They did not rest well. At least Silver did not, and she knew that Bek, for all that he stretched out on the warm stone earth and closed his eyes readily, would never actually fall asleep in such a place. Ren kept his usual silence, wrapping both arms across his chest and proceeding to ignore them all and in particular Hiyein, who pestered him periodically with odd comments. Cevora dozed against one wall, Sori resting against one of her shoulders. Ami, Terald, and Kit seemed to be more familiar with each other than with the rest of the group, and had snagged Estir to start up some sort of game in the shadows at the back of the den. Since Silver was unfamiliar with it, she did not ask to join.

Together, Gormin and Illian sat at the cave mouth, Illian somber, Gormin seeming to enjoy himself. He did not seem to be afraid of the tree wolves, and periodically one would come by, ignoring the rumbles of the dragons’ displeasure and Yanrian’s midnight stare. They simply peered in at the humans, nose twitching, ears flared wide. Curious, no different than any man. No different than Pelorin, Cea, and Biarn.

Silver tangled her fingers in the wolf’s fur, feeling its steady breath against her leg, and knew that its eyes were riveted to the open sky visible beyond the mouth of the cavern. Night was falling rapidly.

“They are mind readers,” the wolf, as always, sensed the direction of her thoughts.

“The mur?” Silver asked.

“Yes.”

“Do they exist…back home?”

“I do not know. Zien has spoken of them,” Elorian’s gentle movements suggested.

Silence fell between them, but it was a companionable silence. Silver was content with it, right up until Yanrian summoned them.

The moment had come.

When she ducked out of the cavern behind Sori, Silver felt her heart speed up. They had stepped out into exactly the sort of gathering she had been expecting – expecting, dreading, and hoping would not exist. The tree wolves had congregared, either on the grassy carpet at the center of the cliffs or draped in the boughs of the cliff-growing trees, to greet them, tails twitching and eyes alert. The moon shone down on them all, illuminating the grass with a pale silver glow, casting the backs of the tree wolves into lavender tinted silver. The humans might as well have been surrounded by the languid forms of a hundred ghosts.

When Silver’s eyes traveled up, she sucked in a slow breath through her teeth. Ahead of her, Sori whistled appreciation. Atop the cliffs, Silver could see a few of the nightwings, the silhouettes of eerily silent birds, the cloudy pelts of great cats and stranger things. Beyond them, she was sure there were beasts in the trees, but those trees were merely inky smudges against a darker horizon scattered with bright summer stars. The eyes of the beasts glittered with the light of the moon and the glow of something else…creamy white flowers with their petals spread wide to the night carpeted the cliffs. Something that Silver had first taken for dew shimmered wetly against those petals. Now she saw that the something was alive, and it flitted and darted among the beasts, gleaming like fox-fire.

“They are magic itself,” Elorian huffed.

Silver glanced down at the wolf, its green eyes aglow with their own fire. There were times when she wondered what magic lay hidden within the wolf, and whether her dear friend even knew about it. But there was no time for her to wonder too hard, because she had finally seen what she knew, immediately, must be the mur deer.

They were not what she had expected. That was something that she was slowly realizing she would have to get used to. The mythical beasts of Alti were not the meager few survivors of her modern times. These were the beasts before the mass annihilation. These were the beasts that breathed magic like air, beasts that – her eyes darted to the glimmering specks of light darting about the flower petals – were nothing but magic.

One of the mur stepped forward to greet them, chiseled head bowed and candle-flame ears tilted forward. It was roughly the size and shape of a deer, at least, very fine-boned, with the barrel-chest of a greyhound. Where bone and flesh gave way to hardened nail, its hooves were cloven in three, the central nail long and broad and wickedly curved. Silver knew the creature could gauge out her guts with that claw, faster than she could react. Faster than any magic could save her. But the mur did not look like the sorts of beasts to go around gauging out entrails. They were furred the same way that humans were, with a fine, downy hair that lay flat on their blue hides. They wore ribbons braided around their necks and chests, bracelets and golden chains and even piercings.

She had never seen anything like it.

“I present to you Relsrir, female srinn of the mur,” Sheurai growled softly from the beast’s side, bright eyes glowing in the moonlight. Silver translated, for those without dragons. As soon as she spoke, she felt the deer’s cat-like eyes turn to her; huge, dark eyes that she thought suited a creature that read minds. There was no pupil, or all pupil, and no way to know where the creature was looking; just that deep, solid darkness.

