"I was motivated."
"You were terrified." I chuckled. "He caught you anyway. Made you rebuild the entire den by yourself while I 'recovered' from my 'injuries.'"
"You were not injured."
"My pride was wounded. It counted." I set down the sledge, stretching my shoulders. "You never told him I was involved."
"Made no sense in getting us both in trouble."
"Still. You took the punishment yourself." I felt my expression soften. "You have always done that. Taken the weight. Shouldered the burden. Protected everyone else."
He turned away, moving to check the tension on the hide panels we'd already secured. His shoulders were rigid, his movements careful.
"Someone has to," he said quietly.
"Yes. But not always alone."
I moved closer, studying him. Something was definitely wrong. I could see it in the tension of his jaw, the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"Talk to me," I said. "Not as the healer. As your brother."
He sighed. "A young female arrived yesterday from the Birch Lake pack. Her tale was not a good one."
"Is she ok? Do I need to…" I was already laying down my tools, turning towards my hearth where my healing supplies were.
"She's fine, Kessa took her in. Minor scrapes, nothing Kessa can't handle."
I nodded, turning back and sitting down on one of the smooth rocks we'd placed around the fire pit for our meetings.
"Why had she come so far alone? Birch Lake is four days from here."
He sat down next to me, catching the end of a leather thong that hung from his belt, twisting it in his hands. The nervous gesture was so unlike him that my concern deepened.
"Birch Lake Pack is gone. Broken Ridge raided them, took the pups and the females, killed everyone else. Cera managed to escape and get here."
The words landed in the cold morning air and sat there. I stared at him.
"All of them," I said finally. It wasn't a question.
"All of them." His hands stilled on the leather thong. "The males who fought. The ones who were too old or too young to be useful to Karik. Gone."
“Great Mother…” I muttered, horror and sadness sweeping over me, closely followed by rage.
"The packs at the gathering have to listen to us now, they must take action. Karik cannot remain unchecked, and yet summer gathering is four moon cycles from now. How do I stand by and watch Karik inflict more suffering on smaller packs without interfering?" asked Rivik, and I could hear the note of desperation in his voice.
"So, maybe we take the strongest of us and interfere," I said, hearing the hard edge in my own voice. "No one here supports Karik, no one of importance anyhow. I imagine we'd get plenty of volunteers."
"We can't take on Broken Ridge Pack, Daska. Not without the backing of the other major packs. It would open the packs up to war, and they would be forced to take sides. I would be endangering everyone here. I hate what happened to Birch Lake, but I can't endanger our people either. I… I don't know what to do." He sighed, and I heard the exhaustion in it. "I know that I have twenty-three wolves who would follow me into Broken Ridge territory tomorrow if I asked it of them. I also know that I would be sending some of them to their deaths, and the ones who came home would return to a pack facing reprisals from every ally Karik has managed to buy or bully into loyalty." He stared into the fire. "Knowing what you want to do and knowing what you can do are very different things."
I was quiet for a long moment, trying to find words that might help. The fire crackled between us, and somewhere across camp, a child shrieked with laughter, the sound impossibly cheerful against the weight of what he'd just said.
"You will find a way," I said finally. "You always do."
"That is not wisdom. That is optimism."
"Sometimes they are the same thing."
"The third pole," he said, standing up. "We should get on."
