadn't given him time to say much of anything before coming in here. Anything he managed to learn from the valley light wings after she left was unknown to her, and all the more shocking now.

"Ice withheld information, and he died for it," Cressa spat. "Claw was justified. Oh, but if you wish to hear about them all, I can oblige." She purred evilly. "I helped him so many times. Do you remember Root? Claw had an eye for his Dam, so I told him that Root's Sire and Root were plotting. You should have heard how loudly Claw made me howl as a reward."

"Claw claimed they were planning to overthrow him, and killed them both with help from several camouflaged females," Stal remarked. Lily didn't have to feign her shock and disgust, and those reactions were exactly what Cressa was digging for.

"Yes!" Cressa's snarl returned, full force. "And he killed Whirl too, when she would not submit."

"That is one way of putting it," Stal said dryly. "Another way would be to mention that Whirl went berserk, killed one of his lackeys, maimed another, and almost put her teeth through his throat before he killed her." He chuffed, as if he had made a point and Lily was the scorekeeper. Uninvolved, save that they were fighting over her reactions.

"Stupid trough could not see which way the wind was blowing." Cressa shrugged her wings as she retorted, her pitiless gaze still fixed on Lily. "She did not catch me or Claw, and that is what matters. She died shrieking."

"Sounds to me like she scared him," Lily shot back, her bile held behind clenched teeth. They were doing this for a reason, and she doubted this was the full depth of Cressa's vileness.

"Scared! Ha! He was no more scared of the fools outside than he was of me. I got him others over the cold-season, we just kept it quieter to avoid stupid ideas entering stupid heads. We had it down to habit. He would name some female with a mate, or too young to be claimed without complaints, and I would find out when they were alone outside in the cold. For water, to drop waste, to get away from the crowds… Everyone went out alone on occasion. He would stalk and pounce on them while I kept watch, and after they would not say anything because they knew what was best." She purred smugly at Lily.

"Working in secret," Stal said derisively. "Sounds like you were both cowards to me."

"Fools will be fools with or without a reason," Cressa snarled. "But they will be fools much more often if they feel justified."

"I heard that someone tried to kill him this past cold-season," Stal noted. "And that no one was ever accused of the act."

"Cowards, all of them." Cressa shook her head. "They failed, and that is all that matters. When the cold broke, well, we went further," she continued in a low, smug hiss. "He was angry, and I helped him vent. Some of the younger females were whispering about leaving. Danda, Liona, two sisters you probably knew?"

Lily didn't want to hear any more. There was no end to this litany of horrors. The point was to feign horror, to spur Cressa on, but it was no longer feigned. She turned away, but Cressa only took that as encouragement. "You will not find their bodies. The sea took those away after he finished. The fools outside think they left. We even sent out search parties."

"Anything else?" Stal asked, a growl underlining his question. "Any more murders you want to claim were your idea?"

"None spring to mind, but there were so many little plots that I might be forgetting a buried body or two," Cressa reminisced. "It was all the same to me whether he terrified them or slit their throats when he was done. Have I cooperated enough for your tastes? I know you wanted to justify murdering me, and now you can!"

Yes, she certainly could.

"A certain name is not on your little list of accomplishments," Stal said. "What of Crystal? I hear she disappeared, but if you had killed her I think you would not have forgotten."

That was blunt, too blunt, but Cressa thought she knew their game and was intentionally cooperating, spewing her bile for fun. Fun and vengeance.

Lily moved, taking a quick, hurried step toward the exit. Because she didn't want to hear, despite being the reason she was there in the first place, but mainly because she knew it would provoke Cressa like nothing else. A predator leaping on weakness–

"Her death was long and slow," Cressa purred. "Driven away from the pack to freeze to death. She outlived her Sire and Dam, but not by more than a moon-cycle. It was a brutal cold-season, was it not?"

Lily fled. There was no other word for it; she turned tail and ran. Cressa's mocking laugh chased her out into the sunlight, and followed Stal too as he left.

"She will not live to see dusk on the day of her trial," Stal promised. "That day may even be tomorrow."

Lily took a few moments to collect herself, shaking off her feigned distress while at the same time pushing away the portion of it that was real. "If that is her fair trial's outcome, after all of the witnesses have been questioned and the evidence gathered, I will not be disappointed." Cressa's death wouldn't bring back Crystal. Rigging what was supposed to be a good example, to ensure something that was already all but guaranteed? Not worth it. "Not tomorrow. Take the time, do it right."

