“Alurian was admitted to the hospital at 3:27 am, the only apparent survivor of a magical fire. There was blood on her clothes, but no sign of injuries aside from damage to her lungs from smoke inhalation. She did not seem to know what had happened to the remaining members of her family. As such, the case of the Alurian family follows a common trend in the magical community – they will be labeled missing for a period of seven years before the agency formally marks them ‘presumed dead’.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

Time is nothing to the wolf. In silence, she waits as if carved of granite, eyes chiseled emerald and the bronze rings above her paws brassy against the snow. The girl is gone, whisked away by her own kind. This does not appear to bother the wolf, but the flames do. Sapphire and ebony mingle among the golden flames of the blaze that slowly consumes the girl’s den. Though the night presses in, the flames billow hungrily outward. Around them, the snow sizzles, a hiss that makes the wolf’s ears twitch.

She senses the moment that the shadow leaves. If it knows she is there, it ignores her, vanishing into the night with little more than the bite of a chill wind. But the wolf shrinks deeper into the brush anyway, eyeing the surrounding black of the night until the frost begins to melt from the trees and the breeze is warmed again by the fire. Then, she returns to her vigil.

It is not long.

Eventually, the building tumbles inward all at once, as if heaving a great sigh. Smoke and fire and debris swirl upward to mingle with the snow. There are a few onlookers left. Those who once tried to stop the flames are done now, the battle lost. But the fire does not spread. Like an angry spirit itself, it remains within the confines of the building, and as the building is reduced to ash, dwindles and then smolders.

That is when the other humans appear, clothed in black, moving with the uniformity of things commanded. They spread like ink across the remains of the building, magic probing ahead of them. The wolf senses it as an electric haze, raising the fur along her spine. She knows these men, even if only by their scent. One of them, she knows better than the others. Blonde hair, bronze eyes, the demeanor of a beast who commands those around him…

He turns towards the trees, and she wonders if he sees her there. Regardless, she rises, turning her gaze towards the deepwood. There will be time to return when the humans move on, time to search the rubble of the humans’ den for some sign of what the Zara – the shadow beast – sought…

And of what it found.

Now, she must relay everything to the pack. And yet, the wolf does not go far before she pauses, hooded ears flared and jade eyes bright in the night. Filamentous shafts of moonlight dance in the gaps between trees, lending to the landscape the sense of a scene beneath dark lake waters. In them, she catches a glimpse of the bat.

“Ghosts walk the land,” she growls. The tiny beast chirps agreement, shivering in the trees. They both feel the ice in the wind, the chill of a time they had all believed lost. “The flames tore like a beasts’ fangs at the dark skies. Everything has been laid to ruin.”

“But the girl lives?”

“Yes.” The bat puffs up its chest, falling silent for a moment before whistling thoughtfully. The wolf understands.

“The human understood when I spoke. I will tell them…”

“We were to remain hidden,” the bat squeaks. The wolf lays back her ears, knowing it is true.

“Men are blind in the night, and I could not leave her to die. But the Zara did not try to kill her.” This time, an appreciative croon, and the bat flutters closer, dancing around her head.

“Why would the demon let a living thing escape its flames?” The wolf snorts, snapping her jaws at the little beast. She does not know. The alpha might. So thinking, she clacks her jaws and sets out into the trees, glancing back once to test the wind.

No one follows her but the little bat. For now, they are safe. And yet a shiver passes beneath her ghostly fur. With the wariness of the hunted, she peers behind her, pointed ears flared wide, moonlight glancing off of her emerald eyes. Her breath frosts before her, a cool, powdery mist. For all intents, she is naught but a ghost moving among the twisting trunks and stifling brush of the woods. But there is danger in the woods now, even for a ghost like her.

And when they are far enough from the humans, she lifts her head to call on her own kind. Her voice wavers melodiously as the song takes her up with it, above the trees, above the mountains. Perhaps the others hear, perhaps not. Only time will tell.

Moments pass in silence. As she begins her forward trek once more, however, a strange howl splits the hush. It rises and falls, leaping through the glorious heights of the wolf’s crescendo and then rising higher still, seeking to shatter the heavens themselves. Like the rich timbre of the wind as it dances through the soaring boughs of the trees, it carries meaning to the wolf’s hooded ears.

The others wait for her, to hear what has transpired. What has become of the human? What has become of the shadows?