arbiter was not present. mahler discarded the remainder of what the first legionary had said, though his gaze shone like lilac icewater at the brute's insinuation. praimfaya was quick to dismiss him with a snap of her young jaws, and the shadowpriest knew by now she would have already moved with force.
but she remained attuned to him, did not undermine the heavy authority that mahler sought to wield. sequoia bantered, but the tonality of her body had not changed. she was rather a wildcard to the gargoyle; he knew not what she might do. praimfaya's figure had already hardened into the practiced lines of a warrior, and mahler shifted his attention to the boy who suddenly appeared shouting among them.
his mother was not here. this was reinforced by the flurry of words over action; he had not the confidence of a leader to lend him strength. and she would have appointed an heir by now. his disrespect boiled through mahler; he was reminded of another shrieking boy at the borders of another pack, sequoia tightened beside him, and overlapping the last sentences of the child's speech, the gargoyle surged forward in a controlled whiplash — at the first man who had alluded so crudely toward the presence of the huntresses, a roar thundering in the barrel of his chest and clawing maliciously from the column of his throat.
this male numbered his age and presumable strength; and mahler would not be predicatable, nor rote, self-hatred singing into a low, hungry focus as the sound of the world died away.
weighted jaws meant to punish the skin and bone across the pack wolf's muzzle; he swung his shoulder low and up. where his blows would fall would be the decision of fate. awareness knowing that the feminine man would attend the prince, he readied himself for another bevy of scarring.
there was a thrill in the shadowpriest as he soared into battle, for it had been at once both a long time and not enough, and he thought of the black wolf's teeth cutting, cutting — of wylla's mangled eye, and how she had sacrificed it in her love.
enough now — it was his hope that praimfaya would choose her target well, and that sequoia would prove her teeth again as she had upon their hunt.
mahler, drawing upon the strength of rivenwood and setting the golden thought of @Wylla into the host of his inner mind as he welcomed whatever doom might befall his flesh.