Duskfire Glacier And the walls keep tumbling down

He met her eyes for but a moment before casting his troubled gaze aside, certain the guilt he felt trembling within would show in their icy depths. His resolve faltered, and Malachi wondered if he should set to look for Njal as he had Larus over a moon before. But his scouting for Larus had turned up empty, and his only lead remained a wolf he could not find. The thought of why she did not return tied his stomach in knots, but he had not been able to find her by the sea, and the land had stretched too far and wide for him to search, and the scents were all but not beneath the overwhelming cover of sea salt and brine. He had not told a soul of Larus, and his tongue jarred him from speaking such words without tangible proof the Sveijarn lived. He wished to tell Tuwawi now, but to build her hope only to crush it again was something the man could not do.

But Maera was here, and in a most tangible form. She was a light he could offer the mother, and she was what Tuwawi needed now, as much as Maera needed the fire-kissed queen. "I haven't, but she's here. I was following her trail when you found me," he made a quick gesture with a nod of his snout in the direction he'd been headed, "and I figure she's at the end of it." He turned his eyes back upon Tuwawi, gaze softening once again. "You should go. She'll want to know you've returned."