Arrow Lake why you rolling waves over me now, that's all i need dreaming

hmm. qiao glanced over the fresh wound, bound like a red rope around ephraim’s thin limb. teeth. if you were cursed, that leg would have rotted off by now. a little gaultheria would do him fine, yet qiao found it unnecessary. it was her belief this taotaomona would protect its host. why else then, did that rippling aura scowl at her so vehemently?

no, no crow spleen. a light laugh. very poor meal. crows are full of bad humors. a hare will do. but first — she lifted her muzzle to the air and drank deep of the wind around them. the vale smelled of cold empty air, of frozen stones, of frigid water — and somewhere, the scent of stale carrion reduced to arctic rubble.

a stag, if she believed her nose. i came here for a talisman. she was already making her way between splintered stones capped by snow. come — we find it, and then hunt. and after, i treat that cut for you, hmm?

they hunted. for two wolves who could not be more different, they worked in a unison that inspired qiao.

and at last! there, laid carelessly around a wintering tree was her prize. a buck's half-rotted skeleton, one antler wedged firmly between a gnarled tree limb.

help me loosen it. qiao commanded breathlessly, her wondering eyes on the totem. whatever deeds this buck had done in life, it resonated with sanguine power. qiao must have it.

great effort came on their part, but with a final grunt the antler was wedged free of its stranglehold. qiao bore the totem aloft with a victorious cry. she would do tremendous things with this artifact.

hastily then qiao offered to tend the boy's leg. she did not trust him - or fate for that matter - to not steal the antler. it must be protected at all costs.

later that night qiao was seen as a silhouette slouching back to akashingo, the antler held tight between her jaws.