“Go on,” she said. She made her voice angry and firm. “Go!”

The wolf flicked his ears. He stepped closer.

Rae waved her arms. “Go!” she shouted. “Get!”

The wolf paused, then took another tentative step toward her.

“No!” Rae cried. “Get!” She scooped up a handful of pebbles and hurled them in the direction of the wolf. “Go back to the mountains!”

Stung by a pebble, the wolf started, leaping aside. Rae felt the pain of it as though she’d hit herself. Eyes hot, she scooped another handful.

“Go!” She flung more, wildly, blindly. They showered around the wolf. Unhurt, still he sprang away. “Leave!” she sobbed.

The wolf darted to a higher rock. He turned, fixing his eyes once on Rae, a low growl escaping his throat; then, leaping again, he disappeared behind the next outcropping of stone.

Rae did not wait to see if he would reappear; turning, she began running, sliding, leaping down the path. Her vision blurred, her balance lost, she stumbled again and again. Choices, meant to, truths, her feet thudded. But nothing felt right. Nothing felt as it should. The ragged gash in Mop’s leg, the twisted lamb in the field, the broken spear in the boar. The wolf she’d driven away, the stones she’d thrown at him. All of it, all of it felt like a terrible error, as though the tusk, the spear, the stones had cut what was supposed to be, what should have been and not the flesh of others.

And it was error all of her own doing. How could she have ever thought a shepherd should care for a wolf? How could she have ever thought she was meant to do so?

XXVI

INTERLUDE—AN INFESTATION IN THE PRIESTS’ LIBRARY

It began with the ants. Black-bodied. Tripartite. Small enough that one or two scurrying along the floor might not be noticed at all. But one or two became five. Then eight. Then thirteen. At twenty-one, they began to call attention to themselves. Here’s one. Here’s another. At thirty-four, they were visible—a slender black thread winding across the floor—then, suddenly, they were everywhere, their bodies shiny and hard, squiggling dark smudges on the walls, the tiles, the tables, the chairs, the shelves. The priests swept them outdoors, squashed them with thumbs, flicked them away from the scrolls. They bit, now and again, little formic mandibles pinching red welts onto the priests’ skin. Oh, another! Another! Look at them all! Sweep them away!

Spiders came next. In the corners, hidden cracks, the rough hollows of walls, a galaxy of webs, silvery patches, reshaped the shadows. The webs grew dotted with eggs, grew speckled with bodies—the translucent shells of flies and wasps eaten dry and the round, pale, eight-legged, wriggling things just hatched from their sacs. The darting adults, the sudden surprise of their brown, hairy bodies—Oh!—they were startling. They were crushed underfoot, were slapped at with rags. Look at them all! Looks at the webs! In the parchment scrolls even! Sweep them away!