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…
A curious truth worked its way into Lily's thoughts as she alternately flew and walked with the other light wings on the well-known route up to the surface. It was more applicable below than above, but even there she suspected it held.
A path could look very different depending on which way one flew. What might be an obvious cluster of crystals in the ceiling one way could be barely noticeable on the way back, or vice versa. A confusing cave with many similar exits relegated to just another straightforward intersection to pass through, or a simple tunnel made unfamiliar the moment one turned around.
Some of that was down to memory, and hers was far from perfect. Some of it, though… She expected that when she came back this way again in the future, it would look different then too. The path might not have changed, but she would have. She would see, notice, and care about different things.
The Lily that had come down was not the same as the one going back up now. Of the two, past and present… Was the present better? Or was the present little more than the past left to fester and rot in the dark, away from the light?
The others didn't have these thoughts. This was an adventure, a duty, a mission, a long jaunt. They traveled in silence, because it was not entirely safe and making noise could draw unwanted attention. The silence notwithstanding, her fellow travelers were optimistic, prepared. Ready for what they thought lay ahead.
Even when they all heard a distant whisper between their ears, a quiet wordless welcome that grew as they continued on, the others were mostly content. Unnerved, perhaps, but not afraid. The guardian was known to them, even those who had never come this way.
Lily didn't know what they heard. She only knew what she was told, and that was brief.
"You may pass. You know what lies at the end of this path, and where you go beyond."
The guardian could have confirmed her past. Lily did not fully understand the scope of the presence in her mind, but she did not doubt its power, and the Twisted Corridor pack did not consider the guardian an enemy.
"They do not need my word to believe. To find what you need… Do not forget."
She had forgotten the guardian's last words of advice, those same words, and didn't that fit? She had forgotten, and while she had found many things with the Twisted Corridor pack, she had yet to find what she needed most. She tried to forget her past, only to have it fester and drag her back down. Forgetting was not the answer to anything.
Upward, ever upward they walked. Sloped tunnels, steeper and steeper as they neared the end. She was not the first to see the distant, piercingly bright light at the end of the tunnel, but as the others stopped around her she was the only one to keep moving, pushing past them. Never running, never flying, only walking.
The light was blinding, and the only way she could continue was by closing her eyes to near-slits, letting in the least possible light while still seeing the ground in front of her. She stepped out into direct sunlight, shining down the sinkhole, her nose pestered by a sulfurous smell and her ears buffeted by a harsh, whipping wind.
The sun was so warm. Like a light wing was flaming her back, but gently. She had forgotten.
Behind her, around her, the others ventured out. Timidly, with wonder, with fear. She heard them, but she did not care to listen. The sun could not burn her troubles away, but it could melt her thoughts and give her one long moment of peace.
After a time, once her scales had warmed and her eyes adjusted, she gave in once more to the need pressing inside of her, the anxious certainty that as nice as this was, it was only the first flap of a much longer flight. This was as good as it was going to get, and the moment was slipping away. Going, going, gone.
When she looked around, she saw that all but one had ventured out into the light, from Stal to Calci to the four light wings whose names she did not yet know. Shell alone lingered inside the mouth of the cave, squinting out at them. He looked incredibly put out, and she did sympathize. He hadn't asked to be dragged along.
Lily waved him on with her wing. "The sooner you come out, the sooner you get to go back down," she told him. He would probably like the sun once he got used to the brightness. It would enhance his many, many naps.
Shell heaved a great, reluctant sigh, closed his eyes, and slouched out into the light. His entire face scrunched up in consternation as he stopped, fully illuminated, and bit by bit cranked his eyelids up to face the undiluted, direct light of day. In a rare show of determination, once his eyes were fully open he tilted his head up, gazing first at the sides of the sinkhole, then the edge, then the little bit of greenery visible from below, and then finally to the blue, cloudless sky, just shy of staring at the sun itself directly overhead.
Something changed then, as he stood in the whipping air currents at the bottom of the sinkhole and gazed upon the boundless heights. No one else was looking at him, so no one else witnessed the subtle transformation. Only Lily, who had seen it all before, was watching. Only she saw.
His eyes dilated. His wings, held tight to his back, loosened and began creeping up and out. There was nothing to see, nothing there at all, but his stare became one so intense that Lily glanced up to confirm that she had not missed anything. In that moment, as she looked away, his white bulk moved. Shell leaped into the sky, pumping his wings faster than Lily had ever seen, and ascended out of the sinkhole before anyone else even noticed his departure. Up above the trees, further, further still, flying at a shallower angle now but still going… Out of sight as he moved forward, hidden from her by the edge of the sinkhole.
So quick was his departure, so abrupt and silent, that while a few light wings whipped around to squint warily at Lily, none actually noticed that Shell had gone. Not yet.
"Shell has gone to explore," she announced with a confidence that she did not feel.
"Some live from hatching to death never knowing they were missing something." The words were, she felt, for her alone. Galen, Emera, Agate – they all looked as if they were hearing something else, something disconcerting but not altogether bad. Galen in particular looked excited, while Agate was rather annoyed judging by how huffily he pulled his wings in from where he had meant to take off. But they were not hearing the same thing she was. "Others eventually find it."
Not her. Shell. But she could hope that one day she would end up in the latter category with him. She knew that she was missing something – a way to move forward. And she didn't know how to find it, beyond what she was already doing. Going back to the one place she didn't want to be.
O-O-O-O-O
Shell had not run away from home, abandoned the expedition, or anything so dramatic as that. He was plainly visible high in the sky above the island and its surrounding waters all day, a bright white speck occasionally flashing blue as the sun caught his glint at the right angle. Galen and Emera flew up to him, but after a while they came back down, while he remained.
Shell could probably have been convinced to fly off the island and in the right direction if the rest of the group wanted to move on; the sky was the same no matter where one went. But the rest of the group, aside from Lily, wasn't ready to go anywhere. Living under the ground their entire lives left them ill-prepared for some aspects of the surface, and Stal declared their first cycle above ground to be one of adjusting, not traveling. Letting their eyes fully adjust to the light, getting used to the constantly shifting wind and noises of the air and sea, exploring the trees to learn a little bit about the terrain they would be journeying through and, if worst came to worst, fighting in… There was a lot for them to do on this otherwise uninhabited island protected by the guardian.
