Silvertip Mountain Today's air quality is mauve and speckled

Perhaps Merrick was right about that. Whatever Tuur was doing in Moonglow, it was not thriving, but it didn't seem like he was able to leave until recently. Aventus wondered if the basalt wolf would make for Bearclaw Valley now that he was free. He had nowhere else to go. Perhaps Merrick was right.

Like so many times before, the boy misinterpreted what his father said next. Merrick was proud of him, but in those words, Aventus read expectation instead. There was no room for him to fail. That is what he heard. Tilting his jaw down toward his chest in an obedient nod, the boy whisked his tail thrice and then turned back for Moonglow. He was disappointed in himself for not having more to report, but at least Merrick knew about Tuur now. Aventus couldn't see the boy being much use to Ursus even now, but stranger things had happened.

I will report again when I know more, he promised, but it would never happen. Aventus would return to Ursus at the whim of a strange dread in his belly rather than with news of their neighbours, and he would learn nothing more of Moonglow in the days to come.