“You dare to challenge me?!” Wolf snarls, inching his fingers toward the knife in the table.
“I worry about you, Wolf,” Fox mumbles as he picks at his food, pretending not to notice his leader’s threatening move. “I know where you go when you disappear. I know all about your trades with the Déchets border guards.”
“Have you told this to anyone?” Wolf demands, gripping the knife’s handle tightly, preparing to wrench it from its wooden sheath and attack the healer.
Fox shakes his head, eyeing the blade cautiously. “Of course not! In the beginning, when the pack was nearing destitution, I understood why you sought the guards. You did what was necessary to keep your people alive. But Wolf, I think those choices have changed you. Your motives are greedy now, and it is poisoning your personality.”
“You’re crazy! I’m the same person that I’ve always been,” Wolf cries, his muscles growing taut in preparation for an attack.
Fox stills, his voice dropping to an emotionless tone. “Ask yourself this: in the old times, would you have ever raised a hand to me as you do now?”
Wolf hesitates, his eyes landing on the knife. “I…I….” With a shiver, he opens his fingers, sending the blade clattering to the floor. Starting out of his chair, Wolf escapes out the back door without another word to Fox or a single glance at Cyrus.
Wolf doesn’t stop running until he is surrounded by the aged, barely surviving trees of the forest. Their limbs creak and pop overhead, as if they are lamenting their half-lives, griping to one another about their pains. A blanket of stars glimmers to life, their cold, winking lights laughing at him as Wolf falls to his knees, ripping his mask off his face and clutching his temples in pain.
Iris. He wheezes as he thinks the name, another wave of agony washing over him. I’ve got to see you! IRIS! Yet no matter how long he cries out her name, the pain only continues to grow in intensity. She must not be feeling the naming bonds anymore. That stupid Ddraig of hers must have broken the bonds for her. He curses the Ddraigs silently, secretly longing to have one that could offer him even one minute of relief from the torture in his head. It’s like a troop of monkeys are trying to escape my skull, and their only tools are a bunch of hammers. Sounds pulse and roar in his ears, sighing and buzzing Iris’s name.
Yet the prospect of seeing Iris face to face only fills his mouth with bile. Coupled. He recalls the word the Vibría monster used right before it died. She’s going to bind herself to my brother, all because of that Ddraig! How dare she think she can cast me aside?! He rages against the rocky ground, beating his hands into the earth, uncaring if it is stone or soil under his palms.
After a time, the hammering ache stills to a bearable level, and Wolf rises on his wobbling knees. These attacks are getting more frequent. I won’t be able to hide them much longer. Fox is already getting suspicious! If I don’t get to Iris soon, the pain or my pack will kill me! Wiping his bloody hands on his ragged pants, he carefully picks up his wolf carcass mask. She will find me, he declares, trying to rationalize some reason to blame his brother for it all. Iris will come to find me soon, and she will see that Cyrus is her enemy. She will still pick me. It will all work out. He takes his time walking back to the House of Vultures, slowly inhaling the night air and hoping that it will somehow soothe his rapidly fraying nerves.
***
I feel the sudden shift in Siri’s urgency by the way tension eases from the muscles in her back. Even before she roars with joy, I know Cyrus must be out of danger. “He found a way to kill the Vibría!” Siri cries, showering the broken trees beneath us with sparkles of silver flame.
It brings a genuine twinge of relief to my heart to know that I have not sent Cyrus to his doom. “We’re still going to go get him, Siri,” I holler over the whooshing wind that assaults me after every stroke of Siri’s wings.
“Agreed,” Siri replies, never faltering in her flight pattern. “It’s time for them to come home.” Anticipation and longing saturate her words. How she has missed Suryc! A pang of jealousy stings my heart at the realization—not because I begrudge her this love, but because I do not harbor such a strong emotion toward Wolf or Cyrus.
“I don’t love them, Siri,” I admit, wishing that I was lying. I don’t even know if I’m capable of love anymore. After everything we’ve faced in this terrible world, I think something’s broken inside my heart. I bury this confession, hoping Siri wasn’t listening to my thoughts as I add, “In fact, I am a little afraid to see Wolf. If he’s tortured Cyrus as you say he has done, then the Carreglas was telling the truth about him. Wolf’s a monster!” A shudder rips through me as I force myself to acknowledge all the warning bells that used to ring in my head when Wolf grew too possessive.
“And Cyrus? Your feelings haven’t changed over him even the slightest?” Siri wonders, shifting her weight and angling her wings just enough to skim the top of a nearby cumulous cloud.
Holding my hands wide, I run my fingers through the mist, collecting the cloud’s raindrop tears as if they were my own. “I pity him, Siri. Other than that, I don’t know what to think. If he really was always protecting me, then I suppose I should feel gratitude toward him. But all I remember is the pain he caused me.” Siri’s disappointment stabs my heart through our internal connection. “I’m sorry;
