Toklo nodded. “Yes,” he replied, dropping his prey. “There’s still some of it left on the peaks, though I don’t think it’ll be there for long. Come on, let’s share this goose. My belly thinks my throat’s been clawed out.”

Kallik praised Toklo’s catch while he tore it into four portions, but the mention of snow had distracted her, and she couldn’t summon up much appetite.

“Kallik, you’re not eating,” Yakone said anxiously. “Are you okay?”

Kallik forced herself to gulp down a mouthful. “Everything’s fine,” she assured him.

That night in the den, Kallik dreamed that she was back on the ice, crunching over the surface with the black ocean rolling beneath her paws and a cold wind blowing through her pelt. Yakone was beside her, striding along as easily as if he had never been injured. Her brother Taqqiq was with her, too, and their mother Nisa. Kallik was relieved that Nisa no longer seemed interested in taking Yakone away.

Then as Kallik gazed across the ice, she spotted other bears, a little farther away: Nanuk; and Kissimi, the cub she had rescued on Star Island; and all the bears they had met on the Melting Sea. They were padding along beneath the glittering night sky, the stars so bright that they cast an eerie glow over the snow.

This is where I belong, Kallik thought; she felt as if her blissful happiness would spill out around her, because her whole body wasn’t big enough to contain it.

“Wolves! Wolves!”

Lusa’s voice jerked Kallik out of her dream. Scrambling to her paws, she saw that Toklo and Yakone were awake, too. Lusa was peering down at them from the top of the den; in the dim light Kallik could see that her eyes were wide and scared.

“Wolves!” Lusa repeated. “They’re circling the den! They must be able to smell the remains of that goose.”

“How many?” Toklo barked.

“I’m not sure.” Lusa’s voice was shaking. “A lot.”

Howling broke out as she spoke, seeming to come from every direction at once. Kallik’s heart began to pound.

Yakone started to clamber out of the den, but Toklo blocked him. “No—let them come to us,” he ordered. “They’ll get trapped in the brambles, and we can take them then. Out there, we’ll be outnumbered.” Beckoning to Lusa, he added, “Lusa, get your tail down here. We don’t have anything to defend but ourselves, so let’s stick together.”

Lusa slid down into the den and thrust herself into a prickly bush that grew on one side. Toklo took up a position just below the entrance. The howling died down, and briefly Kallik hoped that the wolves had gone, realizing there was no prey in the den.