Ouroboros Spine under divine law of the opus magnum

It would have seemed his suspicions of another pack coming into existence was in fact right to consider. Cara offered up the information before she commented on the state of their quiet borders, leaving him momentarily surprised. It took him longer than he had wanted to in discerning the lake that she spoke of, however. Mordecai had no names for the territories like the others did, though he accepted the common names they had discovered for them. How they received those names and retained them was well beyond him, but he assumed there was history behind it all. Names and stories passed down through the generations and so on and so forth; some of them no doubt lost to time and renamed and retold about.

“Another one?” It was all he could offer at first, though the question seemed largely rhetorical. It prodded at kindled embers left aglow in his thoughts, but he kept his neutrality. Perhaps they were just as unaware of the Spine's existence as they had been of theirs. But it was also safe to say that maybe he had heard their howls in the night, somewhere, at some point. The wolves of the Wilds were beginning to branch out now. He wondered if their ranks held any of the deserters from the Spine, and that thought soon became set aside.

But more than that, he found himself lacking in an appropriate response to her beyond that. The borders were fine, the information that she had provided was fair enough. He considered asking her if this new pack heeded any of their concern but withheld the query. Mordecai felt by asking her thoughts, she'd almost surely take it as a chance to wheedle him out of power. And that was simply something he would not have.