Lily, on the other paw, had seen it all before, but also didn't see any great need for her advice. They were intelligent adults, they could figure out how to stop from jumping at unexpected birds or little mammals, and the like. She spent her afternoon seeking out fresh water, and then just enjoying the weather. It was, by her estimate, either the end of the cold-season or an unseasonably warm day in the middle of it. Some of the trees were bare, there were little snowdrifts in the deepest shadows of the forest, and the air was chilly even as the sun warmed their hides. It was very bright out, too. Clouds drifted in with the setting sun, but none blocked its glowing orange rays until the very end of a long, early sunset.
The group gathered, by Stal's roared request, on the shoreline after dusk. Lily was one of the first to arrive, and one of the four light wings she didn't know slunk out of the forest a moment later, having come from the same direction.
Until they reached the valley, she was nominally a prisoner and as such not allowed to leave. Whether one only somewhat subtle guard could keep her from escaping if she got it into her mind to flame herself and fly in a random direction, well… Both Stal and her guard for the day had Quartz's assurance that her innocence was not actually in question. They were prepared to hand over control of the group to her in the future. The guard was there to keep up appearances for Calci and Andes.
Stal had dug a little depression in the sand behind a windswept dune, and set fire to some wood within it. "One errant bolt could burn this entire island to cinders," he complained as Lily approached. "How often do these things burn?"
"It would not be as easy as that, the wood you are burning now is dead. Dry." Wildfires happened, but very rarely. Light wing fire was not likely to start one by accident, being much more about explosive force than catching flames. "Why are you burning wood?"
"To see if I could," Stal answered. "So that I would know how careful to be with my fire in the future."
Stal, at least, was thoroughly competent and had the right mindset to quickly adapt to being above ground. Lily was curious to see how the rest of the group had fared. They came in little groups or on their own, each bearing some hint as to what they had been up to.
Agate bounded out of the forest with a younger male from the fighting light wings. They both had leaves stuck behind their ears, and were panting heavily. They had probably been wrestling, chasing each other, or otherwise playing around in a way that they would consider too fledgling-like to consider doing in front of older light wings.
Emera and Galen descended from the sky. Lily had seen them taking lower-altitude, more sedate flights around the island, exploring from above with no real urgency. They were still squinting rather badly, and Lily thought she saw salt encrusting their paws, probably from attempting to fish in a place where waves were much more than a tiny ripple in the surface of a mostly still pool.
The final unaccounted-for fighting light wing came trudging down the shore toward the group a moment later. He, unless Lily missed her guess, had been walking on the sand for a very long time. Perhaps he had tried to circle the island on paw. Whether stubbornness or a desire to wear himself out kept him going once he fully understood how tiring it was to walk in the dry, shifting sands… He would be shaking and scratching irritating little grains of the stuff out from between his scales for days.
Andes, Obsidian's representative, came out of the forest in the company of Calci, an odd pairing that Lily resolved to keep a wary eye on. They had ample reason to group together, but they didn't know it yet. As the only two light wings fully unaware of the true purpose of the expedition – aside from Agate and Shell, who now that she thought about it didn't know either – they were destined to be the two unhappy dissenting voices when her story was confirmed and Quartz's plan came into effect. But as far as they knew, they were two of many and there should be no reason for them to hang around together. She didn't think they knew each other that well.
Finally, one more light wing descended from the sky, dropping to the ground with some grace right by Stal's flickering, short-lived fire. Shell should have been exhausted, having been in the air all day without water or food, but though he looked ragged and rather wind-swept, Lily half expected him to leap right back into the air again moments after his paws touched sand.
"It is good to see everyone knew what my roar meant," Stal said loudly. "Seeing as some of you never came down to hear the plan for this cycle."
Shell ignored the pointed comment with well-practiced ease. Andes sniffed disdainfully.
"We have all had a good portion of the cycle to adjust," Stal continued. "It is late now. Night, I believe. This is the sleeping portion of the cycle for some, but it would be prudent of us to travel in the dark. Shell, are you able to continue flying for a while longer? We will not do the whole night, but we should begin as we mean to go on and make some distance."
"I can fly," Shell said, matter of fact.
"I will take your word for it," Stal chuffed. "Remember, everyone, the lands beyond this place are not necessarily safe."
"That little fuzzy thing that bit me was not safe," Agate's sparring partner muttered.
"Others who may wish to harm us could live out there, and I do not intend to see us drawn into a fight we can avoid," Stal continued.
"You stepped in its den, of course it bit you," Agate muttered back. "It did taste good, though."
"And if we see any small fuzzy creatures, it sounds like we should avoid those too," Stal concluded with a pointed look at the duo. "Now. Lily, which direction should we be going?"
"She told the alpha and all his advisors already, did she not?" Calci asked.
"I will listen to the one who has been there before," Stal replied. "More to the point, I was only asking which way off this island. There is land in one direction, but for all I know that is another island and we are supposed to be going the other way to something just out of sight."
He knew enough, from her story, that he would notice if she led him astray in any but the most subtle ways. Also, the end result of her lying and sending them somewhere else would be her being proven a liar, so why was Calci complaining? "The land you saw is the mainland," she confirmed.
"Then we know where we are going!" Stal declared. "Everyone up, fly close, no camouflage and keep your fire ready just in case!"
Enough of their group were used to taking orders that most of them leaped into the air without any further questions, forcing the rest to follow. Agate was caught off-guard and lagged along behind as they began their ascent, whereas Shell was the second up behind Stal himself, which was interesting. He couldn't possibly be eager to keep flying after dedicating his entire day to it? His wings were quivering, just a little. He could probably keep going for a while yet, but could and wanted to were separated by a large ravine of motivation that she had never seen him cross before.
Lily flew up to Shell, higher than him by a few winglengths but comfortably within speaking distance as the group leveled out, high above the water. "You will feel this in your wings for many cycles to come," she warned him.
Shell grunted. "Will not stop me," he said simply.
Lily glanced down, at Galen and Emera. They were both looking up at their enigmatic son, at least until Agate pulled off a showy sideways flip and almost smacked Galen across the back with his tail, thoroughly distracting them.
"Is this something you do that I have not been around long enough to witness?" she asked bluntly. "Going all out on a whim?" The guardian's words implied otherwise, but she would hear from Shell himself before deciding what she believed.
"No," Shell answered. She waited, but he didn't elaborate.
A different approach, then. "We should fly higher if you want to make the most of the night," she told him. "There are currents in the air if you go high enough, strong ones. They do not always go the right direction to be useful, but when they do…" A minor novelty that she had never truly cared about. It was cold that high up, and she rarely needed to travel long distances above the ground. Only once, in fact. Twice now.
