The wolf stopped. Its form blurred, until it morphed into a man. He was tall, even for an alpha; at least six inches taller than Lothar, with arms as thick and hard as tree trunks. The shifter's hair was tawny and thick like his wolf’s form had been, and the wiry stubble that grew from his cheeks was threatening to turn into a beard that was just as wild and unkept as his hair. He sniffed the air, much like an animal would.

Then, the man looked at the ground, studying the ashfall.

Do I flee? What about footprints? Will the enchantment cover them, too? But he can still hear me, even if he can’t see me. And he can still smell me. But if I stay here, I’m just as dead, thought Darius, trying not to breathe. He eyed the walking stick, wondering if it would slow him down if he had to run. But it would probably hurt someone if I were to hit them with it. Lothar motioned to him and Emmory, pointing down the trail.

“Go,” The command was silent, but Darius could read the word on his lips. His metal arm plates shimmered, preparing to unfold at a moment's notice.

“Where oh where are you?” said the shifter, sniffing the air again. “Six? Or is it four? No… Four… Two alphas, and two lovely little omegas.”

Emmory shook his head, and looked to be preparing for a fight, but Darius grabbed his arm and began to pull him away as silently as he could. He grabbed the walking stick, holding it like a weapon as he padded away on tiptoes.

“My name is Amadean! I’m a follower of Our Lady of the Fire. Tell me, would you like to be more powerful than you could imagine?” It sounded like the introduction to a deranged sort of joke. Had he not been so terrified, Darius would have laughed.

Lothar moved away from Darius. With catlike grace, he ducked in the opposite direction of Darius, throwing a rock past Amadean’s head and practically vanished into the moongrass bushes. Amadean whipped around, looking for the source of the noise.

Wind whipped around Darius- they were running against the wind. Not ideal; all the stories Darius had heard about shifters said they were known for having the nose of a bloodhound. But if that’s true, he’d be able to find us by following our trail anyways, thought Darius, feeling Emmory fighting against his grip.

“I can fight him, too!” whispered Emmory, protesting weakly as they both continued to run away as fast as they could.

“Maybe, but we’re not going to,” said Darius, taking a quick glance to look behind them as soon as it felt safe enough. All he saw was ash, and the occasional moongrass bush that hadn’t been entirely covered in it.

“What if he hurts Lothar?”

“I don’t think your brother is stupid enough to get in a one-on-one fight with that guy,” said Darius, panting as he ran as fast as he could.

“He is absolutely stupid enough to get in a one-on-one fight with him!”

A reverberating snarl tore through the air. Then a blurry shape, barely visible through the ash and dim light, jumped over them from a tree. It was another shifter, this one a silvery gray, though it could have been the ash that coated its fur. Emmory shrieked. It felt like a knife driving itself straight into Darius’ ear, tripping him and sending him flying into the ash, pulling Emmory with him.

I’m not freezing again, thought Darius, pulling himself back up and helping Emmory back to his feet just in time to dodge as the wolf attacked the cloud of ash he had kicked up. Darius swung the walking stick.

THUNK.

The wolf yelped when the stick collided with its head, then moved like smoke as it morphed back into a man. Blood dripped from his mouth. Snarling like a wild animal, the shifter spat a bloody tooth onto the ground, then stared straight at Darius.

“Where’s the other one?”

He can see me? Darius gripped the walking stick harder, realizing his mistake too late- attacking the shifter had caused the invisibility spell to lift. He swung again, harder. But the shifter snatched it midswing, using it to pull Darius toward him before tossing it aside. Before Darius could back away, the shifter tripped him. Once again, Darius fell into the ash.

“We’re having a feast, and you’re invited- Lord Amadean has ordered us to invite people to our compound, to celebrate Our Lady of Fire’s reawakening,” said the shifter, grabbing his ankles and dragging him across the ash and pumice.

Where’s Emmory? Darius kicked, but the shifter was too strong to free himself.

“Help!”

Suddenly, Darius spotted his walking stick. He reached for it, swinging it toward the shifter’s head as his fingers wrapped around the wood.