Her parting words delivered, Lily took to the sky with a distant sort of urgency. She would stay in this terrible place as long as needed to ensure her plan was carried out, and not a heartbeat longer. She would fix what could be fixed, and burn the rest to the ground. Maybe the fire would burn the nausea out of her stomach, too. This place, this pack, needed to die. Not the individuals, but everything around them. The pack was broken, and only in shattering it could she give the individual pieces any chance at a better life.

Some had not lived to see any chance at a future at all.

O-O-O-O-O

"This is the valley," Lily said, unnecessarily. Stal, his fighting light wings, Emera and Galen flew behind her in a wedge. They flew uncamouflaged, hidden only by the scattered clouds below and by the complacency of those who lived in the valley they were all looking down at. "The only entrances are by air or by walking in along one path known to none still living here. Any other land route would be more climbing and jumping than walking, and would take a very long time. Some of the ledges lining the outside face of the mountainside are used for mating, and light wings fish in the ocean close to the mountains."

It was basic information, and most of those present either knew as much already or could deduce it, but Lily wanted to be sure they were all aware of the pertinent details of their environment. "The cave entrance is down there," she tossed her head, "and the pond is a good landmark from above. Use it. If you need to retreat or hide," though that would mean things had gone very wrong, "do it outside the valley, in the mountains or the forest. There are no caves in the upper mountainside, save one." She would need to go there. "I have something to do there, later, but do not use it for cover. Claw knows about it."

"What do you have to do?" Galen asked.

"Send my Sire, Blaze to rest." Belatedly. Claw wouldn't have done it. Cressa wouldn't. Nobody else knew he existed.

"We could help with that," Emera offered.

"No. I will do it alone." They weren't here. They would see it as a chore, however well-meaning they were. She wanted to be alone when she let herself face what had happened there. "First, Claw. I will tend to that later. When there is time. Now, everyone knows what they need to do?"

One last repetition of the plan, and then they would put it into action. The time for deliberation and planning was over.

O-O-O-O-O

The only way Lily could think of to stave off the grief that threatened to break her was to do something, anything, about another old grief. She would have the rest of her life to mourn everyone she had lost, so there was no hurry to mourn one in particular. At some point all of the pain she felt merged together was no longer attributable to any single source.

Pyre's ledge looked exactly as it always had from above, as Lily drifted up and over on an errant breeze. Stone, flat but not smooth. Jutting out at a steep angle from the mountainside, large enough for a few light wings to stand on but not so big as to be obvious unless one was looking for it.

She landed heavily, pulling her wings in early to drop down on all four paws with a forceful thump. The ledge was thick, she had never feared it breaking. Strong enough that when bone was pitted against it, bone had snapped and broke without so much as scuffing the stone edge.

Lily exhaled heavily through her nose, blocking out the inevitable scents for a moment as she reluctantly walked to the far end, her tail to Pyre's cave. This was hard enough without smelling the wind and rain-scoured stone and knowing that his scent was gone, or even worse, smelling some lingering remnant. There would be none, this was not the underground caverns where scents lingered beyond all explanation, but she half expected it anyway. If it was not there her mind and nose might conspire to fill in the gap and lie to her.

She reached the end of her pawful of steps, placing both front paws firmly on the rounded end of the ledge. She looked down. Her vision blurred as she saw exactly what she expected, and she looked up again at the cloudy sky with a low groan.

He was still there, down among the shattered stony bluffs and treacherous sharp rocks, having fallen into a small crevasse out of reach of the sun, but not entirely out of sight. The seasons between his death and now had done to his body what they did to all dead things left unburnt, weathering the dull scales and revealing cracks in his armor for the pests and fleeting vermin to reach through. She could not see enough to truly understand how little of him remained, but she knew that in her absence, the absence of loved ones, time had defiled him.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. She wasn't meant to come back. He'd wanted her to go away, to live somewhere better, not to linger and return to this terrible place. But she just wasn't capable of that, not even if she tried. She had tried, yet here she was.

Her chest ached, and she inhaled again only once she had no choice, taking in the chilly mountain air through her nose and mouth together. It was that or howl, and she had no breath to howl with.

The air smelled of stone, old rain, and Crystal.

