Redtail Rise aureolin

As she settled in behind him and began to speak, he could feel her voice more than he heard it. Her measured exhales warmed his nape.

I talked to Masque, he said, perceptive enough to know that there were eggshells, but not enough to avoid them with any grace. Tread lightly, he begged of himself.

She said she wanted to be 'sister packs'.

Such a phrasing had seemed jocular, almost trivial in the light of day, buoyed by their arrhythmic banter. In the moon-drenched night, it took on the cold weight of meaning. Even for an outsider like him, he could sense how it might sink from his mouth like a ballast, like concrete shoes. He imagined the Rise from a bird's-eye-view, the surface of the map rippled with new eddies from the east.

She called it Dragon's Back Ridge. He turned back to face her, on his elbows now. What did Wealda think of this? What did Redd think of this?