Prologue

“Two for vengeance. One for love.”
- Ruin by John Gwynne

He could not smell her.

Ever before, the silver fox could find the huntress. Her scent was distinctive, familiar, one he had known since she was a kit. Even as it shifted from the forest and wild things to smoke and bitter rock, she remained as close to kin as her kind could become. A part of his skulk.

But when she entered that den of the killers, he had lost her.

The silver fox followed his nose to those with whom the huntress traveled and claimed as part of her skulk. Though he detected only her lingering scent among them, he had no better leads. He sensed they had returned to the place where they had stayed before atop the dead Vast Mother. Exposed upon the rocks, his instincts fought against going there, yet he slunk up the path all the same.

They were huddled around a dying fire, chattering like they feared a coming cold, though the heat of summer had yet to fully arrive. Fear and stress was fragrant across the den with the tang of blood and bite of illness. Their lifefires burned low—though by the half-eaten vittles around them, it was not from a lack of food. This was a bad place for one who was sometimes prey. The silver fox’s every limb was rigid, lacking his usual languid grace.

At his appearance, the humans looked over and babbled at him. He understood them not from the sounds, but by sight and smell. Their eyes were wide, their movements frantic. Their scents all wrong.

Where is she? they asked him a dozen different ways. Where is she?

The silver fox shrank from their entreaties, on the verge of bolting. But they seemed to understand his leeriness. Soon, they looked back at each other and away from him.

Relaxing, the silver fox crept forward, sniffing as he went. Searching for any clue he had missed before. Most of the skulk was present.

One Who Is Many Things stood among them.

As she approached and kneeled before him, he did not run. Only with her did he feel as secure as with the huntress. He had claimed her chest as his den for many a winter, wrapping his spirit around hers. He knew her, within and without. She would not harm him.

One Who Is Many Things held out her hand to him, and he snuffled it, then rubbed his scent on her palm. Her mouth curled up in approval, but her lifefire remained low.

“Well, little one?” she murmured, running her claws gently along his spine. “Can you find her, our Hidden One?”

He knew not the words in the sounds, but felt the meaning of them in her mind. Forlorn, the silver fox gazed across the blighted island. He had hoped it was she who might guide him.

“No, I know not where she lies. Where they have taken her.”

Her spirit flared brighter. The silver fox startled, fearful of being burned. One Who Is Many Things sighed, and the heat left with the exhalation.

“Do not fear. She is strong. And valuable. He will not kill her…or the Sharo I know would not.”

Death, death, death. Like the stench of sour carrion, it filtered through her thoughts. The silver fox skirted from her touch. Even if she did not intend it, such imaginings filled him with mortal fear.

One Who Is Many Things stood and gazed upon him in silence. “Go, little one,” she said at last. “Fill your belly. You will do her no good by starving.”

Only at her mention of it did he realize hunger gnawed at his belly. His spirit craved fresh life. He had put off hunting for too long.

The huntress would have to wait.

The silver fox crept forward, rubbed once more on the ancient one’s leg, then froze. Where before only questions of the huntress had filled her being, now another vision bloomed.

“Yes,” One Who Is Many Things whispered. “Another task calls me. One more…essential.”

He saw it. The silver trunk and graceful branches. The golden leaves, shimmering as they stirred in a wind, flashing like wet stones in sunlight. The bronze vines embracing the wood, pumping vitality into the chrysalises hanging heavy from the branches.

Within those shells grew her immortal kin.

It was only a dream, a thought not come to pass, but the silver fox shuddered as if it were before him. Lifting his gaze, he stared at the seed glowing warm within the chest of One Who Is Many Things. This was the source of what he had seen. This that might become such a mighty tree.

Many scents drifted from the ageless one, but one overrode them all. The wholesome scent of a den newly returned to. A welcoming home.

But it was not real, and as a pang shot through his stomach, the silver fox lost interest. With a glance at the ancient one, he circled the camp once more, but caught no sign of the huntress’s spoor. Tail low, he crept back the way he had come. He had smelled a vole in the forest below. If he was subtle, he might ambush it still.

“Yes.” One Who Is Many Things whispered, but her meaning traveled across the space to seep into his mind. “Go. Grow strong. Then find her.”

He did as she bade. But before he went far, the silver fox looked back. Both the ageless one and the short-lived humans were watching him. His hair stood on end at their rapt attention. Vigilant, the silver fox slunk away, belly nearly scraping the stone. He felt their desire to yap at him again. Their yearning for something he could not give.

But none stopped him. As soon as he was out of eyesight, the silver fox bolted down the path. He did not flee through the forest’s web now, for only death waited on the other side.

For now, the vole required his attention. Then he would resume his hunt for the huntress. She was part of his skulk. Until he knew what had become of her, he would not abandon her.

Even if she had vanished beyond reach of his senses.