Herbalists' Cache sleeping mist

for her he witheld.

for her he did not strike. 

blackfell's demand simmered a new suspicion under his flaring hackles. he shoved away the talk of the women and focused instead on his wife, waiting for her to speak. she must choose. saatsine or what she had been. the hunters must answer to him, not to her. she had submitted herself to his hierarchy; blackfell and gjalla sought to go against her word.

a scathing look was flung to black hawk. it would be better if she departed with the —

the children come now.

his eye widened; a flare of his nostrils telegraphed his unease, shock, worry. 

he could kill them all for bringing her here.

sun eater thought of forbidding gjalla, but that would pit him exactly against his mate. "enough!" he snarled to blackfell's foolish posturing. there were no queens here, only a stupid man and the women who wished to bed him.

star eater; he supported her swiftly with the heft of his shoulder. "you care?" he flung toward his cousin, toward dark snow. "then help her."

they should not be allowed.

for her! for her! he would give them into her care, trying to meet her eye with all the reassurance he could muster.

"men are forbidden." and blackfell was not welcome again within the cache. the truce of the women would hold so long as the children came. there was no peace between the chieftain and the blackbird, and he barred the way so that star eater could not be followed.