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The Last One

Chapter 74

Captain Carnell stood guard at the door of the bedchamber, watching as Hellene sat straight-backed in a chair. A large crossbow was across her lap, lying heavily against the ballooning swell of her black skirts. She loaded it carefully, her slender fingers slow and precise, as nearby, the red vixen with the big backside and breasts hung tied to the bedpost. The bed was a large four poster, and the vixen's arms had been tied above her head. She stood cold and solemn, staring resolutely at the far wall.

Captain Carnell looked at the vixen's big breasts pressing through her dress and thought it was a damn shame. He'd thought Hellene was going to let him toy with the vixen's ass or something, not make him watch as she killed the thing. If this was Hellene's idea of fun, he wanted no part of it. But he had no choice. Already, Hellene had shot the creature in the shoulder, and its knees were shaking ever so slightly as blood ran down the front of its deerskin dress.

"You have told me two more bands of your kind are lurking outside Redwick? Is that correct?" Hellene said calmly. Her paws folded neatly in her lap, just near the crossbow. She looked at the vixen patiently.

The vixen's lip quivered in a sneer. "Yes."

"You already tried to take Howlester and Sudbury Lyn, as I understand it. As well as Whowl Burrow. A farming community? Desperate for chickens, were you?"

The vixen glared at the wall and said nothing. So Hellene lifted the crossbow . . . and shot her in the arm.

"Ahh!" the vixen screamed as blood splattered her cheek, and her arm trembled as it dripped in dark rivulets down her shoulder and over her dress. Captain Carnell could see her lips quivering and tightening angry, as if she was determined to ignore the pain and remain solemn.

"Answer me, creature," Hellene said calmly and lowered the crossbow to her lap again. "And you will answer every question I ask you. Or that will happen again."

"It . . . will happen anyway . . ." the vixen gasped and glared at the wall. She refused to acknowledge Hellene by even looking at her. She was a soldier through and through -- or at least Carnell would have seen her that way if she and her followers hadn't given up so much information already.

Hellene smiled like a shark. "Yes. It is going to happen anyway. But that is beside the point. You can die a slow, torturous death. Or you can answer my questions and be done with it. I refuse to let more of you vermin harm my subjects. Mastiffs are already marching to Redwick, and they will kill every fox in the forests there, burn every burrow dry, and string the corpses of your loved ones up for the birds to peck."

The vixen's lips quivered in a small smile.

"Why are you smiling, creature?" Hellene demanded coldly.

"You and I . . . we are not so different, dog bitch . . ."

"Don't be absurd. I have nothing in common with a savage."

"Wearing fine clothes . . . and riding fine horses . . . doesn't make you any less of a savage." The vixen smiled again, and Carnell thought there was a mad glint in her eye. He felt uneasy and put his paw slowly on his sword hilt. He hated the hiss of the creature's raspy voice. "Your highness," he said, "I could put the thing out of its misery."

Hellene lifted a paw, gesturing Carnell to silence.

"You kill without discrimination . . ." went on the vixen, her head tilted down, her eyes fixed on Hellene, "and many innocents will die for the few truly responsible . . . Just as I led my kind into your dog lands . . . just as I slaughtered pups and bitches left and right . . . without pausing, without blinking. But do you know the true difference between you and I, dog bitch?"

"No," said Hellene, her eyes slowly narrowing. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

The vixen laughed, the sound an odd rattle that chilled Carnell's bones. "I killed all those innocents . . . knowing they were innocent. You will send dogs to kill foxes who never did a dog any harm . . . because you can not fathom that a fox is innocent of anything."

"That's true," Hellene said indifferently and raised the crossbow again. She fired. The vixen screamed as a bolt lodged in her thigh, spattering blood on the bed behind her. She sagged in her ropes, trembling violently to hold herself up.

"You're right," Hellene said to her, lowering the crossbow to her lap again. "There is no such thing as an innocent fox. They are magical, dangerous, and vile. And the more of them we kill, the safer we are." She snorted. "Even your own gods know that. Why do you think you live in the dirt? Because you were cast down like the filth that you are. It is Ayni's will that you shall stay there. And I embody Ayni's will."

