Duck Lake you're gonna read about the way, the way a man can go.

like wildfire roaring through a gulch, the siren sped on. sightless, senseless, and inconsolable, caiaphas stopped for none. the last fraying network of her mind was focused solely on the ghost — the sliver of her soul waning in the frostlight.

she did not hear another wolf approach. she did not see the faded mark of the brotherhood on her pelt, not the concern in the stranger’s eyes for her altered state — and had star not spoken, caiaphas would have thundered onward, chasing a filament of a life long deceased.

yet star spoke — the noise punctured the roaring furnace of caiaphas’ tumultuous brain. it awoke a sense of primordial fear; she staggered as she turned, her moonblind gaze wide and furious. star’s shape was registered, yet not her defining features. a keening, berserk noise pressed from the siren’s slavering jaws — more boarish-squeal than wolf; the noise of which could only be likened to the anguished cries of the damned, in the throes of boundless suffering.