Wheeling Gull Isle where the wind’s like a whetted knife

creeps. tael is somewhere in the flatlands.

All signs pointed here. A few tracks here, a tuft of rosy fur caught in the bark of a pine there. Not to mention the roamers he'd found that pointed him this way. She'd spent the night as one of their number but was gone by morning after eating her fill of their kill, they'd said. 

Tael could see how she got lost. It was a great wide world, and soon every mountain, forest, and valley began to look just like the last. He wasn't even sure which way he'd come from anymore, but the thought didn't deter him from his path. If he found her, they could find their way back together, because two would have a far greater chance of survival than one. 

Nose to the stones, he followed the twisting river onward as the skies grew dark over the distant coast.