Shell began a shallow ascent, gradually peeling away from the group until Stal noticed and angled up to follow along, bringing everyone else with him by merit of being the leader.
"Why?" Shell asked.
"Why are there currents?" Lily thought about it, trying to recall if Pyre had ever said anything to her about them. "I don't know."
"Why did you ever come below the ground?" Shell asked.
That was a lot more personal than she was expecting. "There was nothing for me above," she said.
"There was this."
"The sky?" The air? Open space? "It loses its appeal after a while."
"No, it will not." Shell shook his head.
He would probably think differently by the time going back underground was an option. They had a long journey ahead of them. The novelty would wear thin. It had for her. The night was chilly and the wind whipped at her face. She set herself into a consistent rhythm, steadied her wings to avoid unnecessary strain, and settled into what would be the first of many long flights. It was good to be in the open air again, but this freedom came with far too many weights and future worries for her to truly enjoy it for long.
O-O-O-O-O
Flying in a group was slower than flying alone, but infinitely less lonely. What they lost in speed and efficiency to every break for water, fishing, or rest that Lily personally didn't need, she gained in not having to make the journey with nothing but her own thoughts to keep her occupied. The same skies that felt so desolate and empty before were now inescapably filled with life, eleven other light wings doing their best to make good time in an unfamiliar environment.
Days scuttled by like the wispy clouds, driven by the cold wind. Every night – for they were sleeping during the day, to travel more stealthily – brought something new for the others. Freezing rain. Light snow. Heavy winds. Unseasonably balmy mornings that morphed into ice-cold sleet by nightfall, catching out all who chose to sleep in the open. Clouds, in general. Wing cramps borne of exertion in cold, damp air.
Bit by bit, night by night, they followed the path of Lily's solitary flight, back the other way.
There was little to distract her from what lay ahead. Shell continued to defy all expectations by enthusiastically hurling himself into the air at every opportunity. Calci and Andes were unsuited to constant travel, but they adapted with only a little whining about soreness. Stal, Galen, Emera, and the other four male light wings were competent and adapted quickly to the open skies. Agate studiously deflected each and every mention of plant-collecting by claiming he was not going to carry anything the wrong way when he could dig it up and bring it on the way back.
These little diversions did not fill more than a small fraction of a night's flight, or a morning's sleepy consideration. The vast majority of her time was spent thinking, planning, wondering, worrying.
What had changed, since she had left? What remained the same? What would she do about either of those things? What did she, personally, want out of the coming confrontation? How much of a confrontation should it be?
What could she be satisfied with, when the dust cleared? What did she want?
"Lily," Stal said one morning as they set down on a stony outcrop overlooking a steep cliff bordering the ocean. "Come with me, please."
Lily obligingly followed the leader of their expedition away from the others. They walked further down the edge of the cliffs, looking out at the tumultuous ocean below, until the others were out of earshot.
"Have you had any thoughts about what should happen once we arrive?" he asked.
"Too many to count, some with merit, but nothing approaching a solid plan," she said truthfully. She did not know, still. She had some thoughts, some hopes and contradictory fears, but nothing that brought all of those fragments and ideas together into a coherent plan. How did one plan for something that was at once familiar and totally unknown?
"I have my orders," Stal replied. "It might be best if you decided on an approach soon. Once we are there, it would not do to move aimlessly. If there is something there to move against. Quartz can be wrong sometimes. It does not happen often, but it does happen."
That was a healthy amount of skepticism. "I would not be nearly so troubled if I was a liar," Lily said, looking out over the ocean. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Calci walking toward them. She was not openly suspicious, not like Sulfa, but Lily did not doubt that Calci saw a private conversation and immediately decided to either interrupt or eavesdrop on the assumption that Sulfa would want her to.
"Good to hear." Stal broke away, turning back to acknowledge Calci. "Do you need me for something?"
Calci responded, but Lily ignored her in favor of looking out at the ocean. Calci wasn't important; her relevance centered on the Twisted Corridor pack, and they wouldn't be going back there until afterward.
The real danger was ahead, not behind.
O-O-O-O-O
"Family flight!"
It was good to know that Galen was still Galen no matter where they were or what they were doing.
"Sire, you must be kidding," Agate moaned. Everyone had just landed after a full night of flying, and the sun was coming up. They'd come across a pleasant, grassy clearing by a small stream, and immediately set down to take advantage of the nice resting spot. Everyone else was either already asleep, or enjoying the soft grass and clean water. Lily herself was considering a quick fishing trip before she went to sleep.
"Nope," Galen chirped. "We are done flying because we have to, so now we can fly to take in the sights, explore, all of the fun things! Right Emera?"
"A short flight," Emera qualified.
"I will be waiting." Shell took to the air.
"Shell can fly for me," Agate groaned.
"He probably would," Galen muttered. "I still do not understand how a big open sky can make this much of a difference for him… but I like it!" He sidled over and began poking Agate's side with his paw. "Up. Sleep later. Family time now. I can do this all day."
"I miss my cave," Agate groaned as he reluctantly stood.
Lily snorted.
"You too, Lily," Galen barked.
Oh. She'd assumed 'family flight' meant only his close family. Did she actually want to go for another flight after using her wings all night, every night? Certainly not for the exercise… It did feel nice to be thought of, to be included.
She stood and took to the air despite her aching wings. Galen and the others came up, Galen leading the way, and Shell dove down to join them as he set out West, away from the rising sun.
"Look at this beautiful expanse!" Galen crowed. "Water. More water. Tall moss with decorations. Flammable trees that tempt me to do things I really should not…"
If he was dragging them all into the air to cover for an exploratory foray into starting wildfires, Lily was going to kick him.
"Places to walk," Agate agreed. "Places to sit. Places to sleep. Why do I sound like Shell?"
"I do not care about walking," Shell grumbled.
"This is a family flight, not a family whining!" Galen barked.
"I could do with a roll in the grass," Emera said wistfully.
"Emera!" Galen shrieked. "Back me up!"
"This was your idea," Emera said.
"Shell!" Galen implored, flapping up to his other son. "You think this is an excellent idea."
"I like the sky," Shell said.
"But do you like my ideas?" Galen asked.
"Not really, no," Shell admitted.
Galen fell back, coming to fly by Lily. "Please, tell me you think this is a fun outing."
Lily threw him a bone. "I would not be here if I did not want to be," she assured him. Let his tattered and beaten ego hide behind her until it recovered.
