Lion Head Mesa And which is to remain unknowable and unremembered

The command from within the room pried Aventus from his thoughts. He tilted back his ears, perplexed. Of course Akashingo would have its own leader, but no one informed the Bruin-jaw he would be expected to heed any but his father for the duration of their stay here. The very notion of obeying anyone but Merrick and Astara — her name crossed his mind with a sickening wrench — was ludicrous to him.

Aventus peeked around the corner all the same, fixing silver eyes to the one they called Pharaoh. The man reminded him at once of the girl in the north, damnably so. The golden highlights of her coat were very subtle, but enough to catch an interested boy's eye. Ramesses was gilded in a more blatant manner, and yet it was Phaedra he thought of, and struggled to keep a scowl concealed.

This was a man, however, and Aventus was not moved in the same manner by men. He let his eyes drop to the scrap of wasting white fur in the center of the room, blinking once at the sight of a wolf still alive who looked so very dead. Interesting. I am no physician, he announced, only a watcher and a walker. Aventus had no idea what they were even doing here, much less what his role was to be, but physician? Even if he had been thinking of Evien and wishing he could be more like the late healer just now, it was not his calling in the slightest.