“Humans, you are well met,” Relsrir said then, speaking directly into their minds, just as the hatchlings did. Silver saw the eyes of her party mates widen in dawning realization, as she was sure her own had done. Only Bek and Ren seemed unsurprised, and she thought that was more because they were good at hiding it than anything else.

“Tell us if they will betray us, and if our chances are better without having human allies,” Yanrian growled gently from Illian’s side. The beast was already moving away from them, going to stand next to his mate. Silver watched him go with some trepidation. Although the purity of Relsrir’s thoughts – and the gentle warmth of the beast’s touch on Silver’s mind – made her want to trust the strange mythical beast, she was still unenviably aware of Relsrir’s physical abilities. She was fairly certain Seijelar’s suspicious glare was not making her any less edgy.

“So it will be,” Relsrir said then, softly, craning her narrow head around to catch the two alpha tree wolves in her gaze. “I will look into the hearts of the three around whom fate bends sharpest. It is they who might guide us from our destruction, they who the beasts must follow if we are to ally with mankind. Are you satisfied?”

Silver was sure everyone else also saw the unasked question in Sheurai’s violet eyes. Relsrir sounded so certain of the destruction to come. There was never a moment, it seemed, when Silver was allowed to forget everything Bek had told Illian about the fall of Alti…and how little they really knew about how or why it would come about.

“Kuirsrinn of man,” Relsrir said gently, turning back to them, “Cevora.”

Silver looked around, catching the expression on Cevora’s face, undisguised since their entrance to the castle. Not shock or surprise, but expectation. The woman took a firm step forward, staring at Illian when he stood in her path a moment longer than was necessary. When he finally cast his eyes downward and moved, she strode directly up to the mur deer.

“Your hand,” Relsrir asked, inclining her fine head slightly. Cevora lifted her hand slowly, pale fingers still and firm under the moonlight, and placed them gently on the beast’s smooth forehead.

“They can’t see everything,” Bek whispered softly from beside Silver. She was listening intently, her eyes trained on the now still and silent Cevora and the beast before her, whose eyes had closed in concentration. “What they can see are fragments of the past and future, primarily impactful events that would be difficult to avoid.”

“The more paths lead to a single event, the more likely it is to occur,” Terald affirmed from directly behind them, “Sara has many tales of the mur.” Bek glanced at him, nodding nearly imperceptibly.

“The males can See the present, the females See the past and future, and yet where we come from, the mur are gone,” Bek continued.

“You’d think they would have seen that coming,” Silver remarked a touch dryly.

“Who’s to say they didn’t?” Bek said. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes, seeing the dark expression on his face. It would have been more horrible for them, then, to know the end was coming and to have no means to prevent it.

After a few moments, Cevora slowly removed her hand from Relsrir’s forehead, taking a quick step backward as if afraid to show what must have been surprise or shock or any number of conflicting emotions. The mur deer’s large eyes slid open, regarding the woman for a moment, and then the deer dipped her head lightly.

“Thank you for sharing your life with me, princess Cevora Eldoreia Altin.”

“It was a pleasure, Relsrir srinn,” Cevora responded, before turning to walk calmly back to the group. Sori sent her a very blatant look of questioning, but the princess appeared deep in her own thoughts.

“Bek.”

Silver looked at the young man beside her in surprise, but he made no indication he had seen. Beneath the scrutiny of humans and beasts, he strode forward quickly, inclined his head slightly to the beast before him, and placed his hand on Relsrir’s forehead without hesitation. It took no longer for him than for Cevora, although Silver thought that Relsrir looked more surprised when Bek finally stepped back at some silent cue she guessed must have been transmitted only between the two of them.

“I see,” Relsrir said in her soft, melodic voice. “Our fates do not pivot on you, young one, but you know them well. I will heed what you have shared.” Bek stood a moment longer, staring at the beast, before he turned away.

“Silver,” Relsrir called softly before Bek had even reached their group. Silver disentangled her fingers from the wolf’s silver fur, sorry to feel its warmth vanish. She felt all eyes on her as she slipped past Bek, and knew that he had turned to stare as well as she passed him. She did not think she was the only one who had believed Illian would be next.

“My brother says you should be calm,” Seijelar whispered into her mind. Silver tried to smile, but was pretty sure she only made it halfway. Her hands were shaking again by the time she had reached Relsrir, and she did not dare to breathe when she stopped, feeling her body automatically dip into a slight bow. She nearly froze halfway, surprised by how natural it felt. Her body stiffened.

