Emberwood oh father, tell me, do we get what we deserve?

There was disturbance in the shadow wolves. Alasdair did not know why—he did not care to find out. What he did know, though, was that even when these wolves were not distracted, he had not been held there against his will.

Alasdair had encroached on a cache in the morning hours—eating his fill until he could handle no more. Licking clean the blood and meat from his lips, piercing green eyes had hardened once more to the horizon, and before night had fallen, the boy had found himself from their scents and hearth and down the mountain to the comfort of a forest.

It did not remind him of home.

Now, as weeks passed, he could scarcely remember the long fields he had been born to.

But there was something comforting about it, and without preamble, the youth made his way to the denser woods, ignoring the already grumble of his stomach before he found a small stream—taking a moment to vanquish his thirst as he considered his next point of action.