The Sentinels give me your hand — save me

Melting from the shadows, Lotte brought up the rear of the caravan from Stavanger Bay — she had completed the task Constantine had set before her, but her affection for Chusi bade her set greater importance on seeing the ocher-eyed cub safely ensconced in the sheltering wood than to sing of her newfound knowledge. Argent eyes settled upon the stammering wolf with obvious suspicion; she was given no incentive to hide her dislike for the wolf’s abandonment of the child, no matter his reasons. Capturing Chusi’s tea-colored gaze with her silver one, “I will not always be with you,” Lotte stated forthrightly, “for I am meant to travel far and wide. I will be your isosisko — in your tongue, older sister — and spend what time with you I can, but in my absence you must still be strong.” She disliked the male all the more for putting such immense responsibility on her shoulders; she would be out of the territory more than she was inside it as befitted her place as an aspiring scout, and did not wish Chusi to feel as if her isosisko had abandoned her.

Before Aria and her blue-eyed guardian, Lotte curled one foreleg beneath the swell of her breast as the other outstretched in a graceful bow. “Rakeet, comrades,” she said in her warm, rich alto. “Chusi, this is Aria — the johtaja of Donnelaith — and one of its most ardent suojelija.” She did not know the male’s name but took it at face value that he was one of the sentinels of the wood, for his quick response. She smoothed a gentle lick upon the girl’s crown, the bridge of her broad muzzle nosing comfortingly at the foundling’s shoulder. “You must greet them with politeness, for they are kind and good wolves, and this is their forest. I will show you how. Rakeet, herra, my name is Kitku — Iota of Donnelaith. I am pleased to meet you.” Again she bowed. She refused to explain the situation — that she would leave to Szymon, for it was entirely his fault that the child was being delivered unto the wood’s proverbial doorstep.