Archive of Our Own ^beta

He remembered his mother's face. That alone made him stand out, in the tribe—that she'd been dead so long, the seasons had turned at least an eight, and his memory of his own birth remained sharp.

Sharp, like an arrowhead. Like a spear's point. Like the tips of his mother's teeth, her mouth open in harsh, dying breaths, as she laid him in the cold water.

**The stars are out. Can you see them? Look up! Do you see, Skywise...?**

He didn't remember her using his soul name. And now that she and his sire were both dead, there was no one who knew it. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like. Mostly, though, he felt safe. That core, that secret inner Fahr, it was his alone. Even the most powerful sending—even from Bearclaw the chief who was oldest among them, even from Strongbow—couldn't find him there. Fahr was piercing, ice-bright, cool silver, steadfast as the stars and just as distant.

He loved them, all of them—the tribe who'd suckled him, raised him, protected him. He'd learned his hunting from Strongbow, his wrestling from Treestump, his tracking from Redmark, his jokes from Pike. Rainsong fed him, Moonshade dressed him, Longbranch climbed with him, Rillfisher held him for his first sputtering swim (no, his second, after that fresh-born and bloody cubling floating in the water, squalling like a treewee fallen off its branch). Clearbrook set him romping with the wolf pups to learn their ways. One-Eye taught him the dark lessons he'd learned first-hand about the humans. Foxfur duelled him with knife and staff, Brownberry took him roving for the best plants and roots, and when they got back at break of day, he could sleep safe in any den. Woodlock would hold him warm, or Rain would pet his hair and hum him a rare song.

Lately, though, he found himself creeping all the time into the chief's furs, to nestle down with Bearclaw and Joyleaf. Bearclaw's temper flashed out hard, but he'd forget the next second that Skywise was the one who'd stuck beesweets in his beard, and he'd laugh and dangle him by one leg till he was laughing too. Joyleaf sat and listened to him, and asked questions, and by the end Skywise always felt like he had his own new and different answers.

It would be Joyleaf's time any night now. Everyone brought her choice bits of meat from their kills, warm fur, fresh water, clean leather, beeswax molded into a squat little candle. Everyone wanted a chance to poke their noses inside. A new cubling!

Skywise tucked his own gift into his waistband and clambered up to the biggest limb of the ancient tree, which held the finest den. He still had to work hard at it, stretching up on his toes or leaping awkwardly over gaps; sometimes it felt like his arms and legs would never grow.

He crawled inside as quietly as he could. But of course—

"Something smells good." Bearclaw seized him by the scruff and lifted him up, inspecting him with casual ownership. His eyes were so dark, ageless and wild.

Skywise tugged the wrapped leather bundle from his belt and opened it to show Bearclaw half-an-eight of fresh crayfish.

"Mud-legs!" Bearclaw said, flicking the tip of his tongue over one sharp tooth. "Big ones, and fresh!"

The furs shifted, and Joyleaf peered out. "And not for you, old badger."

Skywise wriggled from Bearclaw's hold and threw himself down beside Joyleaf. "Redmark and I hunted for them all night almost! First there were just the little ones, but when we went further upstream, we found these ones special."

She smiled at him, looking tired. The swell of her belly seemed enormous to him—bigger than any breeding wolf he'd ever seen. When she took one of the little creatures from him and crunched it down whole, Skywise's chest felt warm, like it was expanding.

"Here, thistledown cub," she said, and dangled one by a claw in front of Skywise's mouth. His stomach gurgled, but he stopped himself just in time.

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked, worried.

"I have some work to do in a bit," she said lightly. "I mustn't go into it sleepy-fed." She looked over his head at Bearclaw, and they were silent for a moment in the way of private sends.

Bearclaw brightened. Then he eyed the mud-leg. "I'll take it."

Joyleaf pointedly ignored him and said firmly to Skywise, "Open." He opened obediently and chewed the mud-leg down. It was cool and fresh and faintly salty.

"What about me?" Bearclaw said plaintively.

Her eyes glittered with wicked mirth. "Work for your share, o chief!"

She flung a mud-leg in a swift arc across the den, and Bearclaw dove to catch it in his mouth with a sharp snap. They all laughed, and Joyleaf fed the last one to Skywise without resistance. As he cracked and sucked on the last bit of claw-shell, feeling full and contented, a faint rustle and new scent revealed Rain at the entry.

Rain climbed in and knelt, as peaceful and fluid as always. "Well, then," he said.

Skywise blinked at him, then at Bearclaw, who was crawling into the furs behind Joyleaf, then at Joyleaf herself rising up to a crouch.

**It's time,** Joyleaf sent, and her emotion seemed to fill the room with color.

Skywise kept out of the way and watched Joyleaf work to bring forth her cub. Bearclaw held her and growled laughingly into her ear, and their lock-send was powerful enough to tingle at the edges of Skywise's mind like constant skyfire. Rain laid his gentle hands on her belly, or her straining legs; his calm scent never wavered. The den felt so full of the expectant eagerness of the whole tribe that it was like being underwater.

Almost exactly like being underwater, Skywise thought muzzily. It was almost as if he couldn't quite get enough air. His chest felt heavy, and something lightly itched at the back of his mind, like a tickling leaf caught in his collar.

The cubling slid out from his mother in one final push, and Joyleaf settled back against Bearclaw with a laugh like birdsong. Rain bent over the baby, cleared his mouth and nose, and scooped him up in cherishing hands to lay him on his mother's belly, minding the birth-cord at his middle.

The chief and chieftess murmured to each other; Rain still knelt by her watchfully. There seemed something still left for them to do, but Skywise paid no attention. He crept closer, fascinated by the newest Wolfrider. So small, his wet hair plastered down in a cap of golden flax. His eyes were closed like a wolf pup's, and Skywise had just decided that he'd have to wait as long as a wolf to see them finally open—when the cubling suddenly did open his eyes, a great rich blue like his mother's, or like the sky in deepest daytime when everyone was sleeping and the sun fed the grass.

That itch at the back of Skywise's mind, that touch, it flared up, new and small but intensely yellow-bright. He knew something. He knew something. He knew a sound, something fierce and burning and whole within itself. The way a live coal held the fire, and everything the fire could be, and could do, in one tiny white-hot gem.

He flinched backward instinctively, like he'd been bitten by a striking snake, so hard that his back struck the wall and knocked the last of the breath out of him. Something fell and clattered; the others were looking toward him and someone said something, but Skywise couldn't hear anymore. He wouldn't hear anymore. He clawed for the entrance and flung himself down the Father Tree, half climbing and half falling.

"Whoah!" Someone caught him, arms warm and strong. "Well? Did she like them?"

It was Redmark. As he set Skywise on his feet, smiling down at him, Skywise's knees wobbled.

"What is it, cub?" He knelt and held Skywise's shoulders. "Bearclaw didn't get his bristles up, did he? Sometimes breeding can take an old wolf that way."

Skywise shook his head. Then he made himself speak, even though his breath was still so tight, for fear Redmark would try sending to him. "Nuh-no. She, uh. She threw him a mud-leg. He laughed."

Redmark's eyes, so depthlessly open and sweet, softened into amusement. "Sounds like him. What—"

He broke off and lifted his head, just as the whole-tribe-send washed over both of them. There were no words, but a powerful image of the baby suckling contentedly in Joyleaf's arms, all flavored with the direct simplicity of Bearclaw's wolfish mind. Skywise heard quiet cheers, laughs, some excited chatter.

He could feel Redmark studying him, hands still on his shoulders. At last, Redmark said gently, "Now we have a new little one to look after, you and I."

Skywise nodded.

Redmark hugged him and rubbed the back of his head. Even then, Skywise managed to keep his tears swallowed down, but when he was finally hurrying away into the shadows toward the hill, Redmark sent:

**Daybreak before too long. Don't go far.**

The feeling of his mind, that warm acceptance as sheltering as the boughs of the Father Tree, broke Skywise's tears free over his lower lids and he ducked his head. He ran as fast as he could, for his hill, for his stars.

Mother, he thought, sitting in the damp grass with his arms round his knees, staring up.

The patterns of the sky ran in their courses overhead. The running wolf, the cowardly human hunter, the broken branch, the strung bow... everything wove its way round and round the sky wheel, ever alive. He'd tried now and then to explain this to someone else, but they'd never seen it. Not even Redmark's patience or Clearbrook's wisdom had helped them see.

The moons had set long ago. Early hints of dawnlight were creeping into the darkness now, muddying it, taking it away from him. The stars were fading against it as if they were sinking into a sticky gray web. The same way Eyes High was fading.

