Chimera Fields gold heart; silver tears

The boy’s frantic pleas, ripped from him in ragged fragments, ceased entirely as shock began to push its icy tendrils deeper and deeper into his unconsenting flesh. At the sound of his name being spoken by a voice that was distinctly not Scimitar’s or Eshe’s, he flinched violently and whipped around, lantern yellow eyes wild and unfocused, their pupils alarmingly dilated. There was an odd element of guilt in the way his muzzle ducked down and away from Shrike, his shoulders hunching as his hindquarters skittered into a crouch. Panic and fear forcibly wrenched back his lips, revealing a shark-like smile — at five months old, his deciduous canines had yet to be ousted by their blunt adult successors — and he growled, froth and spittle collecting in the divot beneath his nervously flickering tongue and seething from betwixt his incisors. “No!” he gritted out in a hollow gasp, a gastric rumbling punctuating the single terse syllable. Skittering away from Shrike and Scimitar, the boy outstretched his neck and squeezed his eyes shut, sides rippling in a virulent wave as he expelled the contents of his stomach — once — twice — thrice.

When the storm had passed, the orphaned prince approached his father once more, clasping the cold, rigid scruff between his teeth. He yanked for all he was worth, but there was no palpable give to the Frostfur patriarch. It was like tugging at a prey animal’s carcass, and Cypress’ lungs emptied themselves on an endless litany of wordless whimpers as acceptance began to set in. “Paw,” he croaked, his throat ragged from shouting and burning with acid. A billion questions and protests whirred through his mind — “I thought only bad wolves died. Who’s going to train me? Who’s going to find Rannoch and Lucy? Who’s going to protect Mama?” — and when Cypress remembered Eshe, a terrible wave of remorse swam through him. With a last desperate, wide-eyed look at his father, he crept to his mother’s flank, heedless of how visibly mangled her flesh was; closing his eyes, he saw her as he had always seen her, a sylph of dandelion fluff and cottongrass with eyes brighter than the sun. He nestled beside her, butting the crown of his head against her rigid muzzle, and offered one last fervent prayer: “Mama, please get up.”