At first he thought it was just a shadow, tiredness playing tricks in the corners of his eyes. But it wasn’t. Shan knew how to differentiate what was real and what was not. This flicker of silver, fluid as moonlight before the moon had even risen, was real, though not natural.
Shan slowed his pace, caution making his senses sharpen all the more. The owl gave a violent hiss and took flight in a flurry of indignation. And the Enchassa fell curiously quiet.
Leaving Shan alone with the ghost.
Anala had always been graceful, more than any normal creature. In the moonlight, her silver fur shimmered like water, her eyes glinted. She sat back on her haunches and regarded him with that familiar, toothy grin. His heartbeat seemed to have moved up into the back of his brain and his breath misted before him, a cloud of white.
It was Anala. Who else could it be?
The Enchassa had tried to deceive him in the past, had lured him away from Jeren with an illusion of the wolf that was close, but he’d seen through it. This wolf... this wolf, aglow with moonlight and defined with shadows... this was the real thing. He couldn’t know it but he could tell. His heart knew.
The pulse in his mind was deafening now, drowning out everything else. His head throbbed with it, his breath tangled around it, his strength had gone.
“You’re dead, beloved.”
She had come to him before, or maybe that was just a dream, a nightmare during his imprisonment with the Fell. And she’d told him to get up, to fight, to go on living. She’d admonished him for even thinking of giving in.
“You would not leave your mate in jeopardy, would you, young wolf?”
She’d said the same thing in his dream, in the darkness when he was imprisoned by the Fellna. A shiver ran down his spine. Her words blossomed directly in his brain, like a burst of awareness, like Jeren’s magic, something not natural, but a part of him. Vital.
“She’s not in any danger, Anala. Not yet. She won’t be if I can help it.”
The wolf didn’t comment on that. She tilted her head to one side and her tongue lolled from her mouth.
“Some would say a wolf who leads her pack to kill has become rogue. What would they say of one who leaves his mate to do the same?”
He knew the wolf’s response to any rogue. His chest tightened.
“It must be done, Anala. There is no alternative. Gilliad must be stopped.”
“Come.” She got to her feet, the plume of her tail swishing behind her and she stepped forward, rubbed against his legs. He expected to feel a breeze, to feel the warmth of her body but there was nothing. Nothing at all. “I have need of you.”
She turned to go, in the wrong direction. Shan hesitated, and the wolf’s ghost glanced back over her shoulder expectantly. “Here. Now. Come.”
It was a simple as that. He could deny Anala nothing. Ghost, figment of his imagination, however she had come to be with him, there was no doubting it was her. Though she had lacked the capacity for speech in life, she had never failed to make herself fully understood. Wolf or not, for many years, she had been his closest friend.
He followed her in silence, crossing the rough ground, which never seemed to hinder her for a moment. It was growing darker, colder, and he would not have strayed so far from the path without her. But Anala would never lead him into danger. Never.
He pushed on, determined now to keep up with her. To do what he could for her. But what did she want? Her body was gone. Jeren still had her fur. Her spirit should have been free from the bonds of the world to go wherever it was wolves went for their afterlife. He wondered if he should ask her why she was still there, but imagined the look he’d receive in response. Anala always had a way of making him feel like a child, even though he was fully grown long before he found her.
“Come. Now Shan. Hurry.” The sudden urgency in her voice made him quicken his pace. He scrambled across a rocky outcrop.
And missed his footing on treacherous scree. Loose debris slipped beneath him, sending him down the slope in a small avalanche of hard stones.
Panic yanked its snares taut around him, but he spread his arms and legs wide to slow himself. Had Anala had led him to a trap? Had Anala tried to kill him?
And then he stopped, at the bottom of a steep incline where jagged rocks hung over a narrow shelter. Anala’s glow greeted him. She was peering into the shadowed hole.
The accusation leapt to his mouth. “Are you—?”
“You are still alive, are you not?” she snapped. “If I intended to kill you, Shanith Al-Fallion, you would be dead.”
She peered into the darkness again.
“In there,” said Anala.
Shan edged nearer to the rocky hollow, wary of starting another avalanche of scree. A dead wolf lay in the narrow space, smaller than Anala had been, and far thinner. As he looked closer, he saw her cubs as well. All still, all dead.
“Goddess, shelter them,” he murmured and reached out a hand to touch the cold fur.
Anala lifted her head, stretching out her throat, and howled. The ancient, mournful tone echoed over the mountainside, ripped through Shan’s heart.
And one of the pups moved.
“There!” Anala danced forward with excitement. He should have felt the push of her body, her tail slamming into his body. But again there was nothing. She really was just a spirit. “Help him, Shan!”
Shan seized the leggy bundle of fur and drew him out of the darkness. The cub squirmed, snapping weakly at him, trying to growl. But Shan cradled him close, assuming a dominant posture to both reassure and comfort him. Anala nuzzled in against them both until, bathed in her light, the pup settled.
Eight weeks or so, Shan reckoned. Almost big enough to join the pack, except that there had been no pack to join. Not much food either. And a mother slowly dying. Had they fallen down here and become trapped? Had a pack driven them out? If she was a mother, they’d never do that. Strong stock too, Shan thought, as the wolf pup bit at his fingers, searching for food. His little teeth were sharp. A reluctant smile found its place on Shan’s lips as the bond between them formed, effortless as breathing, strong as his bond with Anala had been. Because she was weaving it. Tears needled the bridge of his nose with the enormity of it. Few enough were lucky to form such a bond with once in their lives. To do so twice—
And then he thought of what lay ahead.
It was as if a cold knife slid between his ribs. His hands shook and he lowered the wolf cub towards the ground.
“Anala, I can’t do this. Even if I was going back, they’re going to war.”
“Would you leave him here to die?”
No, he would not. And of course she knew that. And how could he bring a pup with him if he was to travel like an assassin to River Holt? He clenched his teeth together and the wolf’s ghost looked distinctly self-satisfied. She had always been cunning and determined. She’d snared him with barely any effort at all.
That was Anala, through and through.
“His name is Naul.”
Naul released Shan’s fingers, gave a yawn and nuzzled a wet nose into the cup of his hand. Looking for food. Shan sighed.
He turned to tell Anala as much, but she was gone.
Chapter Six