Before, the pack had sometimes howled for her, and for Shale, his poor doomed parents. Elders had told him the story. Usually Longbranch, with his howlkeeper's memory. Once or twice Rain, who'd also been there, though whenever he got to the moment when he'd lifted Shale's broken body into his arms, his voice failed him. Bearclaw never told the tale, but he listened most intently, growing freshly angry every time as if it were all new—even though he himself had led the group that had discovered the deaths and tracked the murdering humans, and with his own hands had scooped newborn Skywise alive from the water.

They didn't talk about it much anymore. The other Wolfriders seemed to be forgetting—especially Bearclaw, of course, who didn't burden himself with the least was or will-be when he could help it. Shale and Eyes High were fading together into that long and hazy mist where all dead Wolfriders eventually went, except for the line of chiefs. But Skywise couldn't help but remember a few things, still.

Whenever he heard the story, it brightened several of his strongest memories, and he clutched at them as tightly as he could. He'd been so close to birth then, and his parents had already touched minds with him in the way of Wolfriders; Eyes High herself had been in almost constant contact. So for a while, hearing about her from his tribe had brought her back to him, in sharp and accurate flashes—the feeling of her mind touching his, preparing him for his welcome into the world. The shape of her personality, layers of aloneness and belonging woven together. The tribe-name she gave him, which he could still hear in a double echo of her mind and voice if he tried hard.

Beneath all that, though, was something terrible—a realization, a great and tearing one, which had slowly unfolded like a tangled briar as he'd grown into language and understanding. It was a feeling of connection, from Eyes High to Shale, tying them like his own living birth-cord had tied Skywise to his mother. It was a feeling of falling, of striking ground and shattering, as had happened to Shale. And it was a feeling of this fear, and pain, and knowledge of doom, swelling and rushing through the connection from Shale back to Eyes High, so that his torment was abruptly hers.

She hadn't known it would be that way. And Skywise could still sense the echoes, not just of Eyes High suffering Shale's terror and agony, but of her own helpless shock that it could happen. That she was tethered to something so terrible. She, who had liked best in her life to be alone.

Her tribe had loved her and cherished her without question for who she was, this solitary walker of the tree-tops. But the bond hadn't cared who she was or what she needed. The bond had seized her, and caged her, and, in the end, tortured her.

Never, he thought to his mother. Never.

Almost unconsciously, as he gripped his knees and watched the stars blurring and shimmering through his wet eyes, he smothered the insistent little spark burning for attention in the back of his mind. It was bright, that flaxen-yellow flame, but it was new and it was small. And if you pressed down hard enough on a spark, it snuffed out.

They called the new baby Cutter, and he was the whole tribe's special charge. He had his own parents, unlike Skywise, but chief's cub was tribe's cub, and he belonged to the whole pack just as the pack belonged to the chief. Now Skywise could see his own upbringing from the other side, when he was bathing or dressing the wriggling little towhead, or helping him climb from branch to branch, or showing him the best way to skin a rabbit and leave the skin one clean, unmarked whole, ready for tanning the way Moonshade liked it.

Cutter grew fast and well, with his father's fire and his mother's depth. The tribe flourished. It wasn't so long after his birth that Brownberry and Longbranch had Nightfall, and she and Cutter were leaves off the same stem for sure. A little later came Scouter and Dewshine, and now Dart the cubling-in-arms, and Rainsong was carrying. Though Rillfisher had died in the meantime, it still seemed as if the tribe was well and truly growing—instead of clinging to survival's edge, they might be heading toward a time of prosperity, if not peace.

Skywise finished his own growth, his body waking to adulthood and the secrets of pleasure. He learned of joining from this tribemate and that, whether Pike's lighthearted play or Brownberry's energetic daring. But it was Foxfur he returned to time and again, and she who returned to him. Something in them fit together, easy and light and undemanding.

A couple hands of turns after, Cutter was out of cubhood too, seemingly overnight become a well-knit youth, his face losing its pup roundness and his bones and muscles broadening. He was finding his own way, creating his own place in the tribe apart from his sire's long fame. And it seemed like at last with his full growth he'd lost the need to tag along after Skywise—others had been joking lately that Skywise had lost his shadow.

"Lost the burr in my tail, more like," Skywise grumbled to Foxfur as they lazed together in a secluded thicket atop a lush bed of ferns.

She smiled and wrinkled up her nose, flicking an exploratory ant off his bare shoulder. "So you keep saying. But I don't see the trouble. When Nightfall was a cub, she followed me everywhere. Remember? Before she learned to soft-foot, even, I'd hear that little one crashing along behind me. Me or Strongbow."

"Not anymore," Skywise said.

Foxfur grinned. "No, now she's grown she's definitely tucked into Redlance's belt. Or he's in hers." She stretched against him, a pleasant warm rub of skin on skin.

"Mmmm," he said in half-answer, breathing in behind her ear, her familiar scent carrying him away.

"But I never minded. Sometimes lately it seems like you mind Cutter." She stroked his stomach lightly, making his muscles jump, and then prodded him in the ribs. "Did you scrap? Something serious?"

"No!" He could hardly imagine it.

"Then why'd you chase him off?"

"I didn't!"

She made a doubting noise.

"I have my own shadow," he said, tracing her ear's point with his lips. "Moons and sun see to that. So who needs another?"

Her hand roved over his hip and down, delicately scratching. "Not you, I suppose, my caterpillar."

He was startled into a laugh. "What?"

"All alone in your lovely..." She nuzzled into his hair— "...silvery..." Her hands slipped round behind his thighs— "...silken cocoon."

Then there was no more talk, just touch and scent and taste and the loss of thought in pleasure. Skywise was starting to feel safe. Until Foxfur, resting for a moment atop him and breathing hard, suddenly said, "He ended up a beauty. Why don't we have him along sometime, see how deep that fire goes?"

His heartbeat stuttered with panic. He wrapped her tight in his arms and rolled them over into the bracken, hoping to cover.

"We'll see," he said against her breasts. "But just now I'm a little...busy..."

She arched her back and seemed to forget all about it. Skywise tried to lose himself in her again, reaching for that safety he'd always found with her before. He was grateful, as ever, for the fact she didn't like to send when she joined. The flesh was more than enough, she always said with a wicked smile, who needed the thought as well, getting in the way? It let Skywise keep self to self, the way he craved.

At last, Foxfur melted against him, warm as a lizard draped over a sunny log, and they breathed together in a comfortable tangle. She combed her fingers through his hair, slow and rhythmic.

Caterpillar, he thought, abruptly grateful Bearclaw hadn't ever seized on his silver hair and his loner tendencies to give him that new tribe-name. It would be Bearclaw's kind of humor. The same kind that had led him to rename Redmark the tracker to Redlance the longtooth killer. Though Redlance had certainly saved Bearclaw's life with his sudden cleverly-braced spear, and everyone knew it. And Skywise did prefer to wrap himself up—not his mother's separate way, not quite, but he had his own protective skin. Especially where Cutter was concerned.

He liked Cutter. He cared about him the way he cared about the rest of his tribemates, one pack together in a hard world. Cutter was beautiful, as Foxfur had said. But more, he was brave and straightforward and bright, his tribe-name coming true as he became the one who was never hesitant to find the tangles and solve them, to grapple with problems head-on. As stubborn as Strongbow without his stiff neck, as flexible as Redlance without his yielding nature. His youthful promise was dawning into a solid presence that made the tribe's future feel safe and assured.

But Skywise increasingly wondered if something was wrong with him. He and Cutter hunted together so well, and they fought the predator like two fingers on the same hand. But more and more, Skywise felt something tight and knotted inside when Cutter was around—his belly tense, his appetite gone, never entirely at ease. During their sending, Skywise had noticed that even his mind was clenching up. When he'd recently noticed Cutter avoiding him, and the joking started, part of Skywise had honestly grieved—but part had been glad.

You shouldn't feel better when your friend shied away from you. It made him wonder if Eyes High's nature was unexpectedly blossoming to its full strength in him, or worse—would he eventually withdraw entirely, becoming half a legend, the dreaming loner on the edge of the pack?

Oh, he hoped not.

The caterpillar... The cocoon might look safe and quiet from the outside, but inside was utter change. It lost itself entirely. And then it was cast out to fly away, unrecognizable.

He and Foxfur crept back into the Holt well after everyone was asleep, the sun already nearly overhead. No one caught them, luckily, so there was no Bearclaw-snarl in the face about safety and obedience and day-dwelling humans.