“Such formalities are only for the eyes of your people, young one. Please relax.”

Since she heard nothing behind her, Silver guessed that comment must have been directed exclusively into her own mind. Hurriedly, she straightened, wondering self-consciously why she had to make a fool of herself at every opportunity, particularly when as large a number of spectators were watching as possible. “Please place your hand on my forehead as the others have done. There will be no pain. This I can promise you.”

Feeling some of her nerves fade now that she was in the process of actually doing something, Silver raised her hand and hesitantly placed it on the creature’s skull. She was not sure exactly what she had anticipated. Silence, perhaps. The same calm as she had witnessed from the outside. Certainly, she had not been expecting the sudden surge of an alien consciousness that leapt into her mind, a third presence that suddenly overflowed and overshadowed even Elorian and Seijelar. She felt her magic boiling through her veins in response, and then, suddenly, her mind filled with images.

“We’ll see it together. All of it,” Relsrir promised.

Silver stood somewhere in the nightwings’ caverns, talking to Zien. It was about the dragons; she remembered that much. Then the image was gone as she felt the third presence in her mind again. For an instant, she saw the Zara’s flames eating through her home. She stood in the entryway again, but Relsrir pulled her away from that memory so quickly, Silver barely had time to register it. She was at home, standing in the kitchen. The television was turned on and she was turning to look towards it, seeing the news skimming past on the screen, muted. Her mom was calling for Ren and Lena. The image flashed away, replaced by another, older image. Home again. She was standing outside, enjoying one of those rare sunny days, staring up at the leafy canopy of a maple tree and watching a tiny chickadee flit from branch to branch. It stopped to look at her, and she whispered something. The image leapt away, replaced by a classroom. Math problems were scribbled across the board in not-so-erasable marker. The boy behind her kept kicking her seat and she wanted to turn around and whack him a good one. Before she could, his desk tipped over backward. Then she turned her head and found that Kerie was sitting across from her, starting to stand with an angry glint in her dark eyes. They stared at each other in surprise.

The image vanished. They were standing on the shore, looking out over a broad lake so still it reflected everything. The sky. The trees on its other side. All tinted black. Silver turned, seeing a much younger Ren trying to skip rocks in the surface of the lake several feet away. She laughed – high, childish laughter – when he threw a large rock and it plunked into the water only a couple of feet from him. He laughed, too, wiping a hand across his forehead to get his curly brown hair out of his eyes. The image vanished, and the warmth with it.

“Where was that?” She felt the question, almost forming words in her mind. Relsrir seemed to hear, but did not answer.

They were spinning through memories now, picking up speed, slipping through everything like ghosts. And then she stood alone in the night, suddenly very afraid. There was a coldness seeping into her bones. The chill of the night. Fear.

The Zara.

Silver recognized the sense immediately. It was not so long ago that she had felt that cold, malicious killing intent directed at her. It sent chills up and down her spine. Her body was numb. She could not move.

She dared not move.

There was only blackness on every side. No full moon. No sound. The very breath had been sucked out of the world. Silver took a deep breath of her own, feeling the freezing air bite at her throat all the way down.

On every side were trees; tall, grasping things that tore at the skies to no avail. They were never ending. There were only ashen trunks that sunk into the blackness overhead. Her breath misted in front of her.

Where? Where is this?

There was noise to her right, crunching leaves and sticks and dead things. Bone breaking. How did she know the sound of bone breaking? But she did. She knew it well. And the sound of blood hitting the leaf litter. Warm, wet, the scent of rust and heat hit her nose as if the blood were right there in front of her, despite the fact that she could not see anything…maybe because she could not see anything. Silver felt something hard in her right hand, and started to look down, but then the image was gone.

No!

She felt Relsrir fighting her.

Cold. It was cold again. They were jumping quickly. Images flashed past too fast for her to catch more than a glimpse, or to feel more than a moment of everything. Her mind was preoccupied, straining continually back to that lost image. But she was home now. Family, friends, one place after another in quick succession. Their most recent training, little things she had thought she had forgotten. Then she was in the woods with the tree wolves, her mind bent on saving Biarn. He was dying. He had died. But this was the past.

She had brought him back.

Stop!

She shouted mentally, unable to move her body, trapped in the space between memories. She could feel Relsrir trying to speak to her, but there was a wall between them.

