Frozen moss crunched underneath Alika’s paws as she strode through the woods. Snow strutted out before the siblings, her perfectly white wings held tight against her sides as she waddled. Branches and bushes reached out toward Alika’s sides, scratching at her wings as she followed, keeping close to Tarka. When Snow had told them about a path, Alika had expected something more substantial, like a trail left by caribou or dragons. Instead, Snow was leading them down a path that would give even Hedi trouble.

“Are you sure your pack is this way?” Alika asked. “I haven’t seen any sign of dragons.”

Nor any other large predators, for that matter. The tree bark was smooth and unblemished. The scent of the forest was damp and clean, free of any pungent territory markers. Alika should have felt reassured, but instead, the apparent safety just made her more nervous. She didn’t trust Snow, and entering an unknown forest like this couldn’t help but remind her of the fateful day when she and Tarka had gone into the Wulfwoods. Just because she couldn’t see or smell danger didn’t make it non-existent.

“Of course I’m sure!” Snow scoffed, whipping her tail in a circle. “We all live in the deepest part of the forest, away from everyone else. It keeps us safe.”

Alika’s heart fluttered. How come that just made her more nervous? She looked toward Tarka, merrily prancing along behind Snow without any sort of concern as if captivated by Nigel’s gaze. Why wasn’t he as nervous as she was?

The foliage above them was denser here than at the forest’s edges, and the clouds were low today. A thick white fog kept Alika from seeing far into the pines, and even more worryingly, hid the rings. She was pretty sure they were still heading north, but how could she really be sure? What if Snow was leading them in the wrong direction? Alika squinted at the sky. Was that a circular arc of reflected light above her or just a parting in the fog?

“What, afraid something is gonna swoop down and get you?” Snow asked Alika.

Alika glared at the dragon’s cocky snout. Who’s to say that something wouldn’t? Another dragon? Something even larger? “Just looking for the rings. We’re still going north, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” Snow snorted. “If we were going south, we would have left the forest. Don’t worry; I know these woods like fur on top of my snout.”

“Alika probably just thinks all the fog is spooky!” Tarka exclaimed. “She’s right, it is spooky. It’s so cool!”

“It’s dangerous,” Alika replied. “If something was stalking us from downwind, we couldn’t see or smell them.”

Snow waved her tail into the fog and scoffed. “And what would attack us? We’re the most dangerous thing here.”

“Wolves might,” Alika said. Or other dragons.

“There are no wolves here,” Snow assured her. “Just us.”

As they walked onward through the fog, Alika glimpsed the unnatural shape of a sharp corner looming out from the shadows. Walking closer, it became more apparent that it was part of a larger structure — a partially collapsed stone wall.

“Alika, look! More ruins!” Tarka gestured out toward them with a wing.

The stone wall continued further on into the fog, while a pile of broken stone jutted out from behind it. The ruins didn’t look as old as the ones in the Wulfwoods, the stones here smoother and less misshapen. Alika tried to picture in her mind how the human structure might have once looked. The walls and shapes in the rubble neatly fit on top of each other: when intact, it might have formed a tower around twice Serka’s height.

“I’ve got lots of them around here,” Snow explained. “There used to be a bunch of humans who lived here a few hundred years ago, but they all abandoned it. They don’t come this far south. Too cold.”

The presence of the ruin just made Alika’s fur stand on end. Tragedy had occurred right after they’d seen the Wulfwoods ruins, and they’d been attacked when in the mountain ruins. Sure, there’d been nothing evil about the structures themselves, but Alika couldn’t help but feel that they were a magnet for danger. If this one was only a few hundred years old, why had it fallen? Had someone or something knocked it over?

“Maybe we’ll meet some humans on our journey north!” Tarka said. “That would be so cool. They could make books and ruins for us, and we could fly them around!”

Snow suddenly stopped, causing Alika to stumble and almost trip over Tarka.

“A journey north?” Snow asked. “That’s why you want to leave the forest?”

“Do you have a problem with that?” Alika untangled herself from Tarka.

Snow’s ears twitched. “That just… that seems really dangerous for two cubs. You’ll have to pass through the human settlements and cross the ocean somehow. You could get hurt.”

“We’re going to the Emerald Isle!” Tarka announced. “It’s a place where it’s green like here, except always! And there’s lots of prey. It’ll be great!”

“The winters here aren’t that bad,” Snow murmured, folding her wings closer in. “There’s lots of prey here too.”

“We’re not going to the Emerald Isle,” Alika interrupted. “We’re going to find our pack. They live in the far north, so that’s where we’ve got to go.”

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Snow swished her tail. “Yeah, but you two could stay with me until Tarka is large enough to fly, right? I could show you the best places to hunt, and safe places to den for the winter.”

“Yeah, we could do that!” Tarka agreed. “No more walking!”

“No. Tarka needs a family, and a proper parent who isn’t just me,” Alika growled. What was Snow trying to do? Why did she want them to stay so badly? “We’re not waiting until he can fly.”

“But I could — ” Snow protested.

“No, and that’s final!” Alika snarled, thrusting her snout at Snow’s and baring her fangs. “We’re looking for our family, not yours, and unless your name ends with a ‘ka’, you’re not part of it.”

Snow’s ears tilted back, and she shrunk down, hiding her tail between her legs. She took a few steps back from Alika.

“Fine, suit yourselves,” Snow muttered. She stepped off from the path and nimbly leaped onto one of the piles of rubble.

