Greatwater Lake he has thrown down the cavalry as gravel sinks

Cassiopeia had the right of it. The former inhabitants of the woods had reveled in dark things indeed, and all that had ever got them was a target on their back. Maybe once it had a genuine reputation and outsiders avoided it and respected its power, but that was likely way back in Meldresi's day. Ramsay could hazard a guess that the wood's reputation was as much the priestess' doing as anyone's. Now it still seemed a point of fascination. Cass spoke of it with neither fear or reverence, and he knew that in the end, all the bloodlust had done was turn Blackfeather Woods into a disgrace and a blight among the local wolves rather than the fearsome pack it had claimed to be.

The foolish preferences of foolish wolves, said Ramsay, with the slightest darkening of his gaze to suggest he looked down on such things. What was the good in heinous acts if their sole purpose was to bring ruin to your family? He still remembered the invaders and how they had struck down Miraak. Blackfeather Woods had accomplished nothing but death with their feats. It is not, he shared. The mistakes of its forebears will not be ours. We claimants desire only a place of our own, and safety, in the land of our birth. None of that other stuff. He blinked at her, silently posing the same question: interested now?