"There we go," Galen crowed, confidence instantly bolstered. He flew in a celebratory loop around her, then let out a little bark as he returned to the front of the group. "That said…"
"Yes?" Emera purred.
"My wings hurt," Galen admitted.
O-O-O-O-O
One night, a warm thunderstorm drove them all down early, to seek shelter. The rain was not so bad, but the lightning that came with it set everyone from under the ground on edge. It was not that they did not know what it was, though. Rather, they knew all too well, as she soon learned once everyone was safely under the thick canopy of the forest.
"Skrill roam the caverns, rare and lethally dangerous," Stal explained. "One encountered our pack when I was a fledgling. We lost three light wings when we tried to refuse him passage through our territory, and that number is only so low because he stopped killing when we let him through. They seek their caves, and they will kill anyone who tries to hinder them. We learned from that experience, and I can only hope the next light wings to meet a Skrill know this story and know to stand aside. Lightning is lethal."
Everyone broke up into their own little groups to wait out the storm. Shell and Agate went off with two of the fighting light wings to look for somewhere less damp, Galen and Emera were drinking from the dripping trees, Stal wandered off to relieve himself…
Andes approached Lily. They had exchanged maybe a dozen words in three times as many nights, so the simple act of walking toward her was unusual. She turned to face him, her frills twitching as water dripped off them.
"Not a very nice night, is it?" he asked, looking up at the trees and receiving a splash of water in the eye for his trouble. "Not nice at all," he repeated, blinking rapidly. "Do the light wings in this valley of yours have any way of dealing with these downpours?"
"None beyond what we are already doing, no," Lily said.
"And here I had hope," Andes sighed. His voice was rather pleasant, deep and melodic, but the way he acted – he was always a little shifty, looking around like he expected he'd need to know the lay of the land so he could best flee once someone caught on to whatever scheme he was running. His actual behavior was unremarkable, but he had an air about him. Untrustworthy, to sum it up with one word.
"The snowstorms are worse," Lily said bluntly. "This is tolerable. Put a wing over your head and ignore it."
"I do like to do that," Andes said mildly. "It makes life easy. Have I done something to put you on edge?" He came closer, but carefully, like he was walking on unsteady ground. Or into dangerous territory. It was good for him that he stopped well short of her.
"Obsidian hasn't made a good impression on me," she said. "You have that working against you. Among other things."
"Would you believe me if I said I do not particularly like him either?" Andes asked. "I know, I am his successor, but that means rather less to him – or I – than it seems to mean for you and Quartz. He picked me almost at random, took me along to a few hundred cycles of meeting the other packs we know, and then told me I knew all I would ever need to know to replace him when he died, but not before. I had almost forgotten about the entire affair until he told me he had volunteered me for this journey. Quite the shock."
On the one paw, Lily could believe that of Obsidian. On the other, she felt like she was being fed a pleasant lie. "Yet you came anyway," she ventured.
"He did not pick me entirely at random," Andes answered with a shrug. "He knows things that I would rather not have spread around. It seemed easier to do what he asked, then and now. Which is why I bring this up. If we assume you are not taking us to some random hilltop solely to prove yourself a liar, you know quite a bit about the light wings I need to make contact with."
"Yes." She did know a lot about Claw and the others. "You would do best not to try anything with them. No good will come of it."
"That is for Obsidian to deal with," Andes said. "He told me to open the lines of communication. Give an introduction, get one in turn. Do a few favors for their alpha, whoever that ends up being, make them like us. We are only going to be there long enough to question a few of them, it would not be a drawn-out process. This Claw of yours–"
"He did not choose you for your tact," Lily said abruptly.
"Like I said, almost at random," Andes chuffed, unconcerned. "Information for information? I know a few things you might value hearing."
"Give me something, and I will give you something of equal worth." As determined by her judgment, not his.
Andes made a little pouting face, his ears dropping as he looked down, but it had no effect on her. "Very well. Calci fears you. She has heard of what you did to the alpha, and Sulfa has not spoken well of you. What do I get in return for that?"
"You will not be able to do the only kinds of favors Claw would ask of a delegate light wing," Lily said. "You lack the right hindquarters." Also, if Quartz's plans went through in any respect, Claw would be dead.
Andes scowled at her. "I gave that information in good faith," he complained.
"As did I. Claw cares for two things, power and female tails. Nothing else." She had never seen Claw express any interest in any other topic, only those two and things directly related to them.
"He runs a pack, he must be more than a simple brute," Andes said.
"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Lily huffed. "Anything else you have to tell me?"
"Obsidian thinks you are a simple brute," Andes volunteered. "He appears to be wrong, at that, but that is what he thinks of you."
"That is not new to me, I had gathered as much." What else would Obsidian think of her? He certainly would not hold her in high regard; the mutual disdain between him and Quartz precluded that.
"Well then, in the name of you and I being able to work together more easily than our predecessors?" Andes asked. "We will be in their places eventually. You long before I, but still."
"I can get behind that." Lily looked him in the eye. "Put away any thought of meeting with Claw. Do the absolute bare minimum for Obsidian. There is nothing of value where we are going. They are too far away, too self-contained, too backwards and twisted. Whatever else you do, tell no one how to find the Twisted Corridor pack. This is my advice to you, and I dearly hope you take it seriously." She turned away from him.
Her thoughts on the valley pack were growing clearer in some respects. Andes was helping shine a harsh light on the place they were going, harsher than her thoughts on their own. The kind of pack he expected, the kind Obsidian expected – it didn't exist. Only the moldering remnants of something that had never truly been that to begin with.
"I will think on that," Andes said shakily.
He would see soon enough.
O-O-O-O-O
The mountains were smaller than Lily remembered. Not that they had changed, quite the contrary. They were as solid and imposing as ever, annoyances to fly up and truly inconvenient to try and scale by paw. But the sky that they filled was large, and having seen many things beyond this sight, this set of horizons, they no longer loomed so large in her vision.
The sight of them still made her physically ill. Her stomach clenched so hard that she had trouble breathing, even as Stal ordered a stop and they descended to hide beneath the trees, far from the mountains themselves. "This is it?" he asked her.
She nodded. They were unmistakable. Distant, but iconic, the sight of a thousand days and nights, a hundred minor triumphs and a pawful of crushing losses. Her youth, five season-cycles of it. Many nights of flying, many moon-cycles of time underground… It felt like she had left yesterday.