Foxfur slipped along into Moonshade and Strongbow's den; she'd been treeing with them lately, and bringing Moonshade plenty of extra food to keep her milk rich. Skywise leapt and swung and climbed up and up, his hands and feet finding their own way without thought, until he was perched in the very top of the Father Tree where most of the empty dens were. The tribe had been bigger, once. The ancient and lost tree-shaper magic had been kept busy housing them all. But now, most of the time the topmost branches had only Skywise to keep them company.

...most of the time. His nose twitched.

"Cutter?" he whispered, cautiously.

No answer.

"Cutter?" He scrambled along to a limb almost too thin to be safe; it dipped alarmingly under his feet and he jumped to the angle of the trunk to cling there. "Cutter!"

**If Bearclaw hears you, we'll all be sorry.** Cutter's send felt muted, somehow, and slow.

**None more than me,** Skywise sent—he well remembered some of Bearclaw's chastisements, especially the ones he hadn't been able to dodge. It had been some time since he'd had to send to Cutter, and he did so cautiously, like testing deep, murky water with one toe. But that muffled feeling to Cutter's mind, new and unusual, certainly helped. **Where are you? And what are you doing way up here? Looking for me?**

There was a silence between them; it felt long. **Leave me alone.**

Skywise blinked. The thought wasn't angry, or the warning of a coiled snake; it was weary and straightforward. **You all right?**

Nothing in return. Even the low-level tension Skywise always felt in his mind when he was near Cutter seemed to be damped down. His belly turned with sudden worry. In sending there was only truth, and the lack of response to that question was an answer all its own.

**Where are you?** he demanded. He inhaled, sifting the scents in the breezes that swayed the treetops up this high, and scrambled around the trunk.

**Please go away.**

**You think Bearclaw would make me sorry for breaking daysilence outside the dens? Just imagine what he'd do to me for leaving his only cub wounded in a hole!** Down to a lower fork and over, then round to a well-hidden old opening between the bases of two heavy branches...

Skywise slithered through into the den, one he hadn't visited in a long time. It was cloaked by thick layers of draping leaves and had no view of sky or stars.

What it did have right now was Cutter's glowing eyes, from where he crouched against the curving back wall, scowling. "I told you—"

"I know you did," Skywise responded, settling down crosslegged.

Cutter snarled under his breath, chest rumbling—his sire's temper, for sure. **...Warning you...**

There was a part of Skywise that would have liked nothing better than to obey. A big part. He'd slip out and down, leave the tree behind and go to his starwatching hill. Losing himself in the pictures in the sky would ease the rising burn in his muscles, the clench of his belly and his throat and his brow.

If it had been anyone else—and definitely if it had been Bearclaw, some of whose danger and power thrummed under the surface of Cutter's mental command—Skywise would have done just that.

But...this was Cutter. His friend, who couldn't help it if Skywise was askew inside. The battle between go and stay tipped over and was done. Skywise made himself sit still, sweat breaking on his forehead. "Tell me what it is."

Cutter drew in a jagged, whining breath, and abruptly one of his arms flashed out, stiff fingers shoving against Skywise's chest and knocking him backward. His send had no words this time, just the red tinge of a cornered wolf, jaws snapping at the air.

Skywise untangled himself, rolled up, and coolly crossed his legs again, as Cutter's breath grated in and out. His eyes were narrowed to blue slits, bright and deadly. Skywise didn't meet them directly, but sat, hands on knees, and waited.

Cutter's breath caught and held, then released in a long, soft whoosh. "...Sorry."

"Well. When Starjumper had that dagger-thorn up between his paw-pads, I didn't let him chase me off either."

Something about his wry tone seemed to help; slowly, the bristling shape that was Cutter settled from crouching to kneeling. "I just don't think you can help this time."

"Tell me, and I'll get someone who can."

A long silence this time. Skywise's vision finished adjusting and he could see Cutter clearly, his head bowed and his long fair hair hiding his face.

"I don't think anyone can."

But his voice wavered with uncertainty. Skywise jumped at that uncharacteristic hesitation, wedged his reply under it to get a better grip, like lifting a fallen branch: "Maybe. But if you don't tell me, how will we know for sure?"

He could sense, almost see, the struggle between Cutter's need to hide and lick his wounds—whatever they might be—and his straightforward nature. He was no good at hiding, no good at pretending. Skywise, who excelled at both, waited him out.

Another breath, hard and impatient. Cutter peered out between tendrils of mussed hair. "Something's the matter with me. I thought I knew how to fix it, but it's..." He shrugged.

"Well?" Skywise asked.

"It's you," Cutter said, completely unexpectedly.

A burst of ice flashed through Skywise, body and limbs. All he could think, in a tangled muddle, was that this was it: he'd been tested by the pack and found wanting, and the chief's son was to tell him to be gone and never come back. Take your stars and your highest branches and your hilltops, find your warmth in them, for you always loved them best anyway...

He couldn't gather his thoughts, let alone a breath to speak. He was paralyzed like the mouse before the crouching fox. Before he could recover himself, Cutter went on: "Lately I've been trying not to. I set myself to it. And I did, too. But I can scarcely manage."

Skywise felt as lost and dizzy as if he'd been thrown over the side. "Manage...what?"

Cutter growled again, but this time it was low and miserable and deep in his belly. He put his head in his hands. "Untangling from your tail, curse it! Maybe you've... I know you noticed how I always followed you."

Skywise nodded slowly.

"Cockleburr. Tag-along." Cutter cringed in on himself. "It was just...I couldn't help it."

Skywise's thoughts, slow and mudlogged as they were, had caught up. He wasn't being cast out, he hadn't turned into a banished loner just yet. The relief was immense, and it was hard to concentrate. "You were just a cub," he said, distracted.

"Not anymore. So you'd think it would be easier now, to... to stop. You'd think it would be possible."

Skywise blinked. "Seemed pretty possible to me. Even Pike's noticed it! He was making up a rhyme about the silvery fox who'd lost his tail, before he found that new dreamberry patch and forgot all about it."

Cutter snorted. "I heard. But...he has no idea how hard it's been. It shouldn't be. It's been like learning to live underwater."

"Well," Skywise offered, "you were used to it, that's all. Old game-trails take awhile to fade."

Cutter looked up again, and his lips were pressed tight. "I don't know. It's just—something feels wrong, Skywise. The more I try."

"Are you sick?"

Cutter only sighed. His face was pulled tight over his bones, his fine lower lip drawn up in his sharp white teeth. He looked ashamed. Skywise recognized that punishing drive, and knew that Cutter would be the last one to be gentle with himself if he found himself lacking in any respect.

So, he supposed, sometimes someone else had to do it for him.

**Come on,** he sent, and turned for the entrance, with its thick coat of secret leaves.

Cutter didn't move.

**Come on,** Skywise insisted—not a challenge, he knew better, but a matter-of-fact chivvying like poking him in the side.

**Where?** Cutter's sending was still muffled, but Skywise could feel the dull discouragement well enough.

**Don't you know anything?** Skywise sent as he squirmed out of the little den. **When something's wrong, find the healer. Freefoot's sake, you'd think you'd never eaten a bloater frog before.**

This was a very long time ago, but Cutter's response still flared with the mental equivalent of a blush. **That was an accident.**

"Uh huh," Skywise muttered innocently aloud. He could hear Cutter climbing down behind him all the way, but didn't turn to look.

Rain's den was much lower down, for ease of hauling injured tribemates inside, but still high enough and hidden enough to feel safe and secluded. It was big, too, and Skywise as ever marveled at it as he climbed quietly in. Rain had lived there a long long time, and it was well-worn and soft, the wood smooth with age and touch and the floor covered with thick furs and skins. Candles were melted onto ledges here and there; bunches of dried herbs gave the air a rich tang. The whole place fairly hummed with a contented ease, like a healthy beehive.

One of Rain's feet stuck out from beneath a rumpled longtooth-skin, and a few strands of fiery hair from the other end. His toes curled and flexed once as Skywise and Cutter crouched by the entryway. Skywise looked at Cutter, brows raised, but Cutter sent privately, **Let him sleep. Dusk is soon enough.**

Skywise silently scoffed at the delaying tactic. And he knew that if Cutter were left here to himself, he was just as likely to slip right back out again and claim he was fine. So, despite the discomfort singing in the back of his head and down his spine, he crept after Cutter into the furs.

No one else was sleeping there today, and they easily found cozy nests on either side of him. Skywise had been tired, after his long stolen morning with Foxfur, but now he couldn't even doze. He lay staring at nothing, breathing the comforting, homey scents of beeswax and whistling leaf and wolf and tribemates, trying to settle the turmoil in his mind and his belly.