Lily whipped around and rushed into Pyre's cave, inhaling the entire way in. Her friend's scent was there, though her friend was not. It was not old, not half-forgotten and washed away by the elements over many days. There was no frozen corpse huddled in the back, though for an instant her eyes deceived her with a particularly dark shadow. Crystal's scent was fresh, a few days old at most. Lily didn't smell blood, she didn't smell Claw's repugnant odors – she didn't smell Pyre. The cave smelled, entirely and solely, of Crystal.

Relief battled melancholy, quickly overwhelming it as Lily flew through the many conclusions this strong scent pointed toward. Crystal was alive. She was here, near the valley. She wasn't hurt, she wasn't in imminent danger. Maybe she saw the dawn execution, or maybe she was out of the valley and didn't know yet what had happened.

Her scent was very strong. She must sleep here, in Pyre's cave. It made sense that she would know of it, Lily had led her there at least once when they were looking for Gold after his disappearance. Lily didn't begrudge her this, and she knew Pyre would not have either. Especially not if this little bit of shelter had saved her life, as it very well might have.

Lily still had many, many questions. Cressa and Claw knew of this place, so how had Crystal claimed it as her own under their noses? Where was she now? What had happened to drive her here? What had happened, period? Some of the answers would be terrible, she knew it deep down, but she already knew some of that and it was nothing in the face of this one saving grace. The recent scent clinging to the cracks and crevices of Pyre's cave promised that Crystal's tale would not end in icy despair, no matter how bad things had gotten.

Lily settled down in the middle of Pyre's little cave, facing the entrance. She had no way of knowing when Crystal would be back, so the fastest way to see her would be to wait here, and the others knew where she planned to be this cycle. She had nothing better to do than wait.

O-O-O-O-O

She had intended to wait attentively in Pyre's cave, but the combination of a warm, safe cave and her immense relief lured her into a dozy half-awake state that left the afternoon to pass in a haze of uneventful, blurred waiting. Her sleep deprivation only added to the lulling fatigue; a night of travel, a day of waiting and plotting, a night of waiting and executing in both senses of the word, and then today… She hadn't pushed herself this hard in a long time.

In the back of her mind, she knew what she was doing was foolish. Claw was dead, his most obvious supporters imprisoned, but that didn't mean she was safe. Only that the visible threats were dealt with. If another lunatic like Diora, or a subtle, invisible danger, struck now when she least expected it? She would be in trouble.

Then again, she was not sleeping. On the edge of it, yes, but not truly asleep. Her languid gaze rested on the entrance to Pyre's cave, and the harsh line of sunlight slowly shifting across the ground would be noticeably blurred if a camouflaged light wing crossed it. Anything less than a subtle approach would, of course, be far easier to see coming. Be they one of her light wings bringing news, a disgruntled valley light wing seeking vengeance, or Crystal herself, she would see them as they drew near.

After a time, later in the afternoon, someone did come to Pyre's cave. An anonymous light wing alighted on the ledge, thoroughly camouflaged but heavy enough that the padded thump reached Lily's ears. The little jolt of fear that surged through her served well in waking her all the way, though it also underscored exactly how foolish she had been to lower her guard. Her eyes remained narrow half-closed slits as she subtly inhaled, bringing in fresh air and building the imperceptible beginning of a bolt of fire deep in her chest, just in case.

The wind was not right for bringing the new arrival's scent to her, but Lily didn't have that long to wait in any case. The strict line of sunlight on the ground in front of her blurred momentarily as the light wing quickly strode through it, and she was forced to abandon her feigned helplessness in favor of rearing up against the unknown, approaching threat. "Who is there?" she challenged.

"Why did you come back?"

That was Crystal, her voice was unmistakable, but she was not entirely as Lily remembered her even in this small way. Rougher, terse, confused and angered by her own confusion. The question was growled, with a whining lilt that spoke of anger and disbelief in equal measure to disappointment, or so Lily heard.

This was Crystal. Alive and well enough to approach cautiously and with some amount of forethought. Paranoia may have been beaten into her by Claw's enforcers – Lily wouldn't know – but she was well enough to ask a reasonable question. Crystal growled again, low and threatening, as Lily realized that in her relief she had failed to actually answer the question. "If this is a trick–"

"It is no trick," Lily interrupted. "I came back to – to fix things. What can be fixed." And to turn her tail once more on the rest.

"No!" Crystal's objection was forceful, a near-roar that made Lily's ears ache in the close confines of Pyre's cave. "You got away, you were out, coming back was a terrible mistake and you should leave now." She hesitated, panting hoarsely. "You should go. You can go. If you do not, he will find out and find some way to trap you here or worse."