The vixen stared at Hellene, her flabbergasted eyes searching her face. ". . . Child of Fire and Rage!"

Hellene lifted the crossbow again and smiled behind it. "You've heard of me? I'm flattered."

Carnell watched solemnly as a bolt lodged with a splat in the vixen's forehead. Her head dropped forward and she sagged in her ropes. Carnell shook his head. What a shame. He stuck his head in the hall and gestured for a few mastiffs to take the body away. They filed quietly inside and started taking the hanging vixen down.

Hellene reloaded the crossbow as Carnell approached her chair.

"I thought you wanted to question the creature, your majesty?" the captain wondered. He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. Raping the creatures was one thing, but torturing and killing them like this . . .

"I did. And she told me all she knew. She was simply stalling the inevitable." Hellene locked a bolt into place. "Now bring me that sniveling little tramp. The one with the white ear." She smiled and stroked the crossbow. "I would like very much to shoot her in the face."

"Yes, your highness." Captain Carnell turned away. Ah. The little vixen whose cherry he'd popped. She was the last one, as the mastiffs had asked to keep her longer so they could make her suck them and stroke them. She would be on her knees even now, shivering and crying as huge mastiff penises stood in her face, and they would make her lick and stroke and would shoot on her, even as the body of her dead sister lay in the same cell. All the other prisoners were dead now, throats neatly slit, quick and clean. He would try to talk Hellene into making it quick for White Ear. A female shouldn't be screaming and sobbing unless it was on his dick.

***

"Oarona!" Mogethis awoke with a start and jolted upright, her white mane tumbling in her face. She broke down sobbing, as beside her, her brother came awake.

Nkwe sat up and frowned to see his sister crying. His red mane tumbled back as he took her in his arms and held her. "Hush, Mogethis . . ." he whispered, rocking her.

Taiga heard Mogethis crying and sat up on her elbow, her black mane spilling thick around her shoulders. "What's the matter with her?" she asked, concerned.

"Nothing," Nkwe assured her. "Go back to sleep."

Taiga hesitated but lay down again beside Nkwe. She was a beautiful black fox with a long black mane and pretty, slanted eyes. Nkwe had taken one look at her and had fallen helplessly in love.

Nkwe and Mogethis stumbled upon Taiga soon after an earthquake. They had taken a portal to escape Varimore and wound up in a forest half across the globe. They had been traveling the forest for some weeks when a star appeared in the sky, and then the earth was trembling violently, and they found themselves stumbling and running. The earthquake caved a fox burrow, and many of the foxes died within. Taiga managed to crawl free, sobbing for her mother . . . sobbing a name. Asres. Mogethis did not want to bother helping Taiga and complained that they should travel on, but Nkwe gathered Taiga from the dirt and cared for her. And they had been caring for her ever since.

In the earliest weeks, Taiga lay dazed and badly injured, and it immediately became apparent that she was not only sick from her injuries but also sick with child. Mogethis complained that they should leave Taiga to die: she was slowing them down, and her helplessness was soon to draw predators -- not just wolves, but also bandits, rival tribes, and fox hunters.

But Nkwe refused to leave Taiga and continued to care for her. He and Mogethis were both terrible with healing spells, and as a result, Taiga wound up lingering in pain for a very long time. By the time she could speak, she was demanding that they go back to her ruined burrow. Her family was dead, but she knew her brother was still alive, had dreamt of him traveling with strangers, and she wanted to find him.

They had traveled so far that Mogethis refused to go back, and she and Taiga argued about it for days, until Nkwe finally managed to talk Taiga out of it: even if her brother was alive, it was likely he had moved on by now. Taiga told them her brother was a great sorcerer, and Nkwe pointed out that he could have healed himself and gone half across the kingdom after so many weeks. Taiga then accepted the bitter truth, though sometimes they would awake in the night to hear Taiga crying for her brother. Nkwe would hold her as she wept, and Mogethis was kinder to her in the days that followed.