ZAP!

“Argh!”

Darius heard a strange noise. At first, he thought it was a massive bee or that a hummingbird had just flown past him. But just as he heard it, lightning burst from the air in an arc, wrapping itself around the shifter like a deadly cocoon. This time, it was Darius’ turn to shriek. Emmory appeared behind the shifter; his hands, the source of the lightning, were gripping onto the shifter's head in an attempt to wrench him away from Darius.

“What-?”

Before Darius could react beyond confusion and a sense of relief, Emmory’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he groaned in pain. He collapsed, falling on top of Darius.

“Owie…”

“What was that?” said Darius, pulling Emmory to his feet, and slinging the boy’s arm over his shoulders, leaning heavily on his walking stick.

“A trick Lothar showed me that Soul- um, Soul- that he uses as a last resort. Basically, you- you pull all the magic you can into your hands and con-condense it until it bursts out in a big- really big bolt of lightning,” mumbled Emmory, limping as they followed the path. His movement was stuttered, like his arms and legs didn’t want to do what they were told, and Darius could see faint burns rippling up from his hands to his arms that looked almost like lightning. “I’ve never- Lothar was always- Ow…” Emmory whined, sounding a bit like a wounded animal. “Don’t try it. It really, really hurts, and uses far too much magic. Shit.”

“And if you fuck it up, you’re dead,” said a pained, disjointed voice behind them.

Growling behind them, the shifter stood up. He roared, then began running at them again, only angrier and in more pain than the first time. With a howl, the shifter morphed back into a wolf to bite Emmory’s arm, then began dragging him away.

“Emmory!” Darius jumped onto the shifter, grappling the wolf’s massive neck and using his walking stick to choke it. He held on, squeezing the shifter’s airpipe with all his might. He felt them transform, turning back into a man. “Let him go!”

The shifter choked, unable to reply. By the time Darius realized that they had already let Emmory go, they were completely still. Nearby, Emmory was standing and holding his arm, as pale as the ash surrounding them as he stared at Darius and the dead wolf shifter.

“Emmory!” shouted Lothar, running down the path towards them.

Clumsily, Emmory whipped around, nearly plummeting to the ground. Lothar caught him, picking him up and hoisting him over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

“Lothar-,”

“What happened?” said Lothar. When Emmory mumbled off a series of unintelligible explanations, Darius told him about the shifter attacking them and how they fought it off. Lothar reeled, fear showing on his face.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“What was I supposed-!”

“Damnit, Emmy, you could have killed yourself!”

“Yeah? Well, that creep was trying to-!”

Lothar shushed Emmory loudly, unfolding his sword and holding it at ready as several howls rang through the woods. Freezing in place, and trying to stay as quiet as possible so that he might be able to stay out of the fight, Darius forgot about the dead wolf shifter on the ground and inched closer to Emmory and Lothar. Dad, where are you?

“I think they’re leaving…” said Lothar, folding his sword back up.

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“I’m sorry…” said Darius, not sure what he did wrong, but feeling guilty all the same.

“Why are you sorry?” said Emmory, lifting his head graclessly in an attempt to look at Darius through the mountain of red curls falling over his eyes.

“You got hurt saving me,”

“Just repaying my debt. You saved me during the earthquake. And you saved me again just now,”

“During the earthquake? What do you mean?”

“There was a shelf in your room. I was sleeping under it. Almost as soon as you moved me, it fell. While I don’t think it would have killed me, I would have gotten stuck. Or badly hurt. And with us running from a volcanic eruption…”

“Oh,” Darius chewed on his cheek, not sure of what to say next.

“Lothar, you should have seen Darius- he looked so cool. It was just like when Gaius ran up and grabbed the viper that was attacking Captain Chewy and Roland-,”

“Who’s-?”

“Captain Chewy is our neighbor’s goat. And Roland is our little brother. Lothar’s horse, Skitters, is terrified of him. The goat, I mean,” said Emmory, letting his head flop down with a groan. “Well, Roland, too, I guess.”