He held still and kept quiet, despite himself. But nevertheless, before too long Rain stirred under his cover, and Skywise found himself desperately glad. He couldn't have managed waiting the whole rest of the day to hand Cutter over to a wiser head and better hands than his. And, he admitted, to escape.

"Hmmm." Rain stretched, and one hand found Skywise's brow, tracing fingers along his metal face-guard. "What's the matter?"

"Sorry, healer," Cutter said. "I didn't mean to make so much noise."

"You didn't," Rain said. He sat up, the catskin falling to his waist, and his gentle gaze fell first on Cutter and then on Skywise. His eyes were patient, deep, old and ageless at once, and sleep fell instantly from him like the lightest speck of dust. "What is it?"

"Well," Cutter said, very low, begrudgingly. In a den not covered by thick leaves and branches, Skywise could get a much better look at his face; he was scowling, still reluctant. "I was— I had— Skywise thinks—"

"Skywise thinks by the time you actually tell anyone anything, we'll all have face-fur down to our toes," Skywise said.

Rain sat still and thoughtful, waiting. He watched Cutter, and Skywise marveled at the enormous time and patience in his face, the hands and hands of turns he'd seen and survived.

"I was trying," Cutter said at last, "to keep to myself. To stop—" He looked past Rain at Skywise for just a moment, his eyes big and unhappy. "To leave Skywise be for a change."

"You were," Rain said, not a question. "I heard."

"Who hasn't?" Cutter growled, exasperated. Skywise couldn't help but grin.

"It seemed like you'd succeeded," Rain said.

"He had," Skywise put in. He liked bragging about Cutter, especially when Cutter didn't seem to want him to.

Cutter flicked another glance at him, this one frustrated. "That's the problem, healer. I did...but I almost couldn't do it."

Skywise expected something hearty and cheerful, like Treestump might have said—'almost' doesn't matter, you did it, stop doubting yourself—which only went to prove how long it had been since he'd spoken to Rain about anything personal.

Because Rain didn't comfort, or shake his head at Cutter's stringent demands of himself, or jolly Cutter out of his brooding and back into the wolfish Now that all Wolfriders prized. He took time to consider what he had heard, looking at Cutter—really looking, all his powerful attention focused to a point. Then he asked, "Why not?"

"I don't—" Cutter began quickly, but stopped himself, his eyes searching Rain's. He drew in a long breath, his chest and belly rising, and let it out. More thoughtfully, as if Rain's own thoughtful calm had drifted over him like a cloud, he said, "No, I do know. It's because just lately... just lately..."

He looked over at Skywise once more. His face was set, almost unreadable, which to Skywise felt suddenly strange.

"Should I...?" Skywise asked, edging gratefully for the den's opening.

He almost made it out, too, given how long it took for Cutter to answer. But—

"No," Cutter said at last. "Please, Skywise. Just—for a moment."

"Course," Skywise said casually, his belly twisting.

Cutter wrapped his arms around himself, his gaze lowered. When Rain leaned in to pull a fold of the sleeping-furs around his shoulders, he looked up and smiled faintly. "Just lately," he started again without preamble, "it hasn't been at all like it was when I was little. Now it isn't that I want to follow Skywise because I like him. Now it's because...I need him."

Skywise didn't really follow the difference there, but Rain clearly did. His back straightened, and he leaned a little forward.

"Because you couldn't not," Rain said.

"Yes."

"And it wasn't even always pleasant to do," Rain said.

"No," Cutter said wonderingly.

"But you were drawn. No matter how hard you tried. And you did try."

Cutter only nodded, staring, a flush starting in his cheeks.

Skywise was amazed, watching Rain read Cutter without even sending. But he didn't understand quite why Cutter seemed so petrified, even paralyzed...until Rain turned and looked at him.

He examined Skywise as closely as he'd examined Cutter. And in his eyes—those old, wise eyes—was a combination of reaching insight, powerful realization, and equally powerful puzzlement. Skywise had no idea what could affect their healer this way, what could dawn on him with such bewildering force. He'd never thought to see a look like that on Rain's face, let alone directed at him. He wanted so badly to scoot just a bit further backward and jump outside; his jaws hurt from clamping his back teeth together over the urge.

"What is it, healer?"

At Cutter's alarm, thank the High Ones, Rain let him out from under: his attention, as blinding as full sun, turned back to Cutter. Skywise nearly panted in relief.

"I'm not sure," Rain said slowly. "But it feels familiar. It feels to me perhaps... even as Recognition does."

Skywise gaped. Cutter might have looked more dignified, but Skywise could tell he was startled speechless.

"Uh..." Skywise tried. "Recognition, like... Recognition?"

Rain nodded gravely.

"Like Woodlock and Rainsong?" Skywise said, his voice rising almost to a squeak. "Where her eyes meet his and they, uh... They have to have a cub together?"

"Like that," Rain said, with hesitant emphasis.

"Uh..." Skywise said.

Rain smiled. "Not completely like that."

"How could— How do you know?" Cutter finally said.

"As I said, it feels familiar somehow. From a long time ago, perhaps." Rain considered Cutter carefully. "My memory isn't clear. We should consult Longbranch—he could take the dreamberries and find the tale, and you could see for yourself."

"You're saying this happened to someone else?" Skywise asked. "I mean—to two someones?"

Rain sat quietly, his eyes gradually unfocusing. "The closest one, I think..." he said very slowly, "...was two lasses? But I cannot... see..."

He fell entirely silent for a while, and Skywise could almost feel his strain as he strove to swim upcurrent against the ages of turns of his life, to fight the immediacy of wolf-thought. Skywise watched Cutter out of the extreme corner of his eye. His head was beginning to ache.

"No," Rain sighed at last. "I can't see more. Longbranch surely could. Or Pike."

"Pike!" Skywise couldn't imagine their laughing, guileless tribemate able to do anything Rain couldn't do.

"Now," Rain admonished, his eyes amused. "Pike's head works differently when he's howlkeeping, don't forget. And Longbranch has taught him well."

"I suppose."

Cutter had shrugged the furs up higher around himself until they were nearly over his head, as if he felt a chill. But his voice was steady. "We should talk to Longbranch tonight. I want to know what happened before."

Skywise didn't. He didn't want to hear anything about Recognition, or sharing souls, or any of that. He was very happy when others had their cubs—and if they had to pay the price of Recognition for it, he felt sorry for them, and admired their strength. But it had nothing to do with him. Never would. And he kept almost saying so, except for Cutter's face, so serious, too thin, with an unfamiliar tight anxiousness beneath the surface.

"He might be awake," Rain said. "I could send to him."

"Not yet." Cutter looked at Rain uncertainly. "Before I hear what happened in the past, I want to know more about what's happening right now. Does it... is it bad? Will it pass?"

"Recognition is never bad, cub," Rain answered at once. And as if he could hear Skywise's wordless inner reaction, he followed with, "Not necessarily good, either. It just is. Some do well with it, some not as well. All we know is, when it comes over a lad and a lass, it brings us more Wolfriders. And we need those."

Cutter nodded. He glanced uneasily over at Skywise, who by now had his back against the wood right next to the den's entrance, and again looked to Rain. "But will it pass? Can it?"

"I think..." Rain concentrated again. "I think it's been a long time. Longbranch would have to remember for me. But it can. Denied, it doesn't kill." He shrugged and smiled. "Would be strange if it did, since it works so hard to make us make cubs in the first place."

Cutter echoed his smile, but only faintly.

"I suppose the question is, is it being denied?" Rain was getting that look on his face, the one he got the few times someone brought him symptoms he didn't remember seeing before. He peered at Cutter with interest. "How did it come? Did it bring you each others' soul names?"

"I..." Cutter looked uncomfortable. "I don't know. I don't...remember."

"Don't remember?"

"No, I..." Cutter seemed to shrink inside his fur wrappings. "Healer, I honestly don't know. It's all so strange. Whenever I try to figure it out, it's like everything there is fogged and I can't breathe."

Rain reached out and touched Cutter's cheek lightly. His hand had only ever brought comfort and support, and Cutter leaned into the touch, looking grateful.

"Cutter," Rain said. But that was all he said aloud. The way they looked at each other, the silent intensity in the air, told Skywise they were lock-sending. He looked away. And as the private communion went on, he found himself almost holding his breath, keeping very still—like a rabbit lying flat in the grass hoping to be forgotten, hoping against hope the owl won't see him and swoop.

But—

"Skywise." Rain's voice, though Skywise wouldn't look. His body was frozen almost painfully tight, his head hurting like he'd been clubbed.

