Bearclaw Valley her perfume and her rum

Aventus would never understand the forces that drove his father. Not truly. He walked the same path, but his was a farce; he played at wisdom where bears were concerned, but laid bare, Aventus knew precious little. It was a razor’s edge. He balanced on the sharp tip, and it laid precisely against the side of his throat, prepared to cut should the truth ever come out.

The bears did not speak to him. The bears had never spoken to him.

Nevertheless, Aventus listened to Merrick’s babbling — excited and reverent in a way he had never seen his father before — with a mask of full understanding. Even if they did not speak to him, Aventus believed wholly in his father’s mission. Other wolves were less devout. Other wolves might question Merrick, but not Aventus. He followed the bears and his parents despite falling short of the manic blood that fuelled their veins, because Aventus was a cultist through and through, and did not require proof to believe in twisted reality.

Prey is getting hard to find, he agreed, tonguing his teeth halfway through the sentence as if he meant to reconsider his words. But it was true. Hunts were failing more often, not because the wolves were complacent, but because more often than not, there was no prey to chase. The valley was stifling and filling with smoke. Small wonder the prey sought better conditions elsewhere, and knew better than to remain in this deadend place.

And Merrick was right. Blood had not soaked Ursus’ soil in some time. Aventus did not believe his siblings required baptism — Apophis might escape the doomed fate of his family if he remained free of that horror, and he believed that Asperas was already damned from the moment she took her first steps — but he kept his lips sealed on the thought. His opinion aside, blood was their way, and there had not been blood recently.

To where? he wondered in a compliant tone. He was a scout. Wherever they were going, Aventus expected to course ahead and survey the area to ensure Ursus’ success in their journey.