the woman fire was gone.
though the churned scents might have told her the story, or questioning the pale yearling pair who had brought so much chaos to blackfeather, relmyna did neither of those things. with the growing cold, her seizings had doubled; the woman had spent several days secluded on the outermost corners of blackfeather wood, removed even from her children. and when she had reemerged, the listener bore the stark look of a thinner creature, consumed by her own worry and the growing illness burning within her.
no matter. the gods will provide, came her thought even unto herself. it was not to the core of the wood she returned; the ailing woman wandered out into the flatlands, tracking the proud scent of wintersbane through the long grass. 
voices; the stench of fox. the pale listener emerged from a thick stand of sedge to flank the darkfurred man. her turquoise eyes fell upon the slim boy to which he was speaking, a pretty thing limned almost in a feminity. it was the roguish charm of his features which bespoke masculinity; she had not spoken to him to know he was effortlessly charming.
mistrust bloomed immediately within her, and then a whisper.