Mount Apikuni she had nowhere else to go

""

He had followed the fading tendrils of her scent away from the Creek, but had drawn himself short, quietly frowning. Here was the dawning obsession that he had striven to ignore; he then pulled himself away from the milieu of her ascent and turned his steps instead to the looming peak before him.

Paws gripping the loamy shale, Lecter drew himself inexorably higher, pausing every so often to glance downward, or at the sun as it rose into the pale sky. Bloodstained muzzle extended; here the air was clear, though the trail-scents of a dozen wolves crossed and wove here.

The pack had grown silent of late; the madman sensed a shift in power, and the sylph with the eyes of flame was the only one whom he would cast his lot behind. Clarice would follow until she could be convinced no longer to stay, and drifted off in service of the Dark One.

Jinx, his mind muttered, quite of its own accord, and Lecter's lip curled at his own weakness. The next baleful sweep of icewater eyes pinned the location of an ermine, still snowy and lithe, and his hackles rose with the suspicion it was one of Atka's creatures, come to torment the shaman in his weakness.

A snarl rose in his throat; he lunged, paws finding purchase on the whitecloaked rocks as a surge of vitality thrummed through his blood.