Fire. Heat burned against her skin, and all around her were flames. The images were changing. No longer was this only the past. Like the past, yes. At first it was true to form. She was home. The wolf was there. She wanted to run back and somehow help those sleeping upstairs. The blood was pounding in her ears. And then the wolf was gone. She was caught up in the nightmare, not the reality. Running up the stairs from the magical fire, throwing open the door to the room her parents had once shared, seeing the mirror…but it did not reflect the flames. Only her.

Only her, but a girl, nonetheless, that she did not know.

Her eyes flew open as Relsrir jerked away, throwing her off balance. Silver could see the pale blue glow of magic in the beast’s eyes, and she felt cold sweat on her skin. How long had it been? She felt the blood pounding through her veins, and as her consciousness leapt back to the present, she could feel the searing magic moving with it. Dizziness swept through her and she staggered, trying to catch her balance again. She did so only with a great deal of effort, breathing heavily as she pressed the magic back into place, struggling to repress whatever spell she had been on the brink of casting.

Anything to get away from those memories.

Anything.

Pressing her eyes closed, she willed the world to stop spinning. It was a long moment before she opened them again. Everything felt fuzzy. Her mind kept jumping back to the dark forest and the flames of a now imaginary fire.

“You have died twice?” Relsrir’s voice cut through her thoughts like a hot knife.

“No,” she answered aloud.

“Once recently…” Relsrir said more softly, “There are barriers within your mind.”

“No. What are you talking about?” Silver asked, slowly realizing that she was the only one speaking out loud, and that she sounded angry and frustrated.

“They are not of a kind I can circumvent. What magic is this, human? What have you done?”

“You’re asking me?” Silver asked in frustration, “What did you do?”

Relsrir blinked for the first time.

“I have never met a human whose future I could not see at all.” Silver remained silent for a moment, willing her chest to stop heaving. Then the irony began to sink in, and she felt just the slightest touch of a bitter smile on her face.

“Typical.”

“How so?” Relsrir asked softly.

Silver chuckled at the obvious innocence in the question, realizing that she was suddenly so tired that she had been thinking in terms of modern times, and modern television and plot twists. How strange to suddenly miss such normalcy.

“Nothing, nothing,” she said, smiling rather shakily. “If you’re finished, Relsrir srinn.” She bowed again, this time feeling the naturalness of something that she had done a thousand times before, and knowing, when she looked up into the beast’s eyes, that she saw reflected there the same unease that she suddenly felt. The unease of Déjà vu. She had done something like this before. She had seen those same eyes before her, reflecting back a future that she sensed would only bring her more nightmares.

Silver turned back to her party, and almost stopped where she stood. She was too tired for the questions she saw in their eyes. Too tired for any of it. She wanted to be alone, far from Relsrir, far from the tree wolves. She wanted so many things, all of them completely unattainable, more than she wanted to walk back into the mess she saw brewing. Tears blurred her vision as the magic finally began to recede from her hands, her arms, her body.

The wolf could never know how much it meant when their eyes met, and with its gaze the beast said, “Only step forward, human. Only step, one foot after the other.”

In silence, she returned to them, trying not to feel Sori’s touch on her back, or hear the hissed whispers of everyone around her. The world wobbled and spun. There were too many eyes on Silver, and she nearly cried with relief when she finally felt them shifting away, returning to the mur and what Relsrir had to say.

“After looking into the hearts of these three, I have determined that they’re worthy of our following. The mur will stand behind them, as the dragons do. They have our trust.”

Silver smiled ironically. Of course they did.

Of course.

There was a hush amidst those gathered now, the hush that came after a momentous decision had been reached. It only lasted a moment. Then there was movement everywhere, as beasts stood atop the cliffs and launched skyward, or convened with the mur, doubtless to ask questions. Cevora exclaimed something to Illian, sounding pleased. Silver ignored it all. She felt awful.

“What was that?” Sori was asking her, “Are you listening, Silver? Did they do something?”

The world was still spinning, the edges alarmingly gray. When she least expected it, she saw flickers of the memories Relsrir had dredged up. Pictures flashed, strikingly clear, through her mind. The woods. The trees. The Zara.

“Hey.” She blinked, pulling back when she realized Bek was directly in front of her, meeting her gaze. That was a mistake. If his hands had not been on either side of her face, and Seijelar had not pressed up behind her in that moment, Silver would have fallen. The world tilted dangerously as it was.

“As I said, she didn’t see at all,” Ren was peering over Bek’s shoulder. She could barely make out his expression in the dark.

