I lie on the pelts, eyes open to the darkness. Sleep eludes me at first; the shard he carries may be quiet, but its malice purrs against the lattice like claws on glass. Still, exhaustion finally drags me under. I tumble through the well of dreams, only to surface in a place that is not wholly mine.
The sky burns crimson above a meadow turned battlefield. Char-black trees spear upward, branches snapping in unseen gale. Wolves circle the clearing, hackles raised. At the center stands Yarrow, much smaller than the legends children whisper after lights-out in dens. He looks almost the age he died—twelve summers, face too young for the certainty stamping his brow.
Kylan kneels before him, one knee pressed into the blood-slick grass; I feel the gravel cut his skin as though my kneetouches earth. In this shared dreamscape I am ghost and vessel at once, riding his memory.
“Little fang,” he tells the cub, voice ragged, “hold fast.”
Yarrow’s eyes glow bright bronze; shadow-veins snake across his cheeks. His small hands clutch the obsidian shard, point piercing skin so that his own blood beads. He doesn’t seem to notice. Behind him a tear in the world flickers, ragged edges sparking.
Kylan reaches—slow, gentle, as though soothing a wounded deer—and the sense of grief chokes me. He knows what must happen. He knew the instant shadow took the cub’s core. This is the moment before the blade.
I want to look away, yet the dream grips me with iron hooks. Yarrow lifts his gaze. When those eyes meet mine—through Kylan—they pierce deeper than prophecy. They hold unfathomable trust. I hear the child’s thoughts, though no lips move:Alpha will save us.
Then everything shatters.
The world jerks sideways. A howl rends the air—high, frightened, Yarrow’s final voice smothered by shadow roar. Light dims to charcoal twilight; the meadow collapses into swirling ink. When focus snaps back, the cub lies still, Kylan’s blood-slick claws buried in his small chest.
The howl echoes again, but this time it is not Yarrow’s. It is Kylan’s. Mourning, rage, the primal cry of guardianship broken. It tears through dream-flesh, splits sky. The bridge above our shelter shakes in waking world, stones grinding together.
I cannot allow him to drown here. I bend knee beside him, though in memory he does not see me. I press my palm—shimmering, half visible—against his sternum. The texture is real: scarred skin, heartbeat stuttering.
“Kylan.” My voice arrives soft yet travels far, washing across battlefield like dawn wind. His ears twitch; amber eyes widen.Surprise flickers, then recognition. The dream wavers as if forced to renegotiate its borders. I kneel fully, ignoring soaked grass chilling knees.
He looks down, sees my hand splayed over his engine of sorrow. Pup blood stains fur between my fingers. The sight strikes like knives, but I hold firm.
“Oracle?” His voice cracks.
“I am here.”
“How—” He glances at fallen cub, then me, then the obsidian shard cooling on earth. “This should not be inside you.”
“It was already inside you,” I answer. “Memories cling to grief. You breathe them with every step; I walked beside and inhaled too.”
The dream begins to distort: trees melt into silhouettes, sky writhes from crimson to violet. We are losing grip. I tighten fingers on his chest, willing calm into the bond.
The ground settles. His shoulders slump, massive frame folding over small body. “I could not save him.”
“No alpha can shield every cub.” Words come without thought, born from long years counseling prophets facing mortality. “You gave him peace.”
He laughs—sound brittle. “Peace tore through his ribs.”
“A single moment of pain traded for eternity free of shadow.”
He meets my gaze again. Within amber eyes, guilt coils like wounded viper. I lean forward, slide other hand beneath Yarrow’s, close stubby fingers over shard and push until stone embeds deeper. Dream-blood beads anew, yet shadow residue drains from veins. The line of taint recedes, skin brightens, as though memory rewrites worst parts.
Kylan inhales sharply. “What are you doing?”
“Teaching time to spare the child.” My throat closes on unexpected emotion. “We can’t change history; but in dream-planes, we can grace it.”
Vision ripples. Blood vanishes from Yarrow’s tunic. The wound closes. He shifts in death-sleep, face smoothing to tranquil lines. I kiss his forehead—gesture borne of instinct, not thought—and the world sighs in relief.
Kylan watches, disbelief softening edges of his grief. I straighten, turn to him. “Carry this version, Alpha. Remember him quiet, not torn.”
His eyes glimmer wet. He bows head in slow acceptance.
Then dream dims; battle meadow collapses into swirling stardust. I am falling through cosmic void, yet remain tethered to Kylan by the hand on his chest. In that shimmer between frames, warmth unfurls across my palm—a spark leaping outwards, weaving into nexus of skin, bone, spirit.
Bond ignition. I gasp.
