*Kieran*
The first offerings showed up at the bone tree a week later.
We found them on a morning patrol—me, Rafe, and Edda jogging along the ridge, breath steaming in the crisp air.
Edda saw it first.
“Whoa,” she said, stopping so abruptly I nearly ran into her. “Check it.”
We approached the tree—not from the road, but from the back, through the forest, where our scent was thick and familiar.
At the base of the trunk, near the roots, someone had left a small pile of objects.
A glass jar with a candle inside, wax puddled from a recent burn.
Three smooth stones, stacked.
A strip of blue ribbon tied around a low branch.
And a note.
Sage crouched, careful not to disturb anything, and plucked the note from where it was wedged under a rock.
“It begins,” Rafe murmured.
Sage unfolded the paper.
Handwriting, messy and earnest.
She read aloud.
“‘To whoever put this here…my grandma used to tell me stories about the wolves that watched over this valley. I don’t know if you’re real, but if you are, please keep my little brother safe when he hikes up here with his idiot friends. Also, please don’t eat my dog. Love, Jess.’”
Silence.
Edda sniffed.
“Aw,” she said. “That’s…kind of cute.”
“It’s also…dangerous,” Rafe said. “Humans talking to us. Like we’re…listening.”
“We are,” Sage said quietly.
We all looked at her.
She shrugged, eyes still on the note. “We’re standing here, aren’t we? We’re…reading.”
Mara’s words echoed in my head: *Give them somewhere to put their fear. And maybe, if we’re very lucky, their hope.*
“Do we…answer?” Edda asked. “Leave something?”
“No,” Rafe said quickly.
“Yes,” Sage said at the same time.
They glared at each other.
“This is exactly what we *don’t* want,” Rafe said. “Humans thinking there’s some…entity here that responds. That’s how cults start. That’s how sacrifices happen.”
“Rafe’s not wrong,” I said.
“Thank you,” he muttered.
“But,” I added, “neither is she.”
Sage looked up. “They’re already talking,” she said. “Praying, in their way. It’s not about whether we listen—it’s about what they think they hear back.”
“What does that mean?” Edda asked.
“If nothing changes, if no one ever…answers, they’ll fill in the silence with their own stories,” Sage said. “Some will be harmless. Some…won’t. Rumors grow in gaps.”
“So we…give them something small,” I said slowly. “Something…unremarkable. Ambiguous. Enough to make them wonder without making them *sure.*”
“Exactly,” she said. “A nudge. Not a neon sign.”
Rafe made a face. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Doc.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s already being played. I’m just…trying to load the dice a little.”
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
She tapped the note.
“They asked us to keep someone safe,” she said. “We’re already…doing that, in a way. We can’t guarantee individual protection, but we can…keep an eye on the trails. Maybe…leave something here that says ‘we heard you, now hear us: be careful.’”
“What would that even look like?” Edda asked. “A smiley face in the snow?”
“A rearranged stone stack,” Sage mused. “A new feather. Something that could be chalked up to wind or gravity or…humans. Enough to give them a story without giving them certainty.”
“You like your gray areas,” Rafe said.
“It’s where life actually happens,” she shot back.
I considered.
We were already halfway into madness.
What was one more step.
“Fine,” I said. “Edda. Bring a feather from the dens. Not a raven. Something…non-ominous.”
“Goose?” she suggested.
“Sure,” Sage said. “Goose is fine.”
“I’ll also…” Sage hesitated. “Write back. A little.”
Rafe nearly choked. “Absolutely not.”
“Not a full letter,” she said quickly. “Not ‘Dear Jess, the wolves say hi.’ Just…a word. Something…cryptic.”
“Humans love cryptic,” Edda said.
Rafe groaned.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” he told her.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“What word?” I asked Sage.
She thought for a moment.
Then she smiled, small and sharp.
“Respect,” she said.
***
When Jess came back three days later—a girl of maybe sixteen, with a purple beanie and a nose ring and a nervous laugh—we were there.
Not physically.
Not in skin or fur.
But close enough to see.
Close enough to smell.
“She brought friends,” Edda whispered from where we crouched behind a screen of scrub, hidden from the trailside.
“I told you,” Sage murmured. “Things like this are magnets.”
Four kids trudged up the path—Jess and three boys, all in varying states of teenage bravado.