“You two seem fine,” Sori’s voice was still behind her.

“This is not my first time meeting the mur,” Cevora said from somewhere that felt far away. Everything was getting farther away again.

“Nope,” Bek said sharply, “Silver, focus for a minute here.”

“What happened?” That was Illian’s voice. She could feel herself slipping. It was such a strange sensation. Powerless against the pull of unconsciousness, she struggled so hard to stay awake. But she failed anyway. This fight was not one she could win.

Again, the darkness. Trees all around her, the cold presence of the Zara, and yet…the fear was gone. There was a familiar, cold shiver of dread traveling slowly down her spine, but it hardly bothered her – there were more pressing matters at hand. She could smell the hot, metallic scent of blood mingled with the freezing air of the night. Something was moving closer to her, but only very slowly; it was taking its time. Whatever it was, it demanded all of her attention. There was none left for fear. That hot, blood scent was growing closer as well.

Silver sharpened her ears, feeling the familiar flow of magic within her flesh. Yes. She heard the crunch of massive paws through the underbrush. Surely the thing approaching her knew that she heard it coming. Otherwise, it would have hurried. She knew that.

Still, no matter how she turned her head one way and another, straining her inferior eyes through the darkness, she could see nothing. The stark trees, branches gnarled and twisted by the blackness of the night, entwined thickly overhead. So thickly in fact that she could barely see the blacker canopy of the night sky above her. Her numb fingers tightened around something hard and cold, clutched tightly in the palm of her right hand. After a moment, she felt her head turning, looking down.

A weapon.

And the thin, pale fingers of a child, wrapped around the impossibly thick and heavy hilt of a sword that pulsed with a magic of its own. She should have known that sword. Silver was certain of it. Like the wolf, it was an old friend.

But the tread of the great beast was almost upon her. All around, the chill air pressed in, frighteningly close, suffocating.

“Silver?” Someone touched her head lightly and her eyes snapped open. She stared up at the shadowy silhouette looming over her as he leaned back. It took her a long moment to recognize Bek, in part because she could still feel the chill from her dreams, clinging to her skin like a living thing. “Are you awake?”

“Seems like it,” she mumbled, peering around them questioningly, “where…?”

“The tree wolves’ cave,” he responded in hushed tones, “when you fainted, Illian determined that we should stay here till dawn. Everyone else is outside with the dragons. Seijelar is nearly beside herself…Elorian seemed to think you would be fine, and stayed with her instead.”

Silver blinked at him blearily. She was still shaking herself from the grips of her nightmare, and her mind was distracted by the search for shrouded details, her eyes foggy with the effort of wrenching herself between a waking conversation and a memory she did not wish to let slip away. Shades of it remained with her now, where the inky canopy of the trees was visible beyond the entrance to the den, where the stars twinkled deceptively above the Issurak, and where her hand rested against the cool hardness of the cave wall. Relsrir had shown her the way to an unfathomable memory, and she was unwilling to let it go.

“Are you going to tell me what happened? To the rest of us, it just looked like you suddenly freaked out and started demanding to know what the mur did to you. What did she show you?” Bek asked calmly.

“It wasn’t just what she showed me,” Silver said with effort.

“Then what was it?”

“It was nothing important, just the whole—,” Silver heard herself mumble.

“Nothing important?” The tone in his voice drew her eyes to his expression. There was a hint of concern there, even if his words did not show it. “Listen, Silver, I know we’re not exactly friends, but there’s something going on with you, and I can’t ignore it. Nothing about you or your magic adds up. Your reaction to whatever Relsrir showed you doesn’t add up, either. And there are a bunch of people outside right now wondering what’s wrong with you because they care about you. Do you get that?”

“I’m fine. They shouldn’t be worrying about me,” she muttered.

“Seriously?” he asked, the word dripping sarcasm, “You think saying that is enough? Did you live some sort of promiscuous double life before this and you’re afraid someone’s going to find out? What exactly are you hiding?”

“Come on, Bek. I can’t believe you just said that. Promiscuous? That’s, like, a sixty-point word in Scrabble.”

“I’d hate to say it, Silver, but that is the least unbelievable thing I said just now. There is zero possibility that you could live a double life without anyone finding out.” He said this so seriously it almost stung.

“She said I had died, Bek,” Silver finally admitted. “Recently. She demanded to know what I had done to myself, putting up barriers in my mind.”

“Barriers?” he asked sharply.