Tonight, however, it was Mogethis who wept.

"Why do you scream our sister's name?" Nkwe whispered miserably. But he thought he already knew, and the pain clenched at his heart. It had been this way for weeks. Mogethis would dream of one of their siblings, captured by dogs or dying on the battlefield. Their eldest sister -- Yula the High Priestess of Yfel -- had died the night Howlester was taken by the sword of a black dog. Mogethis had dreamt of it as she traveled with her captors and later told Nkwe of it after their escape. Their brother Thapeli was brutally raped before his murder, as was their white-tailed sister Thato. Oarona was one of their younger sisters, and Thato had promised to look after her. But now . . .

Nkwe squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his forehead against Mogethis. "Don't tell me . . . please, don't tell me. . . ."

Mogethis wept harder. "She was s-so young . . . s-shot in --"

"I said don't tell me!" Nkwe repeated angrily. He released Mogethis and viciously kicked dirt on the fire.

Mogethis sat beside him, sniffling quietly and watching him miserably.

They were on the border of Idria, in the heart of the Mosela. The name in the language of the dogs literally meant "The Last One," as it was widely considered one of the last forests on earth. After Mosela, there was nothing but desert sand and the endless stretch of the desert kingdoms, with only the occasional tiny oasis. It was said the desert came to be when Ayni rained fire on the earth, burning alive those foxes who rose against her. Yfel added to the chaos and giggled with glee when she sent more foxes to anger Ayni, and the fire roared on for centuries, until the earth was sand.

"Yen could still be alive," Mogethis whispered into her knees. She sniffed and hugged her knees, and though she was the older sibling, Nkwe thought her so very much like a child.

"No," Nkwe said darkly. Yeneneshe had been stolen from them by dogs seeking out their camps after a raid. If she was still alive, she was the last one. Before long, Mogethis would probably dream of her death as well. And why should it be any other way? Nothing ever went well for their kind.

Mogethis shook her head and her white mane tumbled. "We should have left her some place . . . some place safe before . . ."

"There is no place safe for a fox," Nkwe said darkly. His ears flattened when Mogethis touched his shoulder.

"You're my safe place," she whispered.

Nkwe smiled sadly. He and Mogethis had seven brothers and six sisters, and among all of them, they had always been each other's favorite. Their parents used to joke that Nkwe was the stars and his sister the moon, as the two of them were rarely seen without each other. They always protected each other, always took care of each other, and when the goddess Yfel called Mogethis to be a priestess, Nkwe defied the customs and went with her to live in the section of the burrow strictly for priestesses and Seers. The clan was angry with him and his parents shamed him, but Yfel allowed him to live with her servants, cleaning the burrow and serving them meals. And he was glad to do it. If it meant being near his sister.

Then Yfel told them it was time to rise up, set the dog lands ablaze and drown the creatures in their own blood. And they did her bidding without question, knowing it was fruitless, knowing they would die. But none of them cared about dying. They cared about killing every dog they could get their paws on, causing mayhem and pain, and letting the frustration that had been building for centuries fly free in the shape of fiery arrows.

Nkwe had raped dog bitches, had burst upon them in their homes and torn off their strange dresses. He killed their husbands in front of them. He slit the throats of their children. And during every raid, Mogethis was there at his side, holding down the wrists of struggling females as he raped them, helping him slit throats and burn homes and steal livestock.

They kept the raids random and sporadic, and the dogs were shaken, lying in bed every night as they wondered if tonight was the night the foxes would come again. They hit vulnerable farmland, coming down from the hills in a dark mass of fire to pillage and burn and rape. They worked their way slowly into the walled towns, slipping in to steal and kill as they pleased before slipping back out with things they would never have otherwise -- milk and eggs and chickens and beef. And Yfel watched. And Yfel laughed. And Yfel was pleased. And Nkwe and Mogethis drank dog blood in her name.