She so wanted to turn around and fly until she could no longer see them. The urge was physical, an itch in her wings. This was the precipice and she had seen those she loved dashed across the rocky bluffs below. She wanted to back away from the edge.
Three of the fighting light wings were sent out. Camouflaged before they took off, they went with full knowledge of what they expected to find. Not even Lily knew what they would actually see within the hidden valley beyond the distant mountains. Was all as it had been, or had things changed? For the worse, if so; she could not imagine life in the valley improving.
Her mood was obvious to everyone around her. She could not, would not hide it. They felt some of the same anticipation, without the attached dread. Emera made to comfort her, reaching out a wing as they stood beneath the dense canopy, but Lily shied away. She didn't want to be touched right now.
They waited for some time, having flown within eyeshot of the mountains near the end of the night. There was still a substantial flight to reach the mountains, and then the scouts would have to renew their camouflage, sneak in, and see what there was to see. That would take time of its own, and then they had to fly all the way back…
Everyone dealt with the wait in their own ways. Stal lounged against a wide tree, absently rubbing his side on the bark to scratch himself. The single fighting light wing left in wait watched Lily, his eyes on her back whenever she turned away from him. Galen and Emera sat together after her rejection, speaking in hushed tones. Agate made a game of trying to sneak up on Shell, who sat at the edge of the treeline with his gaze fixed on the horizon out over the ocean, though it was not much of a game seeing as Shell did not react even when Agate pounced on his tail.
Calci was not her usual self, not now. She was quiet, watching Stal with an unnerving intensity. This, Lily guessed, was her mission from Sulfa coming to land in the present moment. She was to ensure Stal kept to the plan Sulfa had been told. The tricky part was that Calci had to have figured out by now that she had no power to do this if Stal decided to go against what she thought Sulfa's will would have been.
Andes pawed at his own tail, visibly bored.
The morning crawled into midday, and then in turn to early afternoon, reluctantly squirming forward in time with the gnawing hollowness in Lily's stomach. They could fish, but no one went out, not even camouflaged. This, more than anything else, proved that no one was comfortable with where they were. Most believed her, and those who did not would be having serious doubts now, on the cusp of the truth. They knew what she claimed lurked between the mountains, and they knew that they had come to a place utterly unlike their home. A broken place where things did not happen as they should.
The scouts returned as a trio, camouflaged but coming in to land within moments of each other, too closely to have been traveling separately. Their camouflage held until they waded into the surf, rolling in the cold ocean water to drive away the last vestiges of warmth in their scales.
Lily watched as the trio darted up the shore, shedding water as they ran. Stal met them at the edge of the treeline, near where Shell sat. Shell himself was no longer watching the ocean.
No one feigned indifference. They were all listening, every last one of them.
"Light wings live in the valley," one of the scouts began. "They do answer to an alpha named Claw. He does lay claim to dozens of mates. There is much fear there. Many old corpses litter the shadowed edge of the valley. All is as we were told. In some ways it is worse."
"We stalked among them while camouflaged, and when they noticed us, they shied away from us and pleaded innocence," the second said. "A select few of them stalk like we did, seeking out dissent. They were not wary of outside danger, but they were accustomed to fearing unseen ears."
"None recognized us as foreign," the third concluded. "We saw Claw. We saw the skeletons. The caves. We saw it all."
Stal heaved a big sigh and closed his eyes. "I had hoped it would not be so bad," he said aloud. "Quartz did not doubt for a moment, and I will have to thank him for that. I would not have had his foresight."
"What now?" One of the scouts asked, but all three glanced over at Lily. They knew what was supposed to happen next, but they might be wondering whether she was up for it.
Was she up for it?
Stal opened his eyes and straightened up, standing resolute. "I intend to do what Quartz ordered me to do, and I intend to do it as thoroughly as I can."
"We will be making contact?" Andes asked.
"After a fashion," Stal growled. He looked to Lily. "You or I?"
Now was the time. Would she stand back, or would she trust herself one more time where every time prior she had let herself down?
Which way led out of the past?
The one that first led straight through it.
"I'll do it."
Stal unsheathed his claws and teeth. The other fighting light wings, including Galen and Emera, followed suit. "You are in command, Lily," Stal said gravely, ignoring the twin confused growls from Andes and Calci, and Agate's surprised bark. "If you wish to change that, at any time, tell me. Until then – what are your orders?"
O-O-O-O-O
Many nights of contemplation burned away to little of value in the face of a valley that was not as she had left it, but in the end Lily had plenty of reliable experience in tackling an unknown problem. Quartz did it every other cycle.
She and seven others flew high, above the scattered clouds, white specks illuminated by a dim, shadowed moon on its way back down into the ocean. Subtle, not hidden but impossible to notice unless one was looking.
She'd sent a second wave of scouts to confirm the findings of the first and seek out answers to specific questions, confirming assumptions and proving or disproving hunches. She would not act on guesswork or lazily assume things were as she believed. The plan they were executing now was grounded in verified information.
Their group of eight lost two as Emera and Galen peeled off, before camouflaging themselves in dual bursts of flame.
The valley was gripped by fear, but while things had devolved there was still a ragged, patchwork sense of normalcy. Galen and Emera, part of her second wave of scouts, reported seeing light wings interacting with Claw on his rock, outside the caves, by the pond. The valley light wings still spoke to their alpha, albeit in a cringing manner reserved exclusively for the mated males in the past.
The six remaining light wings, Lily included, continued to fly high above the valley as they waited. Galen and Emera needed time to get into position. Not too much time, their camouflage was a gradually shrinking limit on how long they could be allowed.
Agate and Shell came in handy in keeping things controlled outside of the valley. Lily had assigned them the joint task of keeping Andes and Calci safely away until daybreak. Any longer and she expected one or both of the other light wings would try to break away, but Andes and Calci knew they'd be allowed to come to the valley as soon as the sun rose over the water. A necessary compromise to balance their fear of future consequences and their indignation at being kept away while such momentous things were happening.
Andes was oddly apathetic about what Lily had planned. Calci was angry, but holding her anger in. Calci was the more troublesome of the two, but just as she was there to ensure there would be consequences back home, she in turn feared such consequences for herself if she interfered.
Lily did not care what either of them thought. Only that they stayed out of the night's plan, and kept Agate and Shell equally far away. This was not a night for noncombatants to fly interference. Obsidian's ideas of peaceful diplomacy never found so much as a clawhold in her plans. The chance that things could be fixed peacefully had already died violently a dozen times over, long before now. Claw had killed them.