One elbowed another. “Dude, this is so Blair Witch.”
“Shut up, Caleb,” Jess said. “Don’t ruin it.”
“You sure this is a good idea?” the third boy—awkward, lanky, wearing a hoodie with a wolf logo—asked. “My mom’s gonna flip if she finds out we came up here.”
“She’s not gonna find out,” Jess said. “Unless you post it.”
They emerged into the small clearing we’d half-carved out around the bone tree.
They stopped.
“Whoa,” hoodie boy breathed. “Okay, that’s…creepy.”
Caleb whistled low. “Nice. Very metal.”
Jess just stared.
Her eyes went straight to the base of the tree.
To the place where her previous offering had been.
The candle jar was still there.
The stones.
The ribbon.
And the note.
Now folded.
A new rock on top.
Her gaze snapped to the trunk.
To the new feather we’d tied just above her note.
Gray and white.
Goose.
“Sage,” Kieran had said, voice low. “Are you *sure*?”
“No,” she’d said. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
Now, Jess crouched.
Lifted the rock.
Unfolded the paper, fingers trembling.
We couldn’t see her face clearly from this angle.
But I could smell the spike in her adrenaline.
She read.
Her shoulders loosened.
She laughed, breathless.
“What?” Caleb demanded. “What does it say?”
She held up the note.
From our vantage, I could see the word Sage had written at the bottom, in different ink.
THEY WERE HERE BEFORE US. THEY’LL BE HERE AFTER. RESPECT THE WILD.
Jess traced the last word with her thumb.
“Respect,” she murmured.
The hoodie boy shivered. “Okay, that’s…actually kind of cool.”
“Someone’s fucking with us,” Caleb said. “Probably that weird biologist chick. What’s her name? Sage Something.”
Sage winced.
“Better me than some anonymous Reddit troll,” she whispered.
Jess looked around, eyes scanning the trees.
For a heartbeat, they passed right over our hiding place.
Her gaze snagged.
My breath caught.
But her eyes moved on.
“We don’t…litter,” she said firmly. “We don’t…mess with stuff. We leave things nicer than we found them. Deal?”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”
Hoodie boy nodded seriously. “Deal.”
The third boy muttered grudging assent.
Jess pulled something from her pocket—a small, worn bracelet.
She hesitated.
Then she tied it carefully around a low branch.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For…watching. Or whatever you’re doing.”
Then she stood.
“Okay,” she said, voice too bright. “Selfies then hot chocolate?”
Caleb whooped.
All four of them posed in front of the tree, phones out, tongues stuck out, metal horns flashed.
Edda snorted. “Humans are so weird.”
“You think this was a bad idea,” Rafe murmured to Sage.
“I think it was a necessary one,” she whispered back.
My wolf watched the kids.
Their clumsy, earnest fear. Their fascination. Their ignorance.
Their trust.
Something old and protective stirred.
“We’ll keep an eye on this trail,” I said. “On them. On others.”
“See?” Sage murmured. “You’re doing it already.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Being the thing they’re talking to,” she said. “Without being…God.”
I grunted.
“We still can’t save everyone,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “But we can…try. Where we can.”
Jess and her friends tromped back down the path, laughter echoing.
After they’d gone, we stepped into the clearing.
Edda plucked the note from the ground.
Her eyes flicked over the added word.
“Respect,” she read. “Simple.”
“Loaded,” Sage said.
“Dangerous,” Rafe added.
But none of us moved to take it away.
Some lines, once written, couldn’t be erased.
***
Cassian came to the bone tree at dusk.
We were expecting him.
The northern wind had been thick with Northridge all day, a musky, electric tang that made my skin itch.
We’d warned the pack: stay in, stay ready, watch the borders.
We’d debated bringing Sage.
Debated and fought and circled.
In the end, she decided for us.
“If he’s coming to *this*,” she’d said, chin up, eyes fierce, “he’s coming for *me* too. I’m not hiding under a bed while he pisses on my work.”
“You’re not your posters,” I’d said.
“You’re right,” she’d said. “I’m more. That’s why I’m going.”
I’d wanted to forbid it.
Alpha voice. Pack law.
Instead, I’d made rules.
Close. Behind me. Don’t lunge. Don’t look away.
