both of her children showed propensity for the darker powers that inhabited blackfeather. and there were enough of the old guard about to teach them. with or without cicero, averna and astara belonged to melonii blood, and in it ran the touch of the mother, the hiss of sithis. they must not be without training.
afternoon light shifted through the interlaced red boughs of the grove; the sunshafts were tinted crimson, and in one such sat relmyna. she crooned for the daycub; it was somehow important that she regard her children one at a time for now. and so the wolfess waited, the rock of tongues at her paw and an eldritch calm in her spirit.