The cave was not lit. There was a smell of blood in the air that immediately made Rosalea feel a little sick. Her mind began inventing terrible things that might exist within this place.

“I suppose you do not see well in the dark?” Nekana asked.

“Not well,” Rosalea agreed. She looked up at the sky as if she could summon back the dragon to explain herself or pay for her crimes. Rosalea felt disgruntled that they had broken rules and she had prepped herself to fight off a dragon that just ran for her life.

Nekana breathed out, and water gathered near her muzzle that captured the daylight around them, and then hovered near Rosalea as she slowly entered the cave.

There were several cages, they were all empty save one. Nakai whined as soon as he saw his mother, and Rosalea nearly fell off as she ran for him. The light went out as Nekana focused on using great big amounts of water from the air to grip onto the edges of the earth-cage and rip it down.

It did not work, her water slid off of it and hissed. “If mystics could get away like that, I am sure they all would have, and we would have seen some of them. Though… I only see Nakai here,” Rosalea said as she slid off of Nekana.

The wolf growled, but Rosalea did not feel like it was at her. Rosalea was small enough to just fit through the gaps of the prison. Nakai whined weakly at her, but he did not seem like he could get up. Rosalea pet his face. “We shall get Taigan, and you will feel better in just a minute,” she said, kneeling with him. Nekana called more light, and Rosalea saw obvious markings on the inside of the cage. “They remind me of a brand, they are dragon runes, but I cannot read them.”

Nekana paced a little, the light bobbing with her. “Can you try to mar one?”

Rosalea looked around, found a reasonable-sized rock, and then moved up to the thick arm of the cage. The metal arms of the cage bent into a roughly spherical shape in a way that reminded her a little of a gourd called a pumpkin she had seen in a market once. It was round with a bunch of segmented fingers that joined at the top. She chipped away at one of the markings, and it crackled a little at her she cracked a piece off the rune and made it an odd shape.

The light went out again as Nekana wrapped it in magic and pulled with even more force - the stone broke and fell to the floor with a great big crack. “It is said that dark magic can be made with the right words and sigils,” Nekana said as she stepped over and carefully wrapped her son in water and lifted him gently from the ground. “Let’s get Taigan.”

Rosalea agreed with that, and there was lots of excited yipping as they brought Nakai back out of the cave, and then concerned noises. It took Bazil being stern with Raisa and Miri to keep them out of Taigan’s space as he worked to try to help Nakai.

Nekana took Rosalea back into the cave, calling the light again.

There were several empty steel cages just sitting in a row at the back of the cave, but everything was empty. There were some eggs in the very back of the room… with half formed… somethings… in them… that was the source of what Rosalea could smell. It made her nauseated pretty quickly, and Nekana took them back out.

“This strikes me as more of a workshop and less of a proper lair,” Nekana said with a little frustration.

“But what was she making out of mystics?”

Nekana shook her head. “I do not know. I am surprised the Gods allowed her to try it. The last time… something… something like this happened, the dragon was killed almost immediately happened.”

“What happened?” Rosalea asked.

“We lost our future Moryshin,” Nekana said, “She was made into a creature different from a mystic.” There was pain and distance in what Nekana said… and it was something Rosalea already knew. Rosalea was silent. Nekana spoke slowly, “She was my little one. She was to be a new type of Moryshin. She’s a human somewhere out there now. I feel responsible for how badly everything has gone… because I lost her. Who loses their children to a dragon?”

Rosalea hugged Nekana tightly. It was the most vulnerable thing she had heard the wolf say, and it made her feel the ache of the loss in the center of her body. I left Lio with a dragon, a kind one, but I left her all the same. “No one, not even you, should suggest that you were at any fault for that. Sometimes people do… cruel things,” she said. Several things came to her at once, Nashota, losing Annie, dealing with people who hated and feared her race.

“On our walk here, I had started to wonder if you had forgotten your kindness,” Nekana said as she paused and pressed herself closer to Rosalea a little.

Rosalea felt her face flush a little. “I just… I have tried all my life to be what people wanted me to be: a princess. Someone who is kind and strong and takes the best path that harms no one. I thought it was what I had to be… because of how I was raised.”

Nekana made a soft musing sound and began to walk where most her children were sleeping near Honor who was grazing. Taigan was still working on Nakai in his slow and careful way of healing complicated injuries. “I think I am lucky that you decided to go against your upbringing, though it is a little unsettling to see every time you flip from quiet and measured to a savage.” She smiled and pushed her wet nose to the side of Rosalea’s cheek.

Rosalea huffed and rubbed the wet off, “I… do not even know what to say to that. I just… I like all of you at this point, despite keeping me secured and sheltered as possible.”

Nekana breathed out. “Well, the den is not going to be the same now, if we can even return to it.” She closed her eyes, stopping near Nakai. “We lived there my whole life, the place customized by generations of my family… and Connall may have destroyed it… and we have defied our Moryshin.”

Amalia opened her eyes. She stared up at Nekana. Rosalea frowned as she could tell there waa silent communication between them. Nekana sighed again. “Rosalea, what was the name your liana called you?”

Rosalea frowned, “I… do not understand. Why?”

“Amalia seems to think you need to tell me.”

Rosalea looked at Amalia.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Amalia did not answer.

Rosalea thought about how… intensely interested she had been in the mark on her foot. Rosalea did not want to answer. There was something going on that she did not understand, some sort of weight in the world. Nauru came over to her, and Rosalea picked him up, hugging him close.

