IN THE END WE ALL BECOME CURED OF OUR SENTIMENTS

The last light fell like a siege on the Glacier's glittering visage, at first brilliant in dazzling yellow, pale gold, umber orange. A light the color of flame. Flittering too like a fire, the light changed across the long frontier -- its meridian come in a darkness that hummed, a lengthy shade of bruised blue and purples that engloved the icy headland.

Once the simmering sun had been doused by the starry night's crest, the wraith rose from her burrow in the ridge and dragged forth from it the blooded wedge of a wolf's head -- blind and sightless with eyes gouged and mouth bloodied by abuse and the indignity of death. Behind it the length of its spine trailed in the snow, darkening the ground with the red speckle of its progress.

Boldly the waif threw her claim upon the borders, her gaze harsh. With a tremulous howl that pierced the air she called for the wretched Duskfire wolves to behold the inhumanity behind her actions -- and with a final contemptuous shriek that cut through the air like a dagger, the Siren Queen left, leaving at their gates the rotted, fecund head as a promise that there was only one conclusion to be had for their lives: their death.