**Skywise,** Rain sent. His mental touch was as gentle and all-enfolding as a rock-pool warmed in the sun, but deeper, vast, down to the unknown and unknowable depths.

Skywise didn't respond. He couldn't block him out, but he was mentally braced as best he could to keep him at a distance.

**Skywise? I won't come in, silver cub.** Reassurance flowed from him, as when toddler-Skywise had cut himself and didn't want to uncover the hurt. **But if you let me see, I promise I'll only look.** And there was a wordless promise as well, with Skywise and the private sound that meant Skywise's soul both left in peace in a safe thicket, a feeling of understanding and respect.

It wasn't that Rain could wrest anyone's soul name from them. Even if he had wanted to, which Skywise knew he never, never would. But still he had such incredible power; Skywise could feel it overflowing his mind and tingling down through his backbone. And somewhere deep inside was a closed cave containing a struggling amber fire. He couldn't concentrate on protecting himself from both at the same time.

No, he thought, though he neither sent nor said it. He yanked himself ungracefully free of the locksend and, without looking at Cutter, finally and gratefully dove out of the den and up through the Father Tree's branches. He wanted almost more than anything just to run to his starwatching hill and wait for the stars to come out—but even in this desperate, distracted state he was obedient to the chief and the pack, and would do nothing so dangerous in the daytime. Instead he leapt and climbed up, past the den where Cutter had been hidden, even higher, to the topmost little niche. It was barely large enough for one, and he'd seldom found it comfortable in the past, but now he wedged himself in tightly and wrapped his head in his arms, not thinking, not remembering. Just pressing down and in, centering himself, all that was not-himself stiff-armed abruptly back where it belonged.

He didn't sleep, but after a while he did rest, listening to his own breathing going in and out. And he watched the sky. It spent a long time in a watery high blue, with puffs of sleepy cloud drifting through. But eventually it began to settle and deepen, the sun sinking, the thin blue going gray and indigo and violet tinged with blue-black: the colors of waking.

He heard the stirring and soft murmuring of his tribe rising and going about their night. Someone laughed; someone else sparred to the thock-thock of spear-hafts. And there were the cries and coos of the newest-born cubling, blending with the busy conversation of the nightbirds.

He made himself climb down. And he was glad he did; the ordinary night's ways began soothing him at once, with One-Eye setting him to sorting mushrooms and Nightfall asking his opinion on her dagger's sheath-bindings. He was no particular expert, but it was an interesting problem.

As he was carrying an armful of mushrooms over to a particular storehole as instructed, he finally bumped into Cutter. Two mushrooms rolled off the pile and fell into the grass.

"Here." Cutter bent for them and spent some time balancing them on top of the rest.

"Thanks."

"Those for drying?"

"Mm-hm. One-Eye found a good little crop of 'em. He, uh...he thinks Rain will find them handy. For his...things."

Cutter nodded. They glanced away from each other and back again. It was Cutter, bravest of them, who smiled first. Skywise felt a rush of grateful relief and couldn't help but smile back—just a little to start, but then their smiles built on each other until they were both almost laughing. He met Cutter's eyes without fear and let himself relax. Then he tipped half the mushrooms right into Cutter's arms. "Make yourself useful."

They spread the mushrooms inside the drying-storehole amiably side-by-side. "Where are you off to?" Skywise asked.

"Gathering blackshell-nuts," Cutter said. "I figure it's either us or the squirrels, and I intend to win. You coming?"

This offer was familiar. It wasn't the Cutter of late, trying hard to keep away from him. Skywise didn't know what it meant, and he didn't intend to tax his poor head trying to figure it out.

"I guess I better, if you really want to win!"

Cutter thumped him with one elbow. "You want to beat a squirrel, bring someone who thinks like a—" But he broke off, frowning. "Do you...?"

"What?"

"Did you smell something? Something bad?"

"Like what?" Skywise asked, inhaling carefully.

"Not sure. Nothing, probably. Guess I'm just tired." Cutter was deliberate with his last two mushrooms, laying them into place. "Let's get after those nuts. My nose must need some fresh air."

They jumped up, calling for their wolf-friends. But just as Nightrunner and Starjumper padded out of the trees, looking rested and eager to see them, a powerful thought-summons echoed in his mind.

**Hunting party,** it commanded. **Come!**

It was Bearclaw, and Skywise and Cutter were quick to leap onto their wolves and obey. Many others had been called, and they all assembled on wolf and on foot at the base of the Father Tree, milling in comfortable readiness. Skywise noticed it was a big group—almost all of the eldest in it, too—but he didn't feel uneasy, even though Bearclaw looked troubled.

He rode peacefully at Foxfur's side, laughing with her at some little joke, her fingers held in his. And even as the night got longer, and darker, and more terrible, and the strange, filthy spoor they were tracking more dreadful, he never dreamed what would come of it.

Madcoil struck.

Rain died first, killed instantly, ages and lifetimes of wisdom and care and knowledge left to soak into the dirt with his blood. Skywise couldn't see what happened after that—he was hit with a glancing blow and sent flying back, and worse than the pain of his brow and neck was the pain inside his head. His mind was filled with nothing but the creature's grippingly powerful, slaveringly hateful thoughts, black-red violence and the joy of destruction.

He heard screams. He smelled blood, elf-blood and wolf-blood, gouts of it. He felt he could almost identify the different shades and scents of who was bleeding where, his beloved tribe, his very own pack. He couldn't even cry out, with the crushing, laughing, devouring beast rampaging inside and through him, taking his terror and swallowing it whole.

He couldn't move. He knew he was dead. And he couldn't even bare his teeth or find his blade, to lash out, to leave his mark. The wolf in him writhed and howled.

But someone was there—someone had him now, an arm tight around him, and they were moving, his feet pulled and dragging over uneven ground. He couldn't see, but he could breathe, and he breathed in Cutter. Cutter's strong arm around him and his strong legs running, his scent flaring bright with horror and panic. Skywise could only cling to him.

When the monstrous ravaging inside his head finally faded, he found himself wrapped in Cutter's arm, huddled with him on a tree branch. His neck ached, and his forehead burned. His mind felt numb, like an arm or a leg hit too hard by a rock, limp and unusable. If anyone were trying to send to him, he wouldn't know.

He feebly tried to wipe at a damp trickle he felt running down between his eyes. "F-foxfur? Is she safe?"

She was not. Nor was Brownberry with her quick temper and her deft fingers, or Longbranch and his ancient memory like a seeking root, or Joyleaf the chieftess. Or, of course, Rain. Half the hunting party gone at one blow, including their only healer. And Cutter's mother. Before Skywise knew it, Bearclaw was off to hunt the creature down, and Cutter was with him.

One-Eye and Treestump held on to Skywise, and helped him onto his wolf for the journey back to the holt, three shocked and grieving survivors. Treestump was grim and hollow, his jaw clenched tight, but One-Eye quietly wept a time or two. Tears bathed his cheek, leaving uneven streaks through the dirt and blood.

Skywise wished he could weep—wished he could do anything besides remember the smell of Foxfur's blood, or feel the absence of Cutter like the absence of hope.

So this last little remnant of the hunting party staggered back to the tribe, fresh with the pain of the past and sick with un-Wolfriderish worries for the future. Their sending ability had returned after the mental assault, but they didn't send the news ahead. This had to be said in person.

Clearbrook was first to meet them, and after one look at their bedraggled condition, she went to One-Eye and took him in her arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and, braced by her strength, began to tell the story.

Strongbow arrived just in time to hear. His face changed with slowly mounting horror, and at the last of it, he looked at them aghast.

**You didn't go with Bearclaw?** he demanded in an open send thick with frustration and agony. **How could you leave him?**

Treestump stared him down, solid and immovable as his tribe-name, and obviously in no mood for foolishness. "How could we not? Are you telling me you'd disobey your chief? Disobey Bearclaw? You?"

Strongbow paced back and forth, his muscles and sinews twitching with a clear desire to fight, if no other action was left to him. He glared. **But you left him to hunt alone!**

"Not alone," said Treestump. "Cutter went with him."

**Cutter's just a cub,** Strongbow sent with a snarl. But even Skywise could tell that his rage wasn't about Cutter at all. Or about Treestump, or any of the survivors. It rang with fresh and terrible pain.

Treestump rubbed the back of his neck wearily and started forward toward the Father Tree. As he passed Strongbow, he put his big hand for a moment on Strongbow's shoulder and squeezed it.

They all reached the clearing together. Skywise clung to Starjumper's ruff, feeling ill and dizzy. The rest of the tribe gathered, their faces apprehensive, and even baby Dart was quiet and serious. But when Treestump first stepped forward to Nightfall and took her hands in his, about to tell her that both of her parents were dead, Skywise could bear it no longer. He urged Starjumper out of the circle, slipped down off his back, and climbed stiffly upward as fast as he could manage.

