Redsand Canyon Such a dark destiny

A spy, he thought to himself as he crossed over the mesa’s borders and into the unfamiliar wilds beyond.

The journey from Akashingo to the mountains was nothing like the trip before, when he had walked beside Germanicus. The trip he took was lonely, frightening, and there had been several times that he had turned around to venture back to the mesa and the bizarre comforts of the wolves there. Each time Crowfeather had felt his courage waver, he had been reminded of the harsh glint in Germanicus’ eyes, that night in the man’s bedchamber… the bruise where his ribs had struck the wall. It chased thoughts of fear from his head and ushered him onward.

Crowfeather had spent days traveling. He had done everything he could to conceal the scent he carried – that fragrance of berries and mints from the mesa – and he had done well to hide any remnants of the Akashingo wolves from his frame.

It was not until he had bathed himself in the river that the last of the fragrances had slipped free from his dark pelt. Even still, Crowfeather had rolled in wild mint until his head was filled with the sharpness of that smell. The drizzling of rain had cleaned him of any other sign that he had been in the heart of Akashingo. When the dark wolf could no longer smell the rough scent of Germanicus, he knew that it was time.

At the border of the canyon, Crowfeather felt his heart grow heavy in his chest. He knew that if he was going to do this, he would need to have a story – a runaway from the eyes of Pharaoh – it would not have been hard for him to appear as though he had been used for pleasure, he knew the pains of that role well enough.

Drawing his narrow muzzle upward, the shadow called a tentative summons to the borders of the Saints.


Germanicus would not allow Crowfeather to fight in the war, but the shadow could not live with the thought of losing him. The idea that he would never gaze at those intelligent yellow eyes was his only compass, his only guide into the shadows of the unknown.