The raids were not about taking back lands they did not want back anyway. The raids were about making the dogs as miserable as they made them. And for Yfel, it was simply about fun.

But Nkwe knew he could never go back to that life. He looked at Taiga, and he knew that if she knew those things about him. . . . she would leave him. He was careful never to speak of his clan, pretended to worship Kutre, and when she asked him questions about his past, he fabricated lies -- even as Mogethis glared at him across the fire.

Mogethis didn't like being forced to lie about who she was because her brother was "infatuated with some slut." And the more Nkwe asked her to lie, the more she argued with him, the more she hated Taiga, and the more she threatened to reveal him. They would talk over supper, and Mogethis would start to say something about Poston -- where they were from -- only to flutter her lashes, whoops, and discuss something else entirely. Nkwe would grit his fangs as Taiga looked at Mogethis suspiciously, and he knew any day now, Taiga was going to ask him for the truth. And he was going to lose her.

That day finally came when they had been living in the Mosela for months. Taiga was getting big with child, and her waddling caused them to move slower than ever, so much to the point that they decided to keep hiding in the Mosela, at least until the child was born. Mogethis wanted to return to Poston eventually. It was possible their mother was still alive there, as well as their uncles and the rest of their clan.

Nkwe refused to go back. Even if their family was alive, he couldn't imagine facing his mother and telling her that he had let Oarona die. Oarona had been their parents' favorite daughter: sweet and innocent and soft. They brought her with them to Varimore because she wanted to see the world and insisted on coming. She wanted to participate in her first raid, she wanted to kill the dogs and drink their blood, as she had watched her siblings doing for so long. Oarona wanted to please Yfel by killing, by stealing, by losing her virginity to a male that Yfel would select and possess. Oarona would have become a Seer, and she would have belonged to Yfel, and she would become a voice for her whenever the goddess wished to speak to the clan. The last Seer was very old and dying, and Oarona would have been her replacement.

Nkwe thought of Oarona everyday and how white-tailed Thato had promised their mother that she would protect her. Thato had been as close to Oarona as Nkwe was to Mogethis, often acting as her little sister's bodyguard and shielding her from the world. And Thato had been confident that she could shield Oarona again. They had become so good at raiding and spying in Poston, they thought they would never be caught in Varimore. But they were oh so wrong. And Nkwe knew he could never go home, never go back to that life of stealing and killing. His dreams were plagued with visions of blood, of the pups he had killed, of the bitches he had raped. He never knew what it was to be taken, to be helpless, until that fluffy sleigh dog was raping him. The dog rode him so hard, he had felt the blood trickling down his leg. And he knew he would never again . . . he _could_never again . . .

They spent the months traveling deeper and deeper into the endlessness that was Mosela. Mogethis had decided that they should travel away from the new star in the sky. The star glowed even during the day, glowed like a second sun, and she believed it was a bad omen. There were whispers in the forest that foxes everywhere were traveling toward it, that a new god had risen and had come to take them home. But Mogethis didn't trust such whispers, and neither did Nkwe.

They met other foxes in the forest on occasion but steered clear of them. The other foxes did likewise, standing still in the distance, ears forward, paws on spears, until Nkwe and his companions had passed.

Sometimes they did speak to the other foxes, but it was always just long enough to exchange gossip and goods. The prince had returned to Wychowl. There was discontent in Curith. Maret had been seen flying over the moon. Ti'uu was stirring the waters. The dogs had recanted the Hunt and it was now a sin. King Antony had returned.

"What of the star in the sky?" Nkwe asked the foxes they stopped to trade with.

"They say it is not a star but a new world," answered a female in a bloody deerskin dress. Her red mane fell in a tangled mass around her shoulders, and a bow and quiver was on her back. The male beside her nodded and added, "It is a place where only foxes can go. They say the place is like poison to the dogs," he said happily, "And we are going there."

Mogethis scoffed. "Then you are fools. It could very well be poison to us too."

They finished trading, and the group of foxes continued on their way, as did Nkwe, Mogethis, and Taiga.

