Redsand Canyon You've only known the ones who leave at dawn

”Were I the man you believed I am, I would have loved you in return.”

Don’t.

Crowfeather could not take the idea that there had once been a possibility. What good was saying that? What good would that do? Anger swelled again, sour and rotten and full of regret. Germanicus – so good at his diplomatic ways, perhaps he did not even know what he had said. If he did, though… Crowfeather seethed at the thought. If the older man understood how his words sounded, would he have spoken them?

That’s cruel for you to say… I already know that I was too late. That I was not brave enough when it mattered. You do not need to confirm it for me.

The burning of Germanicus’ gaze on him was violently painful. The shadow’s stomach twisted in knots, over and over until he thought he would vomit. There was nothing in his stomach to throw up, however. He had not eaten for several days.

Crowfeather realized, only then, that he could not stay in Mereo. It had been his original hope, his intention. He had planned to crawl to the doorway and state that he had earned at least a Fellahin’s position in the canyon. Hearing Germanicus confirm the life he had created while the shadow had been left in the mesa erased any possibility of that. One look at his pups and the ways that they would look like him and Ruenna made the young man ill, angry, and envious. If he were to see Ruenna, he did not know that he would be civil.

It really is nice… your home. Seems you make a pretty good leader, after all.


The man I believed you were. It was funny how that pieced together.