Now, as the sun bled out behind the peaks and the sky turned bruised purple, we waited among the roots and bones.
Me.
Sage.
Rafe, Edda, Kellan in half-shadow under the branches.
Mara, farther back, where the old magic hummed strongest.
The air was still.
Too still.
Even the ravens were quiet.
Then—
A crunch of snow.
A whisper of breath.
He appeared out of the gloom like a bad memory.
Cassian.
Human.
For once.
He wore jeans, boots, and a dark coat open over a bare chest, like the cold meant nothing. His hair was wind-tossed, his blue eyes sharp and amused.
He looked at the bone tree.
He grinned.
“Nice work,” he drawled. “Didn’t know you had an eye for decor, Kieran.”
I stepped forward.
“Cassian,” I said.
“Alpha,” he said, nodding. “Or is it…curator now?”
“This is not yours,” I said.
“Everything in this valley is mine,” he said. “Eventually.”
His gaze slid past me.
Found her.
Sage stiffened.
I felt it like a change in the wind.
“Ah,” he said, delight brightening his eyes. “The woman of the hour. Dr. Sage Holloway. Come to admire your handiwork?”
“This is a pack endeavor,” she said, voice steady. “Not mine alone.”
“And yet,” he said, “I smell you all over it. Human ink. Human cloth.” He flicked a finger toward her green scarf on the branch. “Human fear.”
“Fear is human,” she countered. “Doesn’t mean it has to rule us.”
He laughed.
“You really are something,” he said. “I see why he—”
“Cassian,” I warned.
He held up his hands. “Relax, good dog. I’m just here to…appreciate the artistry.”
He circled the tree, fingers trailing lightly over dangling bones.
“You know, when word of this reached us,” he said, “some of my pups thought you’d finally grown a spine. That you were calling humans to our altar to show them what we are.” He yanked a rib, making it clack. “Imagine their disappointment when they realized you were just…playing nice. Leaving notes. Asking for…respect.”
The word dripped from his tongue like poison.
“It’s working,” Sage said. “Humans are talking. Not about killing you. About…sharing space.”
“Sharing,” he spat. “You keep using that word like it’s a virtue.”
“It is,” she said.
He swung back to face us.
“You dropped your leash,” he said. “Bad idea.”
Iam not leashed,” I said.
“You are now,” he said. “To her. To them. To their fragile little rules.”
He nodded toward the tree.
“To their candles and crystals and bracelets. You think you’re controlling the story? You’re not. You’ve just given them a prettier mask to put on us while they sharpen their knives.”
“They’re not all like Kurt,” Sage said quietly.
“Maybe not,” Cassian said. “But enough are. And when things go bad—and they *will*—all your pretty posters won’t save you.”
“No,” Sage said. “But they might slow them down. Give some people pause. Buy us time.”
“Time for what?” he scoffed. “For you to keep pretending you’re not monsters? For you to…fuck in cabins and call it diplomacy?”
Heat flared in my face.
Sage’s jaw clenched.
Rafe growled low.
“Careful,” I said.
He stepped closer.
Into my space.
Into hers.
“You can’t have it both ways,” he said softly. “You can’t be wolf and man and expect them to accept you. Sooner or later, you’ll have to choose. And when you do, you’ll find you’ve already lost.”
“I’m not choosing between them,” I said. “I’m choosing *us.* Our way. Our balance.”
“Balance,” he sneered. “Between a boot and a throat.”
“Between a cliff and a river,” Sage said.
He looked at her.
Really looked.
Silence vibrated.
“What are you doing?” he asked her abruptly. “Here. With him. With *us.*”
Her chin lifted.
“Trying,” she said. “To stop a war.”
He laughed.
“Alone?” he asked.
“Never alone,” she said.
She stepped closer.
Not to him.
To me.
Our arms brushed.
His gaze dropped to that point of contact.
“Cute,” he said. “You think love makes you strong. It doesn’t. It makes you…soft. Slow. Weak.”
“Funny,” Mara said from the shadows. “That’s not what your mother said when she died for you.”
The temperature in the clearing dropped ten degrees.
Cassian’s head snapped toward her.
“Mara,” he said. “Still alive. Against all odds.”
“I’m hard to kill,” she said.
He smiled without humor. “I could fix that.”
“You could try,” she said. “You’d fail.”
