Like an unwinding cable car

The echoes of his call subsided into the delicate fog, the beckoning note branching through the territory on the mist's searching tendrils. There was no way Tuwawi could have missed his summon, and sure enough she came in due time, the crunching of snow alerting him to the ember's approach.

If any hope had found room within his doubting heart that Tuwawi had not been the wolf who had torn into the child's flesh, it diminished to a twisting knot when Malachi's gaze fell upon the incensed queen. Her steel eyes pierced him, her words cut him to the quick, but he stood his ground despite the chill that wound gripping fingers around his heart.

"He came seeking a home, and I gave him one." He said in short, controlling his voice through his nerves quivers within. His convictions would not let him turn the boy away. Scrappy and unpromising as Adlartok had appeared, Malachi gave the child a chance, and in return the boy had proven himself a worthy a member of the Glacier pack. But Tuwawi's inflection, another child, rattled the boy, and his spirit burned with the guilt of what his actions had suggested to the grieving queen. "I wasn't trying to replace the ones you lost."