Ouroboros Spine aftaim

While Sialuk explained the concept of a village, Dragomir began to weave connections in his mind. He knew it as a pack, but his late father referred to it as kru. A collection of wolves whose lives and paws were aligned.

Dragomir had been alone since Moonspear. Not strictly alone; now and again he kept companions, hunting partners, but it was never a permanent arrangement. More connections: if Sialuk was Hydra's niece, that meant either Jarilo or Arcturus was her father. It could be Revui, too, but Dragomir liked to think that volatile man who once came for Arcturus' seat would not be granted such rights.

A memory of his sister telling him of the one who Aurewen brought to Hydra like a meek lamb to trade for favours. I remember now, he breathed. Your mother, she was brought to Moonspear by... Someone.

He would be damned if he referred to her as mother.

Sialuk confirmed that neither wolf had escaped, sounding a gong of grief through Dragomir that made him suck in a shaky breath. But one lived: Antares. He tasted the name and tried to remember which wolf that was, and found a vague memory of a younger boy on the other end of a pelt that Dragomir wrestled with once. One of Hydra's. What of the other three?

That's good, he breathed. Is he here? He licked his lips and added, if your mother is who I think, I... I owe her a debt. To make up for her treatment, he supposed, at his volatile dam's hands. What would I have to do to join your village for a time?