“Hey, where are you going?” Alika asked as Snow walked further into the fog-covered ruins. Alika glanced up, trying to find the rings, but couldn’t. “You’re not just leaving us here, are you?”

“What, that’s not what you wanted?” Snow tilted her head back and glared. “Since you’re in such a rush to leave, there’s a shortcut through the ruins. This way you can be out of here as quickly as possible and never have to see me again!”

Alika stared at Snow as the fog covered her up. Tarka leaped off the path to run after her.

“Hey, where are you going?” Alika asked.

“Do you want to be lost in the spooky forest ruins at night?” Tarka said. “I don’t! You should stop fighting with Snow. She’s my friend.”

Alika snorted. “You’d make friends with a demon bear if you saw one.”

Still, Alika followed Tarka. What other choice did she have? Without the rings above, they were hopelessly lost. If they wanted to get out of the forest, they had to rely on Snow.

Perhaps angering the dragon guiding them through the forest had not been such a good idea.

The stone walls of abandoned structures rose from the fog as the three traversed the ruins. Alika kept a cautious eye out as Tarka leaped from wall to wall, expecting something huge to leap out and snatch him up. If Snow had hidden her scent to sneak up on the two, who was to say that nothing else was doing the same?

It surprised Alika how large the ruins here were. This wasn’t just a den for a single human, a whole pack could live here. Though some of the buildings had been toppled or collapsed, others were more intact. Alika could make out four flattened walls and rotting wooden beams making a ceiling of one — perhaps it had once helped keep out the cold and snow, but she couldn’t figure out how. She wondered why these humans hadn’t just made their dens by digging out dirt and cutting away stone. It seemed far easier than clawing apart stone and building it into ruins.

Tarka pounced onto the edges of the ceiling, prancing around it and pawing at one of the wooden beams.

“Tarka, get down from there,” Alika said. “You don’t want to fall in.”

Tarka snorted with disdain and pushed more of his weight onto the beam. With a loud crack, it snapped in two, causing him to leap back and off from the wall. His wings spread out, and he landed flat on his paws on the exterior of the ruin.

“I’m okay!” Tarka said. “Look, I can glide like you!”

Alika didn’t think that the fall was far enough for him to do much gliding, but she said nothing. Another beam fell into the interior of the walls, and her ears perked up as she heard something scuttling around inside. Her talons stretched out, and she felt her chest go warm. Had they woken something up?

A tiny creature that Alika could fit in her paw darted out from a hole in the wall, brown and black fur covering its cylinder body. It ran past Alika, only for talons to come crashing down upon it as Snow pounced from the shadows. She picked up her prey in her jaws and ate it.

“Just a lemming,” Snow said, heading back into the ruins. “They’re everywhere.”

Alika’s eyes darted from wall to wall as they continued inward, now along what seemed to be an actual pathway through the forest. What had this place looked like when it was inhabited? What had happened to the humans living here? If Snow was being truthful, and they’d been here only a few hundred years ago, then they’d left long after the Cataclysm: when Nigel had shattered the third Twin and frozen the world, and the humans near the glacier had gone north to escape the cold. Had Snow’s pack come from the north and driven them away? If so, how come Serka hadn’t mentioned seeing dragons south of the ocean when recounting her and Father’s journeys? Something was wrong here.

Alika walked as close to Tarka as she could, brushing him with a wing and putting her snout to his ear. “Tarka, I don’t think this is a good idea,” she whispered.

“What isn’t a good idea?” Tarka said loudly.

Snow glanced back, and Alika bared her fangs.

“I don’t trust Snow,” Alika hissed. “I think she’s lying about leading us to her pack. If there were dragons living here, Mom would have mentioned, right?”

Tarka tilted his head from side to side. “Why are you so mean to her?” he replied, evading the question.

“I’m just being careful,” Alika said. “There’s something not right about this.”

“Hmph,” Tarka snorted. “You’re just jealous that I have a new friend who likes playing with me when you don’t.”

Alika’s talons tensed. “I’m just trying to keep you safe!”

Tarka shook his head. “I think you’re being mean.”

Before Alika could retort, Tarka sprinted ahead of her, joining Snow’s side and poking her with a wing.

“Snow, Snow!” Tarka said. “Have you ever seen any humans?”

Alika glowered.

“Of course I have!” Snow replied, wagging her tail. “I’m surprised you haven’t. Most of them are nasty, mean things that get everywhere, always waving around swords and yelling.”

Alika didn’t believe that for a second. Snow was probably just making that up, like everything else she said. She was probably just trying to sound cool to Tarka.

“Really?” Tarka asked. He ran in a semi-circle around Snow’s head to her other side, poking at one of the ruins. “Mom once said that she and Dad met humans who fed them in exchange for giving them fire. They didn’t say anything about swords and yelling.”

Snow seemed to consider that for a moment, probably thinking up her next lie. “Well, not all humans are bad. There are some good ones. But humans are dangerous, and if you cause them even the slightest inconvenience they’ll try to skin you and cut off your tails!”

Snow bent her snout down toward Tarka with a toothy grin, raising a claw and lunging at his tail. Alika tensed, but Snow didn’t so much as leave a scratch, and Tarka swatted her paw away with a wing.

“Don’t mess with humans,” Snow continued. “Not if you like your tail.”

Tarka shivered and pulled his tail inward.

“I bet you’ve never even met a human,” Alika mumbled, too quietly for Snow or Tarka to hear.