Lily passed Stal as she doubled back, catching his eye. His gaze was cold, one that hinted at the violence he was prepared to do should it be necessary. She expected hers was much the same, though she had far less experience in these matters.
There was no ambiguity here. Galen and Emera managed to identify all of Claw's biggest supporters from above before landing camouflaged to confirm their names by eavesdropping. The sometimes-camouflaged stalkers were treated with a deference second only to Claw himself, and feared nearly as much as he was, the furthest thing from anonymous. All three of the names Lily had been given belonged to females, and all belonged to Claw's mates.
That they were all Claw's mates made things simpler.
Stal chuffed. "It is time," he announced.
"Yes." Lily stooped into a dive. Five angular streaks of white in the night sky followed behind her, down toward one side of the valley. Any light wings looking up now might see them, but it was late and the valley pack had forgotten to fear enemies from outside their territory. They were all too consumed by fear of other things, other dangers.
The first step in fixing what could be fixed would be one of blood. All of the other steps involved managing the effects of shedding that blood, in the immediate, in the short-term, and in the long-term.
Lily led the others down to the mouth of Claw's cave. He alone among the males slept in a place reminiscent of the territory from which they or their parents had all come at one time, and he ensured that all of his mates and children slept there too. In a closed, tight space whereas the rest of the pack were free to sleep beneath the stars. Practically, the caves were preferable, especially in the cold-season, but only to a pack who had forgotten what it was like to live with stone on all sides and no escape.
Claw had never seen the Twisted Corridor pack. If he had, he would not think a cave was a symbol of status. His cave system, specifically, was a tight, simplistic dead end. One that contained him, many females, and some fledglings. One way in, one way out, and he might be in any of the offshoot chambers anywhere along the main corridor.
The Twisted Corridor pack was well acquainted with fighting in caves. Choosing to confront him there put them on familiar terrain.
Stal and another bulky male went in first. Lily followed behind them, right on their tails, and the other two males brought up the rear, leaving the last to guard the entrance. The first, most open chamber was empty, so they continued on into the narrower corridor beyond.
Claw's cave was more claustrophobic for Lily than any of the caves she had seen in all her time under the ground.
Each chamber off the main corridor held one or more females, and sometimes a hatchling or fledglings. Those who slumbered, Lily and the others left to slumber. Those who were awake –
Stal snarled quietly at someone in a chamber just ahead. "Your life for your silence," he offered in a threatening hiss.
The few who were awake were terrified into silence. It did not need to hold long, a few more moments at most. They were predisposed to averting their eyes and avoiding danger by pretending they had seen nothing. It was a safe bet that none of them would truly object before it was too late.
This wouldn't apply to someone like Cressa. The very next chamber over was one Lily knew well. One of the males behind her peeled off when she indicated it with a toss of her head, as she passed by.
Three names, and Claw. Five light wings to cover them all. It would be tight. Another male split away to keep a watchful eye and if need be sharp claws on another of those named, leaving Lily, Stal, and one more male. They'd found two of the three.
Stal sniffed lightly at the entrance to a chamber beyond Lily's vision. "This one," he hissed to her. The male beside him continued on, searching for the final name. Leaving Claw to them.
Most of Lily's plan lived and breathed necessity and practicality. Not this one detail, though. She could have, should have, taken the place of one of the others. Seeking out one of the lesser evils, or guarding the exit in case of something going wrong. But no. Not now. Not when she was already here, so close. It would be the height of cruel, unfair irony if the only alpha's blood on her claws was the blood of the one who didn't deserve it.
Stal entered first. Lily stepped in a heartbeat after, immediately breaking to one side while he went to the other. Their steps were light, their breathing low and measured. She took in the repugnant musk, the dark forms of three light wings. One male, laying at an angle atop a female who was still on her back, both sound asleep. Another female curled up off to the side.
She'd spent a little time going over this moment with Stal, in the air above the valley. They had plans. None involved Claw sleeping directly on top of a mostly-innocent female. She and Stal exchanged looks across Claw's slumbering form.
Elsewhere in the cavern, a light wing shrieked in surprise and anger.
Lily had always assumed that Claw was a heavy sleeper. He was indolent and accustomed to a life of pleasure and ease. Maybe that had changed. Maybe he was paranoid. Maybe he had reasons to fear teeth in the dark. Whatever the cause, the feminine shriek roused him, and he did not wake slowly. His eyes snapped open, and though Stal leaped forward to shoulder him off the female, he was already lashing out with his claws as he tumbled, catching the female's back and the edge of Stal's wing with frenzied swipes.
The female squealed as Claw drew blood. Stal grunted and twisted away from the seeking claws. The other female in the cave yelped in fear as she woke.
Lily was deathly silent as she hopped forward to stomp her paw solidly down on the side of Claw's stocky neck as he writhed around to get his paws under him. She connected with strong but yielding flesh under scale, and Claw choked out a gurgling bark as he reeled away from her.
These were the first steps of the one thing she didn't want, a drawn-out fight with innocents in the way. She couldn't let it be drawn out. She couldn't let Claw get his bearings, recuperate, even take a breath. If he did, he would fight, and this could not become anything approaching a fair fight.
That was not her fear talking, though her heart was trying to beat its way up into her throat and out her mouth. This should not be fair. Simple strategy. She was not a challenger, she was an assassin.
The clawed female crawled out of the way, self-preservation driving her away from the snarling pawfuls of claws being exchanged over her. Claw and Stal traded sharp, heavy blows, with Stal taking a deep set of slashes across his chest in exchange for taking off one of the frills on the side of Claw's jaw and leaving a heavily bleeding gash in its place, all over the course of two quick heartbeats.
"Challengers, die," Claw gurgled, his voice deeply disguised by his wet, bloodied breathing. That hateful sound drove Lily as she rejoined the fight. He'd ignored her, in favor of Stal. Just for a moment, but a moment was enough.
It only took a moment for her to rear up, swing around, and come down on his back right in the middle with all of her weight. Unlike with her attack on Rose she had no intention of digging in and grabbing on; breaking his back like he had broken Pyre's would be more than enough for her. But it was not to be, she did not weigh as much as Claw and though he buckled under her strike, nothing broke, and his tail whipped her side with enough force that she hopped off rather than be knocked over.
Stal turned, not pressing the attack, to bite and snarl at something behind him, the female who had not been hurt. Lily was too busy to see what exactly had him distracted, because Claw was coming for her now, rearing around on his hind paws, his bulk stretching to the ceiling of the low cavern for one terrifying instant.