“In Skitters’ defense, all that goat does is escape his enclosure, find Skitters, and stare menacingly at him,” said Lothar, rolling his eyes. “And Skitters is terrified of everything, including rabbits.”

“Well, if the rabbits weren’t so vicious, there wouldn’t be a problem,” said Emmory, with an attempt at a light-hearted joking tone that came out pinched, as his voice wavered in spasms.

“Yes, the vicious man-eating rabbits. How could I forget?” Lothar rolled his eyes again, “What next? Giant snails that terrorize the countryside?”

“Well, they’re armored, so they’d be a bit harder to fight than slugs,”

“They’re slow as all hell, too. Just throw a bunch of salt in their way-,”

“Salt is expensive-,”

“Where’s my dad?” asked Darius, looking around wildly, hoping to see Marcus popping up.

Emmory and Lothar both fell silent, then Lothar said, reluctantly, “I don’t know. He vanished while I was dealing with Amadean.”

“Vanished? What do you mean?”

“He probably fell off of the trail and got lost,” said Lothar, without looking at Darius.

Darius felt his heart plummet into his stomach. “We have to go back-!”

He moved to run in the opposite direction, but before he could, Lothar used his free hand to grab him.

“Absolutely not,”

“He’s my dad! I can’t just leave him here!”

“He can take care of himself-!”

“No, he can’t!” Darius yelled, trying to break free of Lothar’s grip. Marcus could do a lot of things; paint magical birds that danced on the wall, and build colorful tile mosaics that rearranged themselves at will. But he was a man of the city- survival in the wild was not one of them. Or mine, for that matter.

Lothar swung Darius around so they were standing face to face, “Darius, Emmory is hurt- I can’t take care of him and go hiking through the woods to look for your father-”

“I’ll go by myself-,”

“Going out there by yourself right now is a death sentence. You can’t help your father if you’re dead. And what about Fabien? Do you want him to lose his older brother on the same day? In addition to his mother and father? True, he has Sentia with him, but he’s going to want you, too.”

Darius growled, finally wrenching his arm free of Lothar. But he didn’t run; though the idea of admitting it to himself, there was truth in Lothar’s words. Encountering a shifter by himself would mean death, or worse. Darius didn’t know what plans the shifters had for the unlucky souls they were ‘inviting’ to their feast in honor of Bantine, but he knew that he didn’t want to find out. Fabien needs me. Especially right now.

“Fine,” said Darius, with a vicious snarl to try and cover the sob that was tearing through his throat. He wanted to yell again, but he could still hear people screaming in the distance as shifters continued to prey upon people fleeing Chutwater’s destruction.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,”

Fabien’s alive, right? Darius stopped walking, biting his lip hard as he felt every muscle in his body freeze at once. No. I won’t think like that. Fabien is alive. Sentia is meeting us at the village near Selene’s temple. She loves Fabien- she won’t let anything happen to him.

But what if he wasn’t? Darius hadn’t expected Marcus to vanish, either. He hadn’t gone to bed last night expecting the mountain to erupt, forcing him to flee for his life. Caturix was emaciated and ill, and in no condition to be running up a mountain trail carrying anyone, let alone both Sentia and Fabien. If one of the shifters attacked them, it would have been no contest.

Not sure what else to do, Darius forced his feet to keep moving. He blinked, feeling burning hot tears growing in his eyes. Fuck. Quickly, Darius wiped at his eyes, disguising the movement by fixing the scarves that had fallen off from where they were covering his mouth. There was nothing he could do about the sniffles and chokes he was making whenever he breathed, but both Emmory and Lothar were acting like they couldn’t hear him.

At least I have that, thought Darius, who would have been otherwise mortified. The only people he was comfortable crying in front of were Fabien and Sentia.

…

“Shit,”

Lothar stopped at the fork they came upon. Leaning in close to Darius, he said quietly. “Do you remember which direction Sentia said to take?”

“Right,” said Darius, moving away from Lothar to continue walking miserably through the ash and pumice on the ground. He had journeyed to Selene’s temple several times with Irini and Sentia.

