Luga said, “You’re going to need to be better at making allies, if you are ever to be a Leader of the Wild.” Orfeus blinked again.

Faolan was terse, tight-voiced. “We’ve spoken of this.” Whatever tension currently lay between them, he was used to speaking familiarly to the Leader.

Orfeus imagined Luga sighed, though she couldn’t hear it. “It’s not unfair to expect the person you raised to continue to grow and exceed themselves, to one day exceed you.” He sounded petty and irritable, a disappointed parent.

Faolan said stoutly, “I have no wish but to follow you, Leader.”

This time Orfeus heard Luga sigh, and then he must have made some gesture of dismissal, for Faol’s footsteps sounded out. Orfeus ducked into her alcove and buried her head in her cloak.

She waited, waited until she was sure the Wolf was gone and then for a while afterwards. She felt faintly nauseous.

Orfeus ducked back to her room. In there, she reordered her dried items, taking inventory, getting ready for anything that might lie ahead.

She trusted Faol even less now she knew he was Luga’s heir. The Wolf, her partner, her unwelcome shadow.

He was terrifying. It was just that Luga was worse, so clearly a bad father, whatever type of Leader he was. Of course Faol was twisted from bearing all that weight. Orfeus’s mothers had only wanted her to live, but Luga raised his Wolf to kill.

It was dangerous to pity Faol, who had so much blood on her hands. Orfeus wasn’t known for being wise, but she had to stay on guard. She couldn’t forget the feeling of those hands around her throat.

Chapter Twelve

I hear in Verdance they still practice the Iron Harvest, hunting through their once-poison woods for relics of a past age. It’s a festival like our harvest festival, but these buried relics are handled carefully for fear they bring old poisons. Sometimes even after sleeping for a thousand years, they shatter. It pays to be careful of dangers that lie sleeping, ma chérie. You never know when they’ll wake.

- Basma of Hollyhock

Time passed in quiet talks and brutal battles and a life settling under her skin.

Orfeus spent her days sparring, and practicing her magic: dancing out steps, weaving illusions until her foot itched and tingled and at last ached and she stopped for the day.

She grew stronger. Faster. Meat each night and training each morning at the very least, sneaking into the room when no one else was there to practice going unseen, too. She made walls of illusion and arced out lightning from her hands.