Finally, Amalia spoke, “I took a human child from this forest after she had been changed,” she looked to her mother. “I took my sister by order of the gods awafromrm the woods. I was told the place she would fit in best would be with Uryans. The first Uryan I found said he was married to an Ieshan. I thought the unique relationship would be a boon to the child. They told me that they could not have children of their own, the wife was sick with an incurable illness that had taken root in her brain.”

There was silence. Rosalea started to feel a panicked sensation in the pit of her stomach. She put Nauru down, and she backed up a little.

Amalia looked even more intensely. “I think it turned out, though I did not know it, that the Ieshan woman was a runaway princess. And it was a fate that her adopted daughter would end up sharing.”

“No,” Rosalea heard herself saying. “No, that cannot be. What are you saying?”

Amalia started to slowly stand up. “I am saying my little sister was a black puppy with a white marking on just one back paw,” she said, starting to advance toward Rosalea as all the wolves now stared at them both.

Her heart was pounding so hard. She was going to suffocate. She was going to throw up. “Stop!” was all she could gasp out. She backed up more.

Amalia advanced step by step. “I thought I gave my sister to someone who would dote on her when his wife died. He had a wolf liana, named Hakon, so I knew they would understand wolves. They were far away from any Ieshans or Uryans. How could I know that they were fugitives for reasons more than forbidden love?”

The panic swallowed her alive.

She spun on her heel and ran.

Could she outrun wolves?

No.

Nauru was already catching up to her, keeping pace alongside her.

Amalia ran after her, but she had a limp from getting mauled earlier. “Come back, Nadia!”

It cannot be. It cannot. The weight of a thousand misconceptions and lies pressed down on her, gnawing at her from the inside out.

Amalia was closing on her, even with her limp. “Rosalea! Nadia!” she called.

A human cannot outrun a wolf. Only a wolf can outrun a wolf.

But as if hearing her name, as if hearing the truth she could not stand to process yet, she transformed.

There was no Fen.

But.

There was never a need for a Fen, was there? If this was what she really was?

She fell into her wolf shape and she sprinted back toward the Moryshin’s forest, away from the wolves that had treated her like family for months.

She could not do this right now.

There was never a need for Fen.

Ulric was not her cousin.

She was as far some prophesied One as she could get.

She ran recklessly; she could not process this. It was too much. She leaped through the bramble wall, falling over herself, and then she kept running. If she was a wolf… then everything she had ever done, ever thought, ever been…

It was all worse than nothing. People had died for a literal wolf in disguise.

***

Nekana fela pressure and a heat in her chest that was hard to name. She… wished a little that she was more surprised that Rosalea… that Nadia… had run from them. And yet, she understood the impulse perfectly, and to the hard-headed young woman that had lived with them and broken into Miron without permission, it made perfect sense.

Amalia hobbled back, frustrated to tears and whimpers. “I am sorry,” she wailed like she was Miri’s age.

Nekana shook her head and moved to Amalia and pressed herself close. “No matter how we handled it, it was going to be awkward,” she said.

She felt… duped by the Gods. Kartowen had to know the whole time who Rosalea had been.

No wonder Fen changed everything about her thinking about liana. Why did they ever even send Rosalea a liana? What was the point of disguising her as a real Uryan?

Nekana did not have answers for her own internal questions. Maybe it was something to do with Rosalea’s unfulfilled connection to the Moryshin.

As Amalia continued to make frustrated noises, “She’s still a pup compared to us, she’s only a decade older than Miri,” Nekana said.

“What do we do?”

“We track her down and get her back… and face the Moryshin.”

Amalia took a deep breath and calmed herself. Nauru came back, he was all hackles and rage for Rosalea leaving him again. Both Amalia and Miri comforted him.

After a few minutes more, Taigan finished. He wobbled as he sat back on his rear, and Nakai was finally breathing easier. He looked up at them as they all pressed in on Nakai, but the wolf was feeble as he nosed his siblings. “He needs rest,” Taigan said. Then, after a pause, “Where is Rosalea?”

Bazil sighed. “I have the most difficult sisters in the world. Since you saved my only brother, let me tell you about them,” he said softly.

***

Beryn saw Carnelian flying past the town. She was carrying something. She called out to her with her brand, but the dragon did not stop. The glow went entirely unanswered.

It was… uncharacteristic. A cold feeling settled over the elven woman, and it reflected in the vines and flowers glowing from her shoulder. They were largely back in the town, but she decided to call a full retreat.

Something must have gone terribly wrong, she thought.

Once they were all inside, she climbed on the wall, and she looked the way that Lady Carnelian had gone. The old hunter that had distinguished himself the night they had hunted the first badger quietly climbed on the wall next to her.

They were silent together. Then, he said, “I do not believe it is only the lingering smoke and blood in the air,” he said in a rough voice, “but there is a… sickness in the forest. I do not think we should venture into the mine or into the refinery.”

She looked at him with a raised brow. “Well, we did stir things up, but I feel nothing at all in the air.”

He looked the way she had just been looking, “Do you not?”

She felt irritated. He saw it written on her face and opted to retreat from her.

He is right. There is something wrong, and I do not know what it is. The wind shifted and blew away from her face, and she resisted the urge to call out once more to Carnelian. She would come when she could. She stared into the woods that had a haze of smoke still settled over them, and felt as if she was being watched by invisible monsters in the trees. She always comes when we need her, Beryn told herself again. She will come when she can. We just have to wait.