He ended up in Rain's den. He crawled into the furs, shivering, and groped for his faceguard to pull it off and throw it aside. Buried entirely in the furs and skins, he lay with his eyes closed, breathing in the scent of Rain and the much fainter traces of Cutter. One day these scents would all fade, leaving only fur and leather and the wood of the living tree. Rain would never come here again, never sit with a young one who'd eaten the wrong root or a hunter who'd taken a bad fall. He'd never kneel with a laboring pair as the mother bore her cub. He'd never hum his quiet song to sing anyone to sleep.

He'd never be able to tell Skywise the secret of Skywise's own soul, or just what Skywise had been fighting against all this time.

And Cutter...Cutter might be going with him. Skywise didn't think he had yet—he wasn't sure why he thought that, as they were too far apart to send, but he knew it was true. Any moment, though, he might know the opposite, and it would be Cutter's blood seeping down through the soil to mix with Rain's and feed the forest. And then Skywise would...

He didn't know. He couldn't think.

He stayed underneath the heaps of furs for a long time. He dreamed that Foxfur had found him, smiling, Are you staying in there all night, sleepyhead, let me show you something better to do... In the dream, her clothes rustled as she took them off, and this became a rustling at the entrance of the den, and Skywise opened his eyes muzzily. "Foxfur?"

Pike was there, his ruddy face drawn and miserable, which was a very rare sight.

"The cubs did some hunting," Pike said, and held up a fresh piece of deer meat. "Dewshine mostly, though she took Scouter with her. Since you all didn't, uh... didn't have the chance to..."

Skywise pushed up on his elbow. "Thanks."

Pike shucked off his soft boots and crawled into the furs, and Skywise remembered that it was Rain who'd sired Pike—well before Skywise was born, but he'd heard the tale. Skywise wasn't hungry, but he made himself eat some of the meat to stop Pike from commenting. Then they lay there together, Pike unaccustomedly quiet, and they breathed in the fading scent of the lost.

Nights later, when the remaining elders had begun gathering together for quiet discussions and Treestump was looking very grave, the wolfcall came. It echoed from a great distance, from many different lupine throats, but they all heard it, and they all knew what it meant: Come now. Come.

The entire tribe, but for the three lifebearers and the infant Dart, was on the trail at once; they didn't care that it was nearly dawn and that they'd have to journey by day. Their hackles were up, elf and wolf alike, and Skywise could almost have pitied any human who encountered them now. Treestump led them, but Skywise kept by him in front. He still had the feeling that Cutter was alive—though how well and for how long, he didn't know.

They emerged into a clearing just at sunset, breathing uneasily in a looming stink that had the three Madcoil survivors hunched warily on their wolves. And before them, leaning on a boulder, was Cutter.

Skywise saw him with relief, saw his body unmarked and all his limbs working. But the next moment, he also saw that Cutter was different. Something in the way he stood, or something in his eyes.

"Bearclaw's dead," Cutter said sharply, and the tribe swallowed yet another loss. They mourned Bearclaw with one breath, and tied Cutter's hair into the chief's lock with the next—there was no time to waste.

Skywise kept to himself the strange relief he felt at those words. Sorrow, too: Bearclaw was gone, and Skywise would always honor that fierce, wicked, sharp-fanged master of the pack, who'd shaped the tribe to his will for so long. But it hadn't been Cutter's time. Cutter was still alive, and now Skywise was here with him to make sure he stayed that way.

The tribe working as one had trapped Madcoil, and Cutter had killed it with one well-aimed strike. They'd howled over the monstrous remains, the creature's head held high on their spears. Then he led them home—not triumphantly, for the losses were still too near, and a hand-and-two deaths had taken a giant bite from their numbers. But the rest of them had survived, and paid the score, and they were a pack with a chief again.

When they got back, Strongbow disappeared at once into the den holding Moonshade and the cubling. Woodlock and Rainsong came out and sat in the grass with Pike, who told them the story; before long he was even joking and making faces, because that was Pike. Others went right to work in their own ways, making sure everyone got something to eat from Dewshine's cached kills, looking after rips in clothes, tending each others' bruises, standing guard. The holt hummed with a quiet life that had very nearly been destroyed.

Skywise sat on a branch and watched. Cutter stood by the base of the Father Tree for a long time, his tribe circulating around him like the currents of a healthy stream. He still looked different, in his posture and his face, let alone the pale crest of his chief's lock. He seemed sturdier, as if rooted to the soil he stood on, but also as if something were pressing down on him. He stood uncomplaining under the invisible weight, his shoulders straight and braced.

The back of Skywise's mind itched worse than it ever had. And now he couldn't stop himself from thinking, what if. It was a very un-Wolfriderish thought, but it was like an itchweed rash he couldn't stop scratching, digging in his nails, with no Rain there to plaster it with cooling mud.

What if it had been Cutter killed instead of Bearclaw? Or killed with Bearclaw, as seemed more likely. What if all of Skywise's years of keeping something at bay—denying, that's how Rain had put it—were to end in nothing more than a faint guttering and a last puff of weak smoke, like a spark cast onto damp tinder?

That's what he thought he must have been wishing for, when he'd first unconsciously closed off that strange new presence and pressed it deep under. But he'd never really understood what that would mean. And he'd never expected how he'd feel to watch Cutter standing there, so alone under such a sudden and heavy load.

What if, what if. What if Rain had been right, and this was the Recognition bond or something like? What if he were to relax his soul's vigilance and see what happened? He felt a jolt of cold sickness in his belly at the idea—it felt like falling, wheeling down toward a black pit where there would no longer be a Skywise, or a Fahr, or anything of his own.

And still, Cutter could die, would die, for that was one of the certain things that happened. Skywise remembered his father, tumbling, breaking, as his mother felt it too.

Never, he'd told Eyes High's spirit.

But he couldn't stop watching Cutter. And thinking, But what if.

Eventually, even though it was not quite sunrise, it seemed that recent events were catching up with just about everyone; they gradually retreated to various dens in pairs or groups. Nightfall led Redlance into the empty den that had once held Longbranch and Brownberry. Skywise imagined them curled together, trying to catch and hold the scent as he'd done.

Even after the whole tribe was safely hidden and the last of the wolves had wandered their way into the forest, Cutter remained. He looked around at the clearing, at the trees bent to the will of the ancient shapers, home to his people for turn upon turn. His eyes were dark with thought, and the shadow in them was new, making Skywise's throat feel tight.

At last Cutter turned and climbed slowly into the Father Tree, making his way to the chief's den. Skywise thought of him all alone in there, with that weight on his back and in his eyes. And he unfolded himself from his branch to follow.

He entered tentatively, poking just his head in at first, the way he'd learned to do with Bearclaw. Cutter was sitting against the wall with his arms around his knees.

"Everything all right?" he asked as soon as he saw Skywise, shifting as if to get up.

"Yes," Skywise said, climbing in. The den felt huge without Bearclaw and Joyleaf in it—especially Bearclaw, his expansive spirit taking up the space anywhere he went. "Uh—yes, my chief."

Cutter shot him a look, irritation streaked through with honest fear. And Skywise, who hadn't actually been feeling quite certain enough to joke, suddenly knew to grin at him. He made it wide and cheeky, and was rewarded with a familiar scowl. "Cut that out, will you."

"Yes, my chief," Skywise said, and sat without invitation, crossing his legs comfortably to the tune of Cutter's wordless grumble.

They sat quietly. Skywise saw a spray of flowers tucked into a niche in the wall, drying to crumbles. Joyleaf had never entered the den without some about her somewhere, tucked in her hair or her belt or her boots, their sweetness with her always.

"Tired?" Skywise asked after a while. "You can't have slept much."

Cutter's gaze flickered over him and dropped. "I fell asleep just at the end of the hunt. And Bearclaw went in alone."

"Oh." Skywise forced himself to think over those past actions, to really consider them, instead of allowing them to fade into the was the way his Wolfrider heritage wanted. "He could have woken you."

"Bearclaw? Never happen." Cutter's tone was short and plain.

"If he had, though. Or if you hadn't slept. You know it still would have ended the same."

Cutter tipped his head sideways like a wolf about to scratch. "Yes," he said slowly.

"Or worse," Skywise added. "He'd have gone in full-speed anyhow, and in the end you would have charged with him. Got killed."

Cutter looked like he wanted to protest this, but he bit down on it instead.