He saw her, and she saw him. She saw recognition in his gaze, as he came down teeth out and claws seeking. Recognition and nothing else, there was no time for something as luxurious as thought. Not here, not now.
Lily's body moved of its own accord, though her mind was for a brief moment in another part of the cavern, another time, another place. Another night. Then she had been handily beaten, her and Crystal both. Now, she slid to the side of Claw's descending weight and bit at him, seizing his wing by the leading edge long enough to worry it to the bone with a quick jerk, before releasing it again to lash at his unprotected side, kicking in his ribs with enough force to jar her entire body. They bent and he recoiled, but they did not break and he was already on her again, pouncing on her hindquarters. She bucked upward then slid out of his grasp, and they followed each others' thrashing tails as she whipped around to drag a bloody furrow down one of his hindlegs, from just below the tail all the way down to his stocky heel. Her claws caught there, and mindful of his tendons, she did her best to sever everything she could while he bit down on the middle of her tail.
Claw's jaws were strong, and his teeth pierced the middle of her tail in a half-moon of agony, but Lily got the better of the exchange by literally hamstringing him in return, something that hurt so much he released her tail to howl. He kicked out with his mauled hindleg, a move more likely to blind her with blood in her eyes than to do any real damage, but she moved with the motion as she had been taught, letting it glance off her forehead in exchange for ripping into one of his base fins. This time he could not even bite her in response, as she had leaped away from his head and protectively curled her tail even further from his reach.
His persistence in trying to attack her gave her these opportunities, and she knew the tides had shifted, for good, when instead of chasing her rear he straightened out and tried to run away. But the moment he put weight on his hind paw it collapsed, bleeding heavily as he stumbled with a pained shriek. Lily caught a glimpse of Stal striking down at one of the females with a blunt paw, even as she worried at his other paw with needle-sharp teeth near the exit. Claw was perhaps five paces from the exit and the corridor beyond. Ten paces from a female who might be convinced to defend him, from a dozen who had to be waking now.
He wouldn't make it there. Lily vaulted over his rear end, kicking down at his tightly furled wings for a little more height to better plant both of her front paws firmly on his head as she descended, bouncing his head off the ground as she completed her leap and spun around, putting herself between him and the exit.
He wasn't allowed to leave yet. Not of his own free will.
Claw's gaze was unfocused as he staggered up and forward, and Lily batting his forehead down again when he tried to push forward didn't help matters. "Yu," he slurred, the words gurgling out of a mouth that contained more than a few broken teeth. "My–"
Two females cowered in the far side of the cavern, both bleeding and both now subdued by their minor injuries. Stal announced his presence with a kick to the same ribs Lily had abused moments ago, knocking Claw onto his side.
"Me," Lily snarled as she slashed his forehead, drawing streams of blood into his eyes. She no longer fought to survive, or to kill. The true danger had passed along with Claw's presence of mind, both diminished by repeatedly bouncing his head off the ground.
Stal thumped him in the stomach, driving air out of him in a breathless wheeze. Claw flailed weakly at them, still on his side, but his clawing had no force behind it.
Dazed, blinded by his own blood, breathless, partially hamstrung, and with a rent in one of his wings that Lily didn't remember putting there, Claw was beaten. Not dead, though she could have killed him there. Only beaten.
Killing him here wasn't the plan. She wanted more than to kill him. She wanted to kill all that he had wrought, and for that she needed him alive a little while longer.
O-O-O-O-O
They worked their way out of Claw's caverns bit by bit. He was not a cooperative prisoner, but the utter devastation they had wrought upon him kept him in check. His mates cowered in their chamber while Lily and Stal dragged him out, and then followed along, too timid to stay and too timid to leave. Ahead of Lily, one of the other males dragged an unconscious female along by her tail.
Claw might have wished for such a luxury as the one being afforded his strongest supporters. Stal led him along from the front, backing down the cavern with his teeth fixed firmly in Claw's neck, one hard bite away from tearing out his throat. Lily followed from behind, her claws nicking his tailfins whenever he looked about to do more than shuffle along and breathe. He was bloodied and broken, but if driven into a corner, he could maybe still fight. They were forcing him out, not trying to kill him, so he did not try. Yet.
The moon had dipped behind the mountains while they were in Claw's caverns. Sunrise was not far away.
A small crowd of terrified females followed Lily out. More still had gathered, brought together by the not altogether quiet spectacle of three unconscious females being dragged up onto Claw's rock after the short-lived ruckus from his caverns. A fourth captive writhed there, inexplicable but not altogether unexpected. Someone would have the guts to object. That was what Emera and Galen were for. The female struggling underneath Emera's paw was bloodied, and she did not struggle with much strength.
One would try to interfere. The first… and the last. A pack so thoroughly beaten down by their alpha could be easily beaten down by anyone else who was willing to do so. Lily couldn't see who Emera had fought, but there was only one light wing she would truly regret seeing beaten in such a way. One light wing who was not in the gathering crowd. One light wing who could not be found the prior day.
Clandestine scouts could not seek out the answers to any question she had, only see what there was to see, and hear what was spoken aloud. An absence that none spoke of could not be investigated that way.
She and Stal forced Claw to walk up to his place of pride, his rock. Stal let go of his neck. "Up," he growled.
Claw tried to pull away with a defiant growl. Lily slashed him across his flank with a pawful of already bloodied claws. "Up!" she barked. He flinched away from her and reluctantly crawled up with three paws and one useless dead weight, moving slowly and awkwardly. Stal immediately seized him by his neck again once he reached the top, and Lily came up right behind him. They forced him into the middle of the sizable rock, close to his three unconscious subordinates and one very angry female who was not on the list Lily was given.
Lily took the time then to look down, past the blood streaming from a thoroughly pockmarked ear, and identify the anticipated fly in the fish pile. She didn't recognize the angry pinned female.
One light wing of Lily's seven was still absent from their gathering on Claw's plateau. Backup, if someone else got it into their head to interfere despite Claw's imminent death should Stal bite down and pull. Galen could be stealthy when he chose to be, by merit of needing to keep his mouth shut.