Lily ventured a cautious step forward, and then another. "Claw," she said, the name dripping with satisfied malice, "is dead. By my fire. So no. Neither of us is trapped here."

She had expected to come into contact with Crystal by now, but Crystal must have been backing up because she felt no camouflaged light wing before her. "Crystal?" she chuffed.

"Where?" The light blurred again. "When?"

"His body is still on his favorite rock." Still there. Cooling in the breeze. A visual reminder to his subjects and victims alike that he was dead, that he couldn't possibly come back. Nobody would be allowed to move it until it began to rot. Maybe not even then. She hadn't decided yet. "You can see it from here."

Wind whipped at Lily's face as Crystal leaped away in a flurry of camouflaged haste. She was gone. Lily took her time walking out onto the ledge, her heart curiously light despite… everything.

If there was anything, anyone, she regretted leaving behind, it was Crystal. She couldn't undo what she had done, but as far as making amends went this had to be the best possible start.

Lily looked down into the valley, trying in vain to spot Crystal's blurred form. She saw light wings milling about among the rocks, a few venturing to the pond but all giving Claw's plateau a wide berth. Stal must have moved the interviews elsewhere, because the only white figure on the plateau now was Claw's body.

Perhaps it wasn't just Lily's presence that terrified the valley light wings when Stal asked their name. The body of their former alpha might have contributed, too.

Crystal would be circling down to get a closer look at Claw's body right about now. She would be flying cautiously, judging by how she had reacted. Suspicious, but unable to dismiss the possibility that there was truth to what she had been told. Disbelieving, when she beheld his body up close. Maybe she would land. Maybe she wouldn't. She might want to get very close, to poke at him and make sure–

A small bolt of fire came from nowhere and rocked Claw's limp corpse, further defacing his already thoroughly tattered body. Nobody was close enough to the plateau to see what had happened, but the light wings Lily could see all cringed at the distinctive crack of an explosion.

They were beaten down, but Crystal wasn't one of them. She wasn't with them, she wasn't terrified, she wasn't broken. Not entirely.

Lily caught a glimpse of a blur approaching, and stepped back well before Crystal reached her height to land. Four paws struck stone at a run, and Lily braced herself just before Crystal ran into her, chest to chest, her head to one side to avoid an even more painful collision.

"You really did kill him," Crystal whined. "I take it back, I wish you had come sooner," her voice cracked, "I wish you had taken me with you!"

Lily's breath hitched in her throat. Deep in her chest, a nauseating chill coiled around her muscles, pulling them together in an uncomfortable grip. She tried to say something, anything – to offer an excuse? A platitude? A rationalization? To say that Crystal was stuck, that she would not have left her parents, that to leave the valley was as unthinkable to her as it would have been to Lily, had Pyre not made it the last thing he told her to do before being murdered?

Any or all of those things being true did little to ease her grief. "I should," Lily said haltingly, her nose pressed into the back of her friend's neck, "have taken you with me." Whether attempting to do so was wise, whether Crystal could have been convinced to go, whether actually getting them both out was possible… Those were questions for never, for the path not flown. All she and Crystal had, all they would ever have, was knowledge of the one path that they had flown in all of its sad, flawed glory.

Smoke, hot air with a tinge of sooty stick to it, flowed against Lily's wing shoulders as Crystal silently grieved. She lived, but she had suffered and Lily would soon know exactly how badly. She needed to know, if only to understand exactly how heavy a weight she would always carry with her. Correct decision or not, she made the choice so she was responsible for how things turned out.

"What happened?" It was not Lily who spoke, though the words could have come out of her own mouth for how closely they followed her thoughts at that moment. "Where did you go?"

"That is a long, long story," Lily sighed. It was also one that she didn't feel prepared to tell right this moment.

"You could take me there. Now." Crystal pulled back, still camouflaged, and pressed her forehead against Lily's. "There is nothing for me here."

"Not even your Dam?" Lily knew she had stepped on a sore spot when Crystal pulled away entirely, turning to one side. "What has happened since I left?" If Crystal did not want to speak of it she did not have to, but if she did–

"You disappeared." Two words took Lily back, all the way to that terrible day and her decision to leave. She had tried to warn Crystal's parents, been rebuffed, and flown off. Crystal, on the other paw… She would have had the same terrible awakening that morning, but her actions after?

"I could not find you," Crystal continued, her voice raw. "Not even when Claw demanded I lead him to you. Not when he and Cressa showed me–" she cut off, and Lily heard her slinking over to the far end of the ledge. "This."

