The Sentinels Boarfish

So what?

Swordfish hissed through his teeth and shook his head. What she said hurt. It twinged in his chest like a twisting knife that he couldn’t pull out without leaving a gaping, sucking hole. Why did she have to persist like this? Why did she have to keep trying to push him back to them? And what would she say if she saw this hollow, broken shell of her boy?

Ya think keepin’ that from her would be a betrayal. How about goin’ back to her and sayin’ that ya found me! But I didn’t wanna go wit’ya.

The hairs on the back of his neck felt electric.

What’yda think she’d say to that? How would that feel to a mother who had moved on, who was happy?

When she asked him to explain, Swordfish clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth and sighed. He’d been Shardik longer than he had been Swordfish, it felt like. Even before he’d picked up on the monster’s trail and followed, he had been called Shardik by the creek wolves.

Towhee wanted to know so much, she wanted to push and poke and persuade. It was beginning to feel like a cage that he had no means of escaping.

I killed the bear. The boy’s eyes were intent on her features. This is something he would not repeat, whether she heard it or not. I killed the bear an’ took its soul just like I thought it had taken her’s. An’ now I wear its name. It’s mine. No one could take that from him.