Most of the valley pack was awake now, in the darkness before the dawn. Still, they waited. Watching, fearfully whispering to each other. She could have roared to call the stragglers, to wake those who slept most deeply and call down anyone on the ledges, but their friends and family were already doing the job, and a summons would not evoke the right atmosphere. Let them come in ones and twos, drawn to the inexplicable, inconceivable sight in their own time. If she demanded their attention and attendance then that would give them direction, something familiar to cling to. She preferred that they wait with no idea of what was to come, not even the understanding that there would be anything at all.
Lily and her light wings stood there for a short time, waiting for the dawn. The longer they waited unopposed, the more likely it was that none would work up the courage to speak up at all. The circular reasoning was that so long as they held the upper paw, the more it looked like they could not be challenged. So long as they were not challenged, they had the upper paw. That was, in a way, exactly how Claw had ruled. Force of time, of precedent. He'd killed previous challengers, so no one ever questioned his right to kill the next one. The trickiest part would have been that first kill, the first time he established the rules by which he demanded the rest of the pack play.
They would be establishing a new set of rules with the rising sun. Claw would have a place in declaring those new rules, though not one he would ever voluntarily take. Even now, broken and crippled with teeth on his neck, he tried to rasp out a desperate command. "My pack," he choked, immediately cutting off with a pathetic whimper as Stal bit down. Blood dripped down Stal's chin, but the pain Claw surely felt was only a prelude to losing most of his throat if Stal willed it.
The light wings assembled before them all heard the words, as quiet as the valley was. Lily did not fear their response to Claw's aborted plea for help. They were terrified of him, but she had broken him and brought him out for them to see. They did not want to be broken like him, and he no longer looked capable of punishing them for their reluctance. Inaction was the easiest and safest response. A few of the males stirred uneasily even so, but a short warning growl from Lily sent them slinking behind their mates. It would take a truly courageous light wing to heed his alpha's call in these circumstances, and Claw killed all of those.
The sun did not rise above the mountaintop; that was not sunrise. They would have to wait much longer for that. But the gradual warming of the sky was a signal in and of itself, and four light wings flying in from over the mountain confirmed it, those she had left behind now following to see what she had wrought.
Lily stepped forward, her movement after a time of stillness immediately drawing every eye. Even Claw's, though his gaze was bleary and his wing had been bleeding for a rather long time without drying up. The three females who had been put to sleep were still asleep.
"Light wings of the valley." Fools, cowards, blind dragons. People, beaten down and convinced that they could do nothing. She tried not to see them as the enemy, but it was so very hard. Everyone she cared about who had once lived among them was absent at this moment. "You are not alone in this world."
This was not what they had expected to hear, being at once obvious and irrelevant. They did not know the light wings arrayed to either side of her, and unlike in the Twisted Corridor pack that was something they would have noticed immediately, but that mystery was far from the most important thing going on and thus not what they assumed she would address first.
She was, however, going to start with that. Because this wasn't as simple as explaining what had happened on this one night. "There are other light wings. Other packs." Only one she knew, but there had to be more. She did not believe that the two packs she knew were the only ones to exist. "Others who make their voices heard when injustice rears its miserable head. Who fight for the things they hold dear, like their own safety. The safety of their kin. The right, of every light wing male or female, to accept or reject another."
Even Rose was afforded that choice, though one potential decision was punishable by exile. The subtle injustices of that would not make for good speech fodder right this moment. She was already mostly making this up as she went, knowing the main points she needed to drive home with the force of a full bolt of flame.
"When those rights are violated they punish the offender, be he a lowly guard or the alpha himself." She had to believe that they did, that the customs and systems she had seen in the Twisted Corridor pack would hold even if the alpha himself did something heinous. With the amount of power his advisors held independent of him, she could believe it.
Even if it were not so there, she would make it so here. Starting today.
"In most cases there is a trial. There will not be one here. The bodies that even now litter the dark side of the valley are not a mystery." Claw's actions were known and his motivations indefensible. Under his rules what he did was not wrong, but his rules no longer mattered. He enforced them with violence and intimidation, and by violence and intimidation they were undone, making way for the more basic morals he had long suppressed to suit himself.
His guilt was not in doubt, but the label she would assign to it was going to be misleading. She was conflating two very different crimes here. His abuse of unwilling females, including herself, and his murder of males convinced that their best chance for a good life was a fight to the death that they were entirely unprepared for. She referenced the first, but then cited the other as the reason for what was about to happen. They were linked, intimately so. The murders were about maintaining power, and the taking of unwilling mates about exercising that power. Either one was unforgivable, but only one was immediately, indisputably obvious.
Killings done with the acknowledgment of all could not be disputed. Bruises and violations done in a dark cave… those would need a trial, something she would not allow to happen. Too long, too foreign, too hard to keep control of. Too much of a chance for Claw to spew some bile and convince someone, anyone, that he was in the right.
Cressa and the other two were beginning to stir. Lily could not have timed it better herself. Luck was with her as well as competent planning.
"The other things he has done, the atrocities he has committed… They make no difference. For murdering dozens of young males under the guise of custom, there can be only one punishment."
She turned to look at Claw. To look him in the eye as he truly understood that he had only been spared for this.
To be made into an example.
She took no pleasure from his terror. His hate though, the hate that shone even through the fear for his life… That she accepted, in full. In this moment, there was no room for lust or anything else in his thoughts. Hate and fear held reign. Right now, they felt exactly the same about each other.
Except that she no longer feared him.
"Release him, Stal."
Stal tentatively relaxed his jaw and lifted his head away, letting go of Claw's throat.
"You will never see another sunset from this valley," Lily told him, intentionally vague. A cornered light wing was a threat. Give him an out, though, even a false one? Claw had a single heartbeat to make a choice. Surrender and die, fight and die, or flee.
Lily was ready for any of those three outcomes, even as she inhaled, gathering a blast.
Claw leaped straight up, his torn and bloodied wing dragging through the air as he flapped once, twice, struggling to rise–
Lily's fire struck him in the chest, right where Stal had kicked him. He folded in on himself and fell back to the plateau, only a few steps from where he began.
He did not rise again. A trickle of blood gushed in irregular spurts from the corner of his mouth. Point-blank concussive blasts to the chest could kill. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly… In this case, immediately.
So died the alpha of the valley pack. Broken in front of the people he had subjugated for so long, afforded exactly as much mercy as he showed the young males he killed every season-cycle. A false chance and a swift end.
If only the rest would be so simple. Claw was only the first step. Lily wasn't leaving until she had fixed all that could be fixed, and not until she had the answer to one final question, a question Claw would never have voluntarily answered, but one which Lily feared only he would ever know the truth of.
Where was Crystal?