I stepped half in front of her, instinctive.
She snorted. “I don’t need your shield, boy.”
“I still give it,” I said.
Cassian watched us all.
Eyes bright.
Calculating.
“You’re playing house up here,” he said. “Building shrines. Making *friends.* Meanwhile, the world changes. Humans spread. Roads cut deeper. Guns get bigger. You think your…bridge,” he flicked a glance at Sage, “will hold that tide? It won’t. It’ll crack. And when it does, we’ll be waiting under it with open jaws.”
“You talk like you’re not part of this world,” Sage said. “Like you’re…outside it. Above it. You’re not. You’re as tied to these mountains as we are. As they are. You can’t burn it down without trapping yourself in the fire.”
“Then maybe we burn anyway,” he said. “Better to die with blood in our mouths than live on our knees.”
“Those aren’t the only options,” she said.
“To small minds, maybe,” he said. “Mine’s…bigger.”
“You’re still a child,” Mara said. “Throwing stones at the sky and calling it rebellion.”
“Coming from the woman who hid in caves while the world turned?” he snapped.
“We watched,” she said. “We learned. We adapted. You…gnash.”
His nostrils flared.
He looked at me.
“You know what’s funny?” he said. “For all your talk of ‘balance’ and ‘respect,’ you’ve already taken the first step toward me.”
I frowned. “What.”
“You hung a tree,” he said. “You took bones and cloth and fear and turned them into a place of power. You think that’s a human thing? It’s not. It’s ours. Old. You’re waking something we buried for a reason.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed. “What are you babbling about, pup?”
“Ask him,” Cassian said, jerking his chin at me. “Ask your precious Alpha about the last time a tree like this stood on this ridge.”
My heart stuttered.
Images flashed—half-remembered, bone-deep.
A younger me.
My father.
Blood on roots.
“Shut up,” I said.
Sage’s gaze snapped to me.
“Kieran,” she said slowly. “What is he talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“It’s not nothing,” Cassian said. “Tell her. Tell your little human bridge about the price of magic. How old oaths were written in blood. How the last bone tree in this valley saw more than offerings.”
“Stop,” I snarled.
He smiled.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “You’re not honest with her. You keep your hands clean. You tell pretty stories. You don’t show her the rot.”
“I’ve seen plenty of rot,” Sage snapped. “Including in you. You’re not special just because you’re willing to burn everything down.”
He took a step toward her.
Rafe and Kellan moved, flanking.
Edda’s shoulders hunched, fingers twitching.
The air prickled.
Old power.
Old fear.
“Careful, little human,” Cassian said softly. “You’re standing closer to the edge than you know.”
“That’s where the view is,” she said.
He smiled.
And then, so fast I barely saw it, he moved.
Not at me.
At Sage.
He lunged.
Not fully shifted.
Half.
Bones cracking under his skin, jaw elongating, fingers curling into claws, teeth lengthening in a grotesque echo of the change.
He hit her.
Hard.
She went down, knocked backward into the snow, breath leaving her in a shocked *oof*.
I roared.
Fur ripped under my skin.
My shift slammed into me like a train.
Pain.
Heat.
Rage.
I was halfway there when Mara’s power hit the clearing like a thunderclap.
“ENOUGH,” she snapped.
It wasn’t a shout.
It was a word wrapped in something older.
Magic crackled in the air.
Cassian froze.
Mid-lunge.
Mid-shift.
He hung there, teeth bared, claws inches from Sage’s throat, muscles trembling with the effort to move.
Her eyes were huge, glued to his mouth.
Blood trickled from a cut on her cheek where his nail had sliced her.
Rafe and Kellan were snarling, half-shifted, teeth bared.
I was in between shapes, skin crawling, eyes burning, chest heaving.
Mara stood with one hand outstretched, fingers splayed, wrist trembling.
Energy hummed from her like heat.
“Do not,” she said through her teeth, “make me choose between you two children on this snow.”
Cassian’s jaw flexed.
His eyes burned.
But he couldn’t move.
Sage lay very still.
Her pulse pounded, loud as a drum.
Slowly, very slowly, Mara lowered her hand.
The magic in the air thinned.
Cassian inhaled sharply.
Straightened.
Bones slid and popped as he forced the shift down.
Claws retracted.
His face smoothed back to human.
