Moonspear [Trespassing] Faded to grey

The boy seemed to take his threat. He stopped his screaming, at the very least, and Merrit hoped, for both their sakes, his silence would last. Though he had never witnessed the Queen's hand with trespassers, he had seen her ferocity, knew her tenacity, and had inquired enough into the mountain's rich history that even now, he felt his fear of her tear across the length of him. That even now, she might be watching. Though he felt the boy turn his attention on him, Merrit kept his eyes turned to the woods.

Until that name came crawling forth, hushed, and secret.

Merrit's dread turned to heat, and he turned to the boy with a snap of his head, and eyes like a dagger held flush against a hostage's throat. "Why did you say that?" his voice sailed, quick and low, accented by the curl of his lip, and punctuated by another thrust of his weight, "Where did you hear that? How do you know that? Where do you come fro - " and it was then, as Merrit spoke, as his mother's name lingered in a voice so distant so different yet so familiar, only as he stared down at this face, this face that seemed so out of place in these mountains, in this forest, but so proper, so wholly right wholly in a different place, a different time, a different --

His breath caught, his mask cracked, he saw his mother in this boy's face, he saw Greyback. He never finished, his final word stolen by the stunned whisper of his brother's name. "Clay?"