The two males were talking now. Less like rivals measuring each other for weaknesses, and more like two people who’d been looking at the same problem from different directions and were finally comparing notes.
I leaned close to Feral, keeping my voice pitched low. “I need air.”
He looked at me, read my face, and nodded.
I slipped out with Acorn, leaving Feral to continue the conversation. The hall doors closed behind me with barely a sound. The compound was quieter now, most of the pack busy with evening routines. I caught glimpses of them through carved openings in the trees and along the bridges traversing the canopy.
Normal pack life while we tried to solve a problem that threatened us all.
As I approached the greenhouse, I found the bear working inside again.
I approached slowly, opening the door without making myself large or threatening, and stepped inside.
Rather than confront him, I knelt on the floor near the duskburst pots. I examined a plant, taking care with the leaves.
The bear watched me.
Acorn hopped off my shoulder, sitting on the ground between us.
I didn’t ask about Bastian or the seals. Pushing for information would close this down before it started.
Instead, I touched one of the duskburst leaves again, tracing the purple and white petals with one finger. “These are beautiful. I think you’ve been tending them a long time.”
The bear shifted. Magic rippled through the air, and then he stood in human form. Long, black hair tied at his nape. Narrow features. A slim form so different from his bulky bear.
“For a long time,” he said, his voice gruff but gentle.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Someone must fix this. The alpha comes back weaker every time. Thought it would get better. Never does.” He came over and crouched beside me, picking up one of the pots, turning it to show me the root structure through the drainage holes at the bottom.
“Roots strong,” he said. “Plants healthy. But when he takes them to sites, they die. Every time. I give him new ones, he tries the same. They die again.” His face showed the frustration of someone who understood plants but couldn’t understand people or why this kept failing. “Not his fault. He does everything right. Still die.”
“What does Bastian do at the sites?” I asked.
The bear set the pot down. He described the ritual as he understood it, his words simple.
One alpha, alone, moving between seal sites. Placing duskburst at specific points around each location. Speaking words he’d learned from watching Feral’s father. Pouring magic into the ground until he and many of the pack were drained, then returning home to recover before heading to the next site.
Over and over, site after site, month after month, year after year.
The pieces started connecting in my head.
“Did you ever see the old alpha perform it?” I asked.
The bear nodded. “Once. When young. Wandered into territory by accident. Scared. Thought they kill me.” He touched one of the plants, his fingers tracing a leaf. “Old alpha, he not punish. He let me watch. Said I could stay if I keep quiet, not interfere.”
“Was he alone?”
“No,” he said slowly. “Other alphas there, standing at the site. Witnessing.”
His hands moved, sketching positions in the air. Four points, maybe five, arranged around a central location. Each, I now suspected, held by a different alpha, all of them present at the same time.
They weren’t witnessing. They wereassisting.
It finally hit me. The ritual required multiple alphas, each working on a different point. Like hands holding a net, creating a structure that could hold something larger than any single point.
Not one person trying to do it alone. One alpha pouring his and his pack’s magic in repeatedly wasn’t completing the ritual. He was filling a vessel with no bottom, trying to be four or five points with only one body to work with.