He could hear how thick his voice sounded, and took a deep breath to try and calm himself. Sentia and Fabien are going to be fine. But… What if Dad doesn’t make it back? Everything is gone. Everything. All our supplies are gone. I have no money. Maybe I could work as a servant… I’m good at spinning.

A grand building, built on the cliffside, and just off of the path came into view after about two miles. On a normal night, it would have glowed white underneath the moon from quartz mosaics that had been crafted on the outside walls and roofs. Now, the temple was barely visible through the haze of ash and grime in the air.

Darius had nearly finished creating a battle strategy of how to survive his new life in Berger’s Landing. After leaving the boat, he would find work as a tailor or spinner, then an apartment who’s landlord didn’t care that he was an omega and unmated. Sentia could watch Fabien-

What if she leaves? In Berger’s Landing, Sentia wouldn’t be a slave. It’s illegal there. She could leave if she wanted. She probably will leave. I would leave, too… If that happens… Fabien will just have to stay with me when I go to work, thought Darius, following Lothar deep into the clearing where Selene’s temple was built. They passed a fountain where several people had stopped to wash themselves of the ash that had built up over the journey. After wordlessly doing the same, Darius continued down a heavily worn path that led straight to the temple. Lothar followed closely behind him, still carrying Emmory.

A swarm of makeshift tents, reaching as far as Darius could see, lined the fields surrounding the Temple of Selene. The ashfall piling on top of them made them look like little stones, lined haphazardly alongside one another in mismatched patterns. The area was reasonably well-lit compared to the moongrass path. Torches and lamps were in most of the tents, filling the area with enough light that Darius didn’t have to strain to see anything.

Next to him, Lothar set Emmory down, who leaned heavily on Darius. Sweat-soaked red curls, covered in gray ash, stuck to Emmory’s brow; the boy looked feverish and liable to collapse at any moment.

“Sentia should be near,” said Lothar, pulling a gold coin from his pocket. Darius didn’t know if it was the lamplight or magic, but the coin glinted in an unsettling manner.

“What sort of magic does that use? The coin, I mean,”

“It’s not a coin,” said Lothar, handing it to Darius, “Well, not a complete one,”

Upon holding it, Darius realized what he meant. The coin had been cut in half; Lothar had the head, Sentia had the tail face.

“The enchantment lets me psychically locate the other half,” explained Lothar, as Darius flipped the coin over to see the grooves where the gold coin had been carefully cut in half. It was straining against another loop of Spell-Thread, and hovering in mid-air like a compass. “Sentia’s around here- maybe a few hundred feet away.”

“Where did you learn it?”

“It’s part of the training regiment at the Blessed Lady of the Fountain’s School for Mage’s,” said Lothar, looking very proud of himself. “I was in the top five students of my graduating class. Would have been in the top three, but I caught bronchitis just before the final exams- fell into the lake during our water-walking test. Still completed them, though,”

“Couldn’t they have let you take them after recovering?”

“No- the final exam had to be completed during the summer solstice,” said Lothar, with a heavy sigh. “Where did you learn to spin Spell-Thread? It’s not a common skill outside of the patrician class,”

“Saw a lady doing it once in the agora. Wanted to try it for myself.”

“No, you didn’t,” Emmory laughed, then coughed harshly. “C’mon. Who taught you? Where’d you go to school?”

“Well, Dad…. Sort of…” said Darius, shrugging. “Dad knows how to channel magic into his art supplies. I just apply the same principles into the thread I spin. It took a while, though. Moving magic through fiber is different from paint…”

Darius deflated, his voice fading away as he thought of his father, lost in the woods. I can’t think of that right now. I need to find Fabien.

“Um…” Darius wiped his face, feeling his eyes burn. He sniffed, taking a long, deep breath looking amongst the crowd for any sign of Sentia, Fabien, or Caturix. “I don’t understand… Where could-,”

“DARI!”

Something approximately the size and weight of a medium-sized dog ran straight into Darius, crying loudly. Falling to the ground, Darius hugged Fabien back tightly, relief crashing through him like a cold, terrible wave. He shivered, unable to stop the icy feeling traveling through his hands to his heart as he pulled Fabien so tightly against him that he thought he might accidently crush the boy.

