Nocturne Summit Paunngak

Clump by clump, Kannoyak pulled the balls of snow from his fur. They melted on his tongue. Each drawing lick discovered a new one, tangled in the thick white of his coat. The motions were practiced and careful. It looked as though the white hunter had done this ten thousand times.

In the little river village, he would spend the day on the white hunting grounds and would return to pull snow from his coat until well into the night. It had bothered him in his first year. After that, he had grown to accept it as part of the hunter’s ways. The snow clung to them because they were made for it. And for the first time since arriving in the new wilderness, Kannoyak felt a sense of homesickness.

Plum eyes lifted to regard the beauty of the snow, to remember the little river village. He saw a dark shadow appear in startling contrast to the white. For a moment, the man believed that it was the storyteller man – Alaric. Perhaps the green-eyed wolf had decided to seek company for a time.

The woman’s eyes were not green, though. They were sharply observing her surroundings.