"Well, he was chief," Skywise said. "And he was Bearclaw. Joyleaf's own wisdom wouldn't have stopped him; how could yours? And if you couldn't stop him, how could you watch him go?"

It seemed like Cutter was feeling that same pull of the was, really considering it. "You might be right."

"Of course I'm right!" Skywise said. "But you slept, and you survived, and you called us. Something he never would have done. And so we won."

Cutter shrugged wearily.

"And so," Skywise finished, "you should sleep."

"All that just to get me to sleep?" Cutter said with a flicker of their old humor. "Maybe you should've learned some of Rain's songs instead."

Skywise smiled a little. "Wish I had."

The corner of Cutter's mouth twitched, but that seemed to be as much as he could do. He leaned an arm on his knees and his head on his arm, the long fair hair spilling around his fingers and the chief's lock streaming down behind.

"You know..." he said. "It's good of you, Skywise. But you don't have to stay." And for a moment he sounded so much like Joyleaf that Skywise's neck shivered.

"What?" he managed. "What's good of me?"

"This." Cutter waved a hand back and forth between them. "But Rain said...well. It'll pass. I'll feel uncomfortable for a while, I guess, but not forever."

Skywise blinked at him.

"I knew...with Rain...I knew there was nothing you wanted more than to get away. And it's all right, Skywise, really." He was looking into Skywise's eyes, earnest and clear.

The honesty in his face felt like a sharpened blade thrust between Skywise's ribs. When Skywise had fled from Cutter's need and Rain's lock-send, Cutter had been the first to reach out afterward, smiling at him over the mushrooms. It was always all right with Cutter for Skywise to be who he was. To be who he needed to be.

But who was that now?

"I..." Skywise began. His lips were dry, and when he tried to lick them, he found his tongue was too. "I've been thinking. Maybe it's not all right with me."

Cutter's wide eyes in the dimness were the living blue of a lake under a deep day sky, so intent he almost couldn't face them. But almost wasn't enough to turn him away.

"You sure?"

Skywise would have laughed at the question, but his belly was too hollow and his breath too short. "Not like there's anyone to ask about it anymore."

"No." Cutter was still looking straight at him, but for some reason Skywise didn't feel the flinch of the subordinate wolf under the challenge of a stare.

"I suppose we have to take our own chances."

"Not if it's going to hurt you," Cutter said firmly. "That's not what I do."

How Skywise loved him for that, his stubborn push right to the truth, the way he held himself so carefully still except for his earnest eyes.

**Course you don't,** he sent, the truth of his thought reverberating like a howl in a cave. He felt Cutter reassured at that, and he borrowed some of that feeling to lean on as best he could, as he breathed out and began to let the edges of their mental connection widen.

Cutter's eyes went worried, scanning Skywise closely. Of course his worries were for Skywise and not himself; how could he be otherwise? Skywise grinned at Cutter encouragingly, wanting so badly to make him take something for himself for a change. He would give Cutter anything he needed, if any part of him would help. No matter the sacrifice. **Ready?**

He didn't wait for a response. He only drew in a big breath, held it, and dove.

Down, down, inside himself, past thought, past memory, past action, past urge. He fell, he reached, ever downward, and for the first time someone was with him. Cutter was with him.

Something burned here. It roared brighter than any trollforge, than any white-hot skyfire. It was no longer the tiny spark of turns past; it was vibrant, rich, as powerful as a running wolf made of sun and moon. And it was so poorly restrained now, flame and moonglow licking round the edges of Skywise's own failing pressure.

It would only take the slightest touch.

He sensed Cutter's hesitation, waiting just outside the boundaries Skywise had set long ago. And left to himself, Skywise would never have been able. But he reached out to Cutter, and together, like fingers of the same hand, they opened what was hidden and set it free.

Tam was there. Tam overflowed into all the hidden ways of Skywise's soul, down and down to Fahr where he lived. Fahr saw Tam running on two legs and four, elf and wolf at once, flaxen-pale with eyes of blue flame; he saw the stubbornness, the wildness and rage, the peacefulness, the seeking mind and outstretched hand, and every other bit of light and shadow that dappled him over.

And Tam saw him.

He could tell that this was what Tam had needed, feeling along with him a sense of inrush and abundance, like the first deep drink of fresh water after a long drought. He saw Fahr and rejoiced.

It was worth it, Fahr thought, waiting for the rest. Even on the edge of losing himself, expecting any moment to see his last hiding place scoured out with a blast of fire, it was worth it, to feel Tam accepting the gift. He apologized to Eyes High, wherever she was now. All he knew was that for him, it was worth it, even to fear and to fall.

His ecstatic terror surrounded him like the crackling nimbus before a skyfire strike. When Tam seemed puzzled, he comforted him. This was freely and gladly given, and he knew he'd do it again, if the was ever circled round to become the will-be.

But...why wasn't it happening? Why was he perched on this precipice with his soul shuddering like crippled wings, waiting for a final tumble into not-self that never came?

**Fahr,** came Tam's touch, fire-bright and already so familiar.

**?** was all he could manage.

And Tam moved to him and around him, as if wrapping him in a strong, warm hold. Together, they let their breath out in a long release. And together, they breathed in. It kept going, expanding, filling him with new vistas, higher even than his starwatching hill. But he... he was still Fahr. Tam was with him, and in him, but he was still Tam.

He hadn't lost himself. He'd found himself and more than himself, his soul's wings spreading, soaring.

He blinked his eyes open and found them wet, Cutter still sitting across from him with a flushed face full of wonder.

"I never knew," Cutter said.

Skywise rubbed his face on his arm, but he couldn't seem to stop. Water overflowed his eyes and made everything blurry, streaking down his face, dripping from his jaw.

"C'mere." Cutter was with him, tugging at the fastening of his face-guard, slipping it free. Then they were lying together in the chief's sleeping-furs, Bearclaw and Joyleaf's scent all around them. Skywise felt like a cub again, safe with his family. And he didn't understand why his tears wouldn't stop, when he hadn't sacrificed anything at all.

"My brother," he whispered into Cutter's neck, clinging to him as he had when Cutter had saved his life from Madcoil's charge. "Oh, my brother."

Cutter held him and made a low sound in his chest.

They lay there warm and dazed, the sky outside paling to dawn then rising to morning. Skywise's tears had even then not entirely stopped, though they were slow now; sometimes when he blinked, they trickled down onto Cutter's shoulder. His face felt stiff with dried salt.

Skywise lifted one hand to touch the spot on Cutter's vest where it was completely soaked through with tears. The moisture had freshened a spatter of blood there too, and he dabbed a finger into it with a grunt of distaste.

"I'll get another," Cutter said. "I'm almost too broad for this one anyway."

"Moonshade will be happy," Skywise murmured. "And why are you still awake?"

Cutter's laugh was almost soundless. "I'll sleep if you will."

"Oh," said Skywise, his eyes closing, "all that just to get me to sleep...?"

They slept steadily through until afternoon, the only sign of life the slow rise and fall of the furs heaped over them.

Skywise woke first, and got a look at their new chief unguarded. Cutter's head had nodded to the side, and the gold torc around his neck gleamed with the slanting daylight that filtered in. Some looked younger in sleep—Skywise remembered once even being able to imagine Bearclaw before his face-fur, after seeing him deeply asleep in Joyleaf's arms, and that was a rare thing. But Cutter didn't. Even nestled in the furs and flushed with sleep, his mouth a little open, he looked like a chief.

He also looked so beautiful that Skywise almost couldn't bear it. His hair looked soft as feather-down, his body smooth and warm and strong. His lower lip was as rosy as the petal of a flower.

It was a good idea, lovemate, he thought to Foxfur. You had so many good ideas. And he twined himself around Cutter more comfortably, waiting for him to have his sleep out, while his own body thrummed with interest.

It didn't take long, and Skywise had no idea if this was something to do with Fahr and Tam, or if it was about time to wake and play anyhow. But Cutter moved sinuously in his arms, stretching, and murmured against his hair. "Feels good."

"Feels better without all this," Skywise said, poking again at the grubby vest.

"Mmmm, I think I remember." Cutter's voice was thick with sleep and laughter. He threw off the vest and peeled himself out of his boots and leggings, but Skywise was quicker; while Cutter was still at work, Skywise, bare as an eel, moved in to nip at Cutter's throat just below the cool circle of gold.

"Hey!" said Cutter, not at all disapprovingly.

"I can't help it if some prey is just too slow," Skywise said.

Cutter hmmfed and growled, kicking his tangled leathers away at last, and pulled Skywise against him. They nipped and breathed and tasted each other, heating up, pushing the furs away and below.