She would be looking down, now. At Pyre.

"My Sire is dead," Crystal said quietly. "And my Dam… she is not gone, but she is not with me either. I would have flown from here if I knew of anywhere but endless empty forest to fly to." She huddled into Lily. "You have returned and killed him. That changes everything… but I still want to go."

"It does not change enough, not on its own." If only killing Claw was the single strike needed to put the valley to rights. In truth, the rot ran a lot deeper. No one had escaped unscathed. In a way, no one had escaped. Lily's own issues led her back here. Crystal could not stand to permanently abandon the valley for the unknown. Pearl and Gold, well, she could not speak for them. Perhaps Pearl had made a better life for herself somewhere. Maybe Gold was with her. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe they both were dead. Maybe they never made it out of the valley. Unless Pearl or Gold one day returned, no one here would ever know what had become of them.

If they were planning to return, they needed to do it soon. It was Lily's intention that soon the valley would be empty. "I am not leaving immediately, but I will not stay here long, either. When I go you will be with me. Now that Claw is dead you can speak to your Dam," whatever the exact problem was there. Whether she could get through to her Dam or not. It wasn't the resolution so much as the attempt that mattered. Crystal should not leave any loose ends either.

"Not today," Crystal said tiredly.

"Not today. Someone might do something stupid despite Claw being dead." The valley light wings were as a group far too timid for that to be plausible, but they did do strange things to appease Claw in life. Some might be stupid enough to not rethink standing orders, if there were any. "I will have Stal make an announcement tonight." They would all be on the rocks, even Claw's former mates, so he would be able to reach everyone at once.

"Who is Stal?" Crystal asked. "I do not remember that name."

The last thing Lily wanted to do was lie or keep things from Crystal. The second to last thing she wanted to do was make Crystal feel worse about her lot in life with stories about how wonderful the Twisted Corridor pack was. The third to last thing she wanted to do was denigrate the Twisted Corridor pack or omit all the things they did right, because when she left this place for the last time she wanted Crystal to come back with them. A tricky balance.

"Pyre told me to go to a certain place," Lily began. "Far from here, under the ground. The pack he and all of the light wings who started our pack came from to begin with. The Twisted Corridor pack. I went there, and they aren't perfect but they're not like this at all."

Crystal tilted her head to look at Lily more directly.

"I went there, and they took me in," she recounted. "There were problems, they didn't have much space and I was worried their alpha would be like Claw, but they found a place for me. I tried to fit in, I worked to help their pack and when fighting broke out between them and their enemies Quartz, their kind of sub-alpha in charge of warfare picked me to help him, and I did… A lot happened. But I still had problems. Problems with their alpha because I couldn't forget Claw, with their pack because I couldn't move on from here. Even though I left, even though they aren't anything like the valley. Eventually I snapped, and I made a very bad decision because I saw something and misinterpreted it."

She was being vague, but how was she meant to compress the majority of a season-cycle into a few words? There was only one thing that really, really needed to be elaborated on. "I saw the alpha and my closest family member, together. I attacked him. Hurt him. I thought he was acting like Claw. He wasn't."

Crystal whined in sympathy, which was just wrong. If anyone deserved sympathy it was her, not Lily.

"Rose – the alpha – is not like Claw," Lily said. "Their pack does not let him pass down judgment on his own. They heard what I thought was going on, and why I thought that, and they decided that they could not judge me until they knew whether I was telling the truth about my past, about this place. So they sent a group to see, and Quartz set it up, without the alpha knowing, so that as long as I was telling the truth I would be in command once we got here so I could fix things, which I am doing, am going to do. But I did not come back voluntarily. I couldn't get the valley out of my mind, and that forced me back."

"What will happen when you go back?" Crystal asked.

"I'll be reprimanded, or punished in some other way, but it will not be so bad, and things will go back to normal." More or less. "Even if I was a liar, their punishment would not be like anything Claw might do. Besides, it will not be just me. They are not perfect, but compared to this place? There is nothing to compare, they are better in every way. You can come with me."

"Will we leave tomorrow?" Crystal asked.

"Not tomorrow." Lily huffed. "There are things I need to do, so I don't have this place lurking in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. Killing Claw was one of them, but not the only one." she closed her eyes. "Make your peace with your Dam, with anyone else in this miserable valley that you think about at all. There is not much time left to do so." Not for Crystal, and not for her.