Bearclaw Valley beloved physician

Comparatively, Aventus was thoughtless as he observed his sister from afar, twin chips of inscrutable ice where his eyes were housed.

At her feet was Evien's skull, stripped of flesh by carrion eaters and Merrick in his grieving madness. The healer's grim aspect was reduced to a macabre, toothsome grin now. The skull smiled up at Avicus like it knew all her secrets. Aventus thought he knew what it felt like to know someone else's secrets, too, and his lips stretched in a fleeting approximation of the skeletal grimace.

Then he was expressionless again, moving toward his sister with a sinuous gait, a high-flung tail and rigid ears pointed forward, intent now on testing the truth of her allegiance to Ursus by flaunting his authority as her leader and seeking signs that she would defy him or turn a tooth upon his smoke-black hide.