Skywise found himself smiling blissfully, with no memory of when he'd started. Cutter's skin felt and tasted as good as it looked, moon-pale and faintest gold, hot across his filling muscle and broadening frame; his scent was brightening, opening out. And at the same time, Cutter's mouth on Skywise's skin was tender and seeking, the tips of his teeth barely grazing now and then, bringing up shiver after shiver.

Skywise lost any sense of time in all this, as he always did. Joining was a pure expression of the Now—and the Now was the purest expression of a Wolfrider. He—they—simply were. He savored it, in its eternity.

And when, after a time, he stretched out on the tangled furs with Cutter heavy on his back, he felt Cutter's teeth close on his nape and all was as it should be. He bowed his head forward, sweat dripping off him instead of tears, and gasped in pleasure.

**Fahr,** came the send, urgent and loving and yellow-bright as sun reflecting off gold.

Skywise startled, his entire body seized by it all at once just as his deepest mind was. Cutter's grip around him faltered, and they slipped to the side and fell there in an awkward tangle, with Cutter's brow knocking against the back of Skywise's head. Sweat stung in Skywise's eyes.

"Sorry," he said, his voice hoarse. "I don't... uh..."

Cutter pushed himself up, his hair darker gold with dampness all along his hairline. "You all right?"

Skywise nodded hastily, before Cutter's heavy-lidded eyes, misty with desire, could clear into worry. "It's just... I don't— I mean I didn't, usually..."

Cutter waited. But that was all Skywise had for him.

"Usually..." Cutter prompted.

He was so patient, kneeling there in the heat and the pleasure-haze, one steadying hand on Skywise's leg. He'd wait until Skywise untied the knots in his tongue, with his eyes so earnest and his brow furrowing down and just the tips of his fang-teeth showing past his soft lip. He was chief, and brother, and the mate of Skywise's own soul.

Skywise breathed in, tasted their scents combined, felt it in the center of his thoughts where all now was calm.

**I'm all right,** he sent. **Come here.**

Cutter let himself be pulled back down, giving a low, rumbling sigh. And in his arms Skywise was safe again—safe to let go of time and memory, safe to forget what there had even been to fear. No one was falling; no one was lost. He was they, but also he, and everything he was had been seen and found joyous.

**Tam,** he sent, mingling their souls and bodies both, first tentatively and then with growing ease.

It was Tam, or Fahr, or both, who answered all of the questions between them, with a single wordless thought-touch-feeling that had no bounds and would never end. **Yes**, they sent, and it echoed further past that moment than either yet could know. Beyond wolfblood, beyond turns without number, beyond moons and sun and star.

And so much, much later, with changed folk in a changed age, Skywise stirred against Cutter's side, and woke.

Cutter was dreaming. There were small, suppressed twitches in the muscles of his legs, his hands, faint flickers of tension in his brows. He wasn't sharing the dream itself as he slept, but Skywise nevertheless had a brief sense of the shape of a distant sun. A hand reached for it, fingers outstretched and striving.

On Cutter's other side, Leetah lifted her head, her long curls unbound and gleaming dark.

**How bad is this one?** Skywise asked her privately. **Can you tell?**

**Not clearly.** Her sending was so much more practiced now; Skywise savored the building strength in it. **But it does feel better. Much better.**

**He's always been quick-healing,** Skywise sent, relieved. **At least...he was before.**

**And is now.** Her reassurance was strong, knowledge rooted in her bond with Cutter and her own long life. **That hasn't changed.**

Skywise watched her as she looked at Cutter, her eyes fathomless with love for him. **And you?** he asked. **How are you healing?**

She didn't make light of his question or deflect it with an arch look—maybe the old Leetah would have, when she was safe and ignorant in her isolated desert village, grown sweetly arrogant in her power. But since then, she'd become not just Cutter's lifemate but a Wolfrider in her own right, and from both had learned the value of the straight cut.

**Swiftly,** she answered. **More swiftly than I expected. Perhaps more than I should.**

At Skywise's look, she shook her head and went on: **No, my friend--not that I believe I should suffer more for his sake. Only that my own recovery has seemed to flash by unnoticed, while I could only see his. And that makes me cautious: when I heal others, I don't just heal the skin across over the deeper wound. Nor should I do that to myself.**

Skywise reached over Cutter and took Leetah's hand, those cool and gentle fingers that held more power than Skywise had ever seen before.

She twined their hands together. **And you? How goes it with you?**

He gave her a shrug and a grin first; he almost couldn't help it. **Oh, you know me.**

But she tipped her elegant head and looked at him, her eyes deep, waiting.

Skywise had no wolfblood anymore, her gift to him, in his agony of need to live long enough to find Cutter again. And one of the things it meant was that there wasn't the same kind of comforting mist over recent pain, sweeping it quickly back into the was to leave the mind clear and ready in the Now. He did more remembering these days.

He remembered the dizziness of the palace's travel, a wonder and a pleasure he knew he'd love to feel again. He remembered the slow, disjointed leaps his mind had to take to catch up, to realize just how far into the will-be they'd come. He remembered every moment of Leetah telling him that Cutter and the rest of the mortal Wolfriders would be dead and dust by now.

He remembered his tears, sudden and hot as a gust of sparks blown into his face. His eyes closed tight against them, but they wouldn't stop, and neither would the terrible truth.

Tam was gone, and Fahr was again alone. His soul, ripped in two, ached and bled.

How was he, now that Cutter and most of the others had actually made it to this future, through suffering and endurance and ages of enchanted sleep?

Skywise considered, watching Leetah's face. She was so much older than he—but more than that, most of her long life had been so different, complex and inward and steeped in ancient magic. He wondered if she could understand the simplicity of his mind, wolfblood or no, where it had to do with Tam and Fahr.

He pressed her fingers in his and looked again at Cutter, whose jaw muscles were working slightly in his dream. And he laid their joined hands on Cutter's bare chest, where his Wolfrider's heartbeat thumped slow and strong.

Their touch instantly calmed him. His muscles softened and relaxed; his mouth opened a little in an easy breath. The tightness between his eyebrows vanished as if it had never been. He didn't surge from sleep as if escaping an enemy; now he drifted up. And even better: the first look in his slowly opening eyes wasn't terror, or grim determination, or even sudden and fervent gratitude.

Now it was just sleepy comfort and pleasure, beholding Leetah like she was a song taken form, creasing in a familiar smile at Skywise.

"You up?" he asked them, his voice husky. "Feels like it's barely past midday."

Leetah stroked her fingers through Cutter's hair, tweaking his chief's lock with affectionate familiarity. "Skywise was just telling me," she said, "that he's feeling very much better."

"M'glad." Cutter blinked at Skywise contentedly with those eyes of high-sun blue.

"You were dreaming," said Skywise. "What was it?"

"Oh," Cutter said with a yawn, "I was back on the Bridge of Destiny. Had to touch that sun symbol."

He smacked his lips and settled deeper into the furs, as if that ended it.

"And?" Skywise asked, leaning over him.

"And what."

"Did you?"

"Course I did. She's here, isn't she?" They both looked at Leetah, whose eyes seemed to glow with a surge of joy. Skywise felt it too, and smiled at her. The nightmare of failure, shame, and abandonment seemed to have gone for good.

She snuggled back into the furs, her hair spread across Cutter's shoulder. Cutter stretched his body in a comfortable writhe. **You dreamed too?** he sent to Skywise.

"Mmm-hmm." Skywise nestled close, and Cutter's warm arm slid around him.

**I think I felt some of it,** Cutter sent.

**Not surprised. I was dreaming of us.** His mind expressed an image without words, the us within them both where their souls met and grew.

**No need to dream that,** Cutter sent, with the wise amusement of the elder he was now. **Here it is.** And he knocked on the crown of Skywise's head with one gentle fist.

Skywise laughed against him. **Who would have thought.**

**Never had to think about it,** Cutter replied more gravely. **Not until I didn't have it.**

His muscles were broader under Skywise's hand now, the angles of his face emphasized by the soft fur growing along the line of his cheek. His eyes were so much older, but they were still his, always his. He was chief, and brother, and soul, and home.

**Do you remember any of it?** Skywise asked. **The beginning? It was so long ago, for you.**

**Don't need to remember it anymore,** Cutter sent, his mind fuzzing at the edges as he fell back toward sleep. **It's here.** The image glowed again, us. **All here.**

Cutter's upper thoughts faded into rest, leaving only a glowing subconscious awareness of Tam. Fahr reached out easily to him, without hesitation, and with the deepest levels of his mind and heart.

And in this embrace, with his family breathing soft around him, Skywise slept at peace.