Reluctantly, Darius let Fabien go.

“Where’s Sentia?” said Lothar, his face stunned as he examined the other half of his coin tied around Fabien’s wrist. “I tied this around Sentia’s wrist… How did she get it off?”

“She untied it,” said Fabien, attempting to undo the knot. Lothar stopped him, then hovered his palm above the knot. The knot sprang open, allowing the coin to fly into the air as it soared to meet its other half. They fused together and Lothar placed the coin back in his pocket.

“Who trained her?”

“I dunno,” said Fabien, shuffling his feet. “She just did what you did, only she tied the thread around my hand. She said she wanted me to keep it safe for her,”

“Whatever…” said Lothar, looking around the crowd for Sentia. “Where is she?”

“She was right-,” Fabien paused, looking behind him. He pointed to a cart drawn by an old goat, sheltered from the ash by a tarp, and overloaded with bolts of fabric. “She was over there. She was talking to a medicus lady with a wolf head who helped Caturix with a sore ankle he had, then she went to talk to the nice ladies with the goat. And then I saw you, so I ran over here.”

Darius ran to the cart that Fabein pointed to. There were two women there, spinning. They stopped as he approached.

“I'm assuming you’re the older brother?” said one of them, a beta with dark hair bound in a long tight braid.

“Yes- my name is Darius. I’m looking for a woman, Sentia. She’s Fabien’s nurse,” said Darius, trying not to show how panicked he was feeling. “Fabien said she spoke to you,”

“Bought a dress and a scarf from us,” said the other woman, resuming her spinning.

“With what money?” said Lothar, “She’s a slave,”

“Someone gave her a whole bag of gold,” said the first woman, giving a nonchalant shrug. “She told me her master wanted the dress for his wife.”

Caturix… Dad told her to take the money from his safe… It was probably heavy. He must have told her to keep carrying it for him, thought Darius, getting a sinking feeling in his gut. But Dad isn’t here, and Mom…

“Which direction did she leave in?” asked Lothar, frowning.

“She went off toward the forest with another woman. A beta,” said the second woman. “I think she was a pirate- had a skull tattooed on the back of her hand.”

“Shit,” said Lothar, growling.

“What?”

“Pirates,” said Lothar, swearing to himself. “As if wolf shifters weren’t bad enough, your slave has gotten mixed up with pirates,”

“Pirates? You can’t possibly know that from one tattoo-,” Darius said, starting to get frustrated.

“Do you know how to get to Rensworth from here?” said Lothar, changing the subject.

“I- Maybe…,” said Darius, though he knew it to possibly be a lie. He knew the moongrass path led to Rensworth. Marcus had business there every few months, and Darius liked to accompany him. However, he had never been the one leading the way through the winding, twisting path. The several places where the path split; Darius wasn’t entirely certain he could remember which path to take when that happened.

“Then we set up camp, and move on tomorrow,” said Lothar, setting Emmory on the ground, near a fallen tree. “Watch Emmory for me- I need to find some moongrass root.”

“M’ chest hursts,” said Emmory, wincing when Lothar placed him on the ground.

He’ll need a lot of it… Moongrass root was often chewed or used in tea to restore mana during the winter months, when direct sunlight was scarce. But dried moongrass root was more potent than fresh.

“I saw someone who had dried root on the way here. Kay, Emmy? I’ll be right back,” said Lothar, kissing the top of Emmory’s head. Emmory grunted, but his eyes remained closed, and he barely stirred. His already pale skin was clammy, and looked like every drop of color had been drained from it. Lothar pulled off his orange cloak, draping it over Emmory.

“What about the temple? We should take him there. They have healers,”

“They’ll just give him moongrass tea- that's what Father always has me drink when I'm like this after training. And besides- they’ll separate us; alpha’s can’t enter the temple,” said Lothar, though he looked conflicted. “He’ll be fine. Just watch him for me, please,”

Within moments, Lothar, too, was gone.