He looked at his hand.
At the smear of her blood on his fingers.
He smiled.
“See?” he said softly. “You bleed for them now.”
I moved without thinking.
One second I was halfway in fur.
The next I was in his face.
Human.
Bare-chested under my coat.
Fists clenched.
“I warned you,” I said, voice low and lethal. “Touch her again and I will end you.”
He tilted his head.
“You can try,” he murmured.
Mara stepped between us, hands out.
“Not here,” she said. “Not like this. You tear each other apart on this hill, and the valley goes with you.”
He held my gaze.
For a heartbeat, for an eternity, something like grief flickered in his eyes.
Then it was gone.
“Consider this my…offer,” he said. “Last chance. Before the storm truly hits. Give her to me. Let me use her. Or I’ll take her. And everything else you think is yours.”
“No,” Sage said hoarsely.
He glanced down.
She was sitting up now, one hand pressed to her cheek, blood smeared across her glove.
Her eyes were steady.
“I’m not a bargaining chip,” she said. “Or a tool. Or a…weapon. I’m a person. If you want something from me, you ask. Nicely. And you live with the answer.”
He laughed.
“You think you have a choice?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
He looked between us.
Me.
Her.
Mara.
My pack.
The tree.
The scarf.
The bones.
“Then choose,” he said. “Soon. Before the deciding is taken from you.”
He turned.
Walked away.
Didn’t shift.
Didn’t look back.
The forest swallowed him.
Silence crashed down.
My heart hammered.
I turned to Sage.
Blood stood out stark on her pale cheek.
Rage burned through me, hot enough to choke.
“Are you—” I began.
“Don’t ask if I’m okay,” she snapped, voice shaking. “He just tried to *claw my face off.* I’m not okay.”
“You’re alive,” Mara said, crossing quickly to her, sinking to her knees. She cupped Sage’s chin, tilting her face toward the fading light. “Hold still.”
“It’s shallow,” she murmured. “Messy, but shallow. Scarring possible. We’ll see.”
“Great,” Sage muttered. “Battle scars. Very on-theme.”
Her hands shook.
I knelt beside her.
“Hey,” I said softly.
She looked at me.
Her eyes were wet.
Anger.
Fear.
Something else.
“I told you not to ask if I’m okay,” she said again, but there was less bite in it.
“I wasn’t going to,” I said. “I was going to say…you were brave.”
She snorted. “I was stupid.”
“You stood your ground,” I said. “You didn’t flinch. You talked back to a half-shifted Alpha with his claws in your skin. That’s…more than most of us can say.”
“I *flinched,*” she said. “Internally. My soul tried to climb out of my body.”
“That’s allowed,” I said. “As long as it comes back.”
Her mouth twitched.
“Is this what prophecy looks like?” she asked. “Me with a slightly fucked-up cheek and a head full of bad decisions?”
“Prophecy can go fuck itself,” I said.
She startled.
Then she laughed.
A shaky, half-hysterical sound that still managed to ease something in my chest.
“I’m holding you to that,” she said.
Mara pressed a cloth, soaked in something sharp-smelling, to her wound.
Sage hissed.
“Stings,” she muttered.
“Good,” Mara said. “Means you’re alive.”
Rafe and Edda hovered at the edge of the clearing, watching, teeth bared, eyes too bright.
Kellan stood like a statue, fists clenched, jaw tight.
None of them had moved when Cassian lunged.
Because if they had, blood would have flowed.
Mara’s power had been the only thing standing between us and open war.
The bone tree loomed above us, skulls staring, scarf fluttering.
It had witnessed more tonight than I’d planned.
As Sage winced under Mara’s touch, I reached out.
Took her hand.
Held on.
She squeezed back.
Hard.
“What now?” she asked, voice low.
“Now,” I said, “we hang more bones.”
She stared at me.
“What?” she asked.
“We double down,” I said. “We don’t let him scare us off this ground. He wants us to flinch. To back away. We stand. We build. We sing. We *live.*”
She exhaled.
“You’re insane,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “So are you.”
Her fingers tightened.
“Good,” she whispered. “We’ll need to be.”
***
That night, back in the cabin, with the smell of snow and sage and blood still clinging to my clothes, I cleaned her wound again.
