Sun Mote Copse The Art of the Dinner Date

Any preoccupation with reanimated corpses retreated when Wraen succinctly answered the youth's questions. There was a state called hibernation, which was a deep sleep, but differentiated itself from death by being reversible. Sugar swallowed and nodded her understanding of that much. There was a little bit of disappointment in her deep black eyes, though there wasn't much time to dwell on it as their conversation carried.

Wraen said something about the wind, which promptly demonstrated as if the two were in cahoots. Sugar gave the Sovereign a shrewd look, then laughed quietly to herself. She was old enough to know better; wolves, even adults, even leaders, couldn't control the elements. In any case, she'd been talking about the recent earthquakes and opened her mouth to clarify when Wraen beat her to the punch with a question.

She did not respond immediately, instead giving the query some proper consideration. Sugar's gaze traveled to the nearest tree, sweeping from its roots to the very tops of its boughs as she tried to suss out its weakest part. When she returned her attention to the Sovereign, she could only hazard a guess: "The branches?" They were the thinnest part, not to mention the most exposed.