“Yes, Bek, barriers. She said she couldn’t circumvent them. Is that something the MASO deals with as well? What does it mean?”

He was silent for a long time. Too long.

“I don’t know,” he finally said slowly, “Dead is dead; no magic can change that. And barriers…” He scratched thoughtfully at his throat. “The types of magic that manipulate memories are strictly banned except in exceptional circumstances. That’s the only thing I can think of that could have the effect you’re talking about.”

“The Zara are dead but alive,” she said. He was already shaking his head, so she decided to switch directions. “So you’re saying someone messed with my memories?”

“Someone falsified your entire family history. Does it really surprise you? Maybe they did it with your permission. You would have no way of knowing. I suspect your parents would know,” Bek said reasonably.

Silver wanted to argue with him, insisting that her parents did not know anything about magic, but she could not quite bring herself to do it. So she narrowed her eyes instead, starting to sit up and thinking better of it when a wave of dizziness forced her back down.

“You’re still feeling ill?” Bek asked, frowning when she shook her head. “You’re incredibly stubborn. Did you know that?”

“I may have been told as much before,” Silver responded tartly. They glared at each other.

“Do you know why some magics are banned, Silver?”

“I left the MASO before we got to that part of my training.”

“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten,” he said dryly, “Unpredictable risk, Silver. Ethical concerns. Sometimes both. Magic that manipulates memories is obviously an ethical concern, but it also carries tremendous risk. Even in cases where removing memories would have extraordinary psychological benefits to a patient, there remains the possibility that the removal will cause personality changes, lapses in memories that should have remained, or permanent damage to the regions of the brain responsible for forming long or short-term memories. Sometimes, the damage is unexpectedly severe. People have died of shock after their memories were forcibly removed or overwritten, even when it was done willingly.”

He fixed her with a sharp stare.

“The last time someone’s memories were actually removed was some time in the early nineteen-hundreds. Most likely, yours were sealed instead. Isolated. Nudged just out of your reach. I suspect they’re memories of a specific event. What you’re missing is probably less than you would imagine, but the sealing might have affected other memories as well. That might be why you don’t remember much about your first house, for example.”

“Great,” Silver muttered.

“Hold still for a minute,” Bek said with a sigh. Then he was leaning in close. She shrank back against the cave wall, startled. He was too close, too fast. He shifted his weight against her, and she froze, her heart pounding in her ears. She felt his breath against her neck, his hair touching the side of her face. Her skin tickled with the contact, but she dared not flinch away. Her entire body was paralyzed, her breathing stilled. There was a space that was hers, where no one trespassed. There was a void that was hers, empty since her family had vanished and the world had closed in on her, cold and unrelenting. Bek had moved into it, so close that she did not know what to do.

But that did not mean her mind was not working. In the wan light of the cave, his hair was pale, longer after weeks without scissors or comb. His scent was familiar, earth and magic and the sulfurous whiff of dragon-smoke. His grip was firm, his hands cold. She felt the blood rush to her face.

“What are you doing, you idiot? Get off,” she growled.

“Just a minute. I’m not as skilled at sensing the flow of someone’s magic as Illian is.”

Silver remained still, trying to calm her heart and breathing as he remained where he was, chin rested against her shoulder now that she had calmed down. Abruptly, he pulled back, straightening onto his knees in front of her, all business. She hoped he could not see her blushing.

“There is something,” he said thoughtfully, “Ryan would know better. There are times I really miss having the MASO’s resources at our disposal.”

Illian appeared at the mouth of the cave then, effectively ending their conversation.

“She’s awake,” Illian observed, glancing between them, but asking no questions.

“Time?” Bek asked. Illian nodded once, curtly, as Silver pushed herself up. Thankfully, the dizziness was receding, and she was able to force herself through it long enough to duck out of the cave and be immediately accosted by her dragon. She stroked Seijelar’s neck while the dragon rumbled grumpily, and apologized to everyone else with a sheepish smile. As Bek had promised, they seemed genuinely worried about her. Only Cevora stood back, shaking her head with an expression halfway to disgust. Silver did not get the chance to ask what was wrong with her. Within moments, Sheurai and Yanrian were seeing them off at the rift that marked the entrance to the pack’s territory.

Silver stared up at the bone-white cliff walls one final time, glimpsing the pale silhouette of the mur deer far overhead. The beast’s dark eyes were barely visible in the gleam of the early dawn, but she felt them as they took the narrow path through the crevasse and bid their farewells to the tree wolves.