Mara had smeared some sort of salve on it—green and sharp-smelling, tingling when it touched her skin.
Now, in the flicker of the fire, I dabbed gently at the edges with a warm cloth.
She hissed.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“It’s fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just…my nervous system reminding me I’m not invincible.”
“You were never—” I began.
“I know,” she said. “Sarcasm, Kieran.”
I huffed.
“Hold still,” I said instead.
Her hair fell around her face in a messy halo, shadows dancing over her features. The cut ran from the edge of her cheekbone toward her ear, shallow but angry-looking.
“You’ll have a scar,” I said quietly.
“Cool,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a villain origin story.”
“You’re not the villain,” I said.
“Depends who’s telling it,” she murmured.
I swallowed.
My fingers trembled.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
I did.
Her eyes were clear now.
Calmer.
“You’re shaking,” she said.
I snorted. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t pull that on me. Not after you lectured me about admitting shit.”
I sighed.
“I watched a man who hates me and everything I am put his claws in your skin,” I said. “I watched him draw your blood. I almost lost control and tore him apart on that hill. Mara stopped me. If she hadn’t, you’d be cleaning *my* wounds right now. If at all.”
She was quiet.
Then she reached up and cupped my face with her uninjured hand, thumb stroking my cheek.
“You didn’t lose control,” she said. “You got close. You pulled back. You were there. That matters.”
I leaned into her touch.
“Sometimes I think you’re the only thing tethering me,” I said.
“That’s a lot of pressure,” she said lightly. “Maybe spread the emotional load around a bit.”
“I don’t want to,” I said.
She blinked.
“Codependent much?” she teased.
“Yes,” I said.
Her breath hitched.
“Say it again,” she said.
“Yes,” I repeated, confused.
“No,” she said. “That you…don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to spread it around,” I said. “I want you.”
Silence.
The words hung there, raw.
She swallowed.
“Sage,” I said, heart pounding. “I—”
She shook her head.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Ice sliced through my chest.
“Don’t,” she repeated quickly. “Not now. Not…like this.”
I stared at her.
“You don’t—” I began.
“It’s not that I don’t,” she said. “It’s that I do. Too much. And if you say it now, in this cabin, after he—after *that*—I’m going to say it back, and then we’re going to fuck on this floor, and we’re not going to think about what happens when blood hits the snow tomorrow.”
Heat blazed under my skin.
“Is that…bad?” I asked, hoarse.
“Yes,” she said. “In this moment. Because I need my brain. You need yours. We have…shit to do. Wars to avert. Trees to hang more bones in. If we…go there now, we won’t come back out for a while.”
She wasn’t wrong.
The thought of her under me, around me, everything else burned away—
My hands clenched.
“You’re…right,” I forced out.
“Of course I am,” she said. “I’m brilliant.”
I barked a laugh.
“Later,” she said.
“Later?” I echoed.
“When the world isn’t on fire,” she said. “Or when it is, but we’ve at least…installed some fire alarms.”
“That’s not how fire works,” I muttered.
She smiled faintly.
Her thumb brushed my lower lip.
Heat punched low in my gut again.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” I said.
“I don’t,” she said. “If I say later, I mean it.”
“Then I’ll hold you to it,” I said.
“You better,” she said.
I finished cleaning her cheek.
Smeared fresh salve on it.
She winced.
“You sure this isn’t just…mint and spite?” she asked.
“Mara knows what she’s doing,” I said.
“Scary thought,” she muttered.
I leaned in.
Kissed the uninjured corner of her mouth.
Soft.
Quick.
She sighed.
“Tease,” she whispered.
“Later,” I reminded her.
She made a low, frustrated noise.
“If we survive this,” she said, “I’m going to climb you like that tree.”
My control frayed.
I stood abruptly.
Backed away.
“Sleep,” I said, voice rough.
“You’re the one running away,” she pointed out.
“I’m the one trying not to make Mara’s prophecy come true on the wrong kind of altar,” I said.
She laughed.
“Go,” she said. “Before I say ‘please’ and we both make bad decisions.”
“Noted,” I muttered.
I retreated to my side of the pallet.
Lay down.
Stared at the rafters.
Sleep, when it came, was thin.
Restless.
Full of bones swinging in trees and blue eyes burning in the dark.
And through it all, her voice, echoing:
*Later.*
***