"But why are they fools?" Taiga demanded. She walked at Nkwe's side, holding his paw as they followed Mogethis. "And why shouldn't we go there? What they are saying could be true --"

"And what they are saying could be superstition and lies," said Mogethis over her. "You are young, so let me give you some advice, child: your cub comes first. If there is even the slightest falsity in that star in the sky, who will suffer when you have gone toward it like a moth to the flame? Your cub." She paused with her walking stick and glanced back at Taiga, who flattened her ears. "I may not give a damn about you or that worm in your belly, but I'm going to protect you both. Because my brother loves you. I feel it in my bones that the star in the sky is a danger to you. So we aren't going there. End of discussion."

Taiga cast her eyes down and swallowed with difficulty, and Nkwe rubbed the small of her back. He glared at Mogethis.

"Don't look at me like that, little brother," Mogethis sneered and looked away. "One day you will thank me. Mosela is as safe a place as any. Now stay here. I'm going to scout ahead." She lifted her walking stick again and waded through the bushes. But Nkwe knew she really just wanted to be alone for a while.

Nkwe helped Taiga ease down so she could rest beneath a tree. Her large belly protruded between her thighs, forcing her deerskin dress tight against her breasts. Her breasts were so large and full, swelling from her deep neckline and shivering with her slightest breath. She looked beautiful and tired and sad, her black mane tumbling everywhere and in her eyes, the strap of her dress falling over her naked shoulder.

Nkwe set aside his pack and walking stick, and rising up on his knees, he massaged Taiga's shoulders. She moaned gratefully and dropped her head back against him. He smiled and kissed her neck, then massaged her shoulders again, deeply, watching as her breasts moved from the careful stroke of his fingers.

They had never made love, though he wanted her desperately. Sometimes he thought of nothing else as he lay holding her in the night. She wanted him and made it known one night by placing her paw on his penis. But he slowly removed her paw and simply went back to holding her. She was baffled and sad. She thought he wasn't attracted to her, that he didn't want her, but that wasn't the reason. Didn't she know she was beautiful?

"Mm," Taiga moaned. "You're so good at that . . ."

Nkwe smiled behind her. "And you're so beautiful . . ."

Her lashes fluttered and she smiled at him. But she turned her face away again, and he knew she was frowning. "Nkwe . . ." she said unhappily, "why won't you tell me how you lost your ear?"

Nkwe's face darkened.

"You and Mogethis both . . . someone cut off your ears. She tries to hide it with her hood, but I've seen it. When she's sleeping . . . . her hood comes off."

"Never mind," Nkwe said grimly.

"Why won't you _tell_me? Tell me the truth!" She grabbed his massaging paws to stop him, and tilted her head back to look into his face.

Nkwe could see the tears trembling in her eyes. He sighed and sat beside her, drawing his knees up to rest his elbows on them. They sat in silence for a long time, and he could feel her staring at him, waiting. "The truth," he said heavily at last, "is that I love you. There is no greater truth than that."

"Nkwe . . ." she whispered sadly and touched a sympathetic paw to the stump where his ear used to be. The stump twitched against her gentle caress, and she smoothed her paw down his mane. He closed his eyes as she continued to stroke him. "Tell me the truth," she whispered. "I want to know you."

"No," he said miserably, "you don't." He bowed his head. "I am unworthy of you, Taiga."

"No. Don't _say_that."

"It's true," he said grimly. "I've done things . . . such things. You would never look at me the same. But I want you to look at me with your adoring eyes. I want to keep holding you at night . . . and kissing you. I don't want to lose that. I suppose I'm selfish."

"Yes, you are!" she said darkly.

He swallowed miserably and didn't looked at her.

"Don't I deserve to know the truth!" Taiga demanded. "I love you, Nkwe!"

He looked at her, taken aback. She had never said she loved him before. She was crying and her throat was tight, her eyes were angry.

"Tell me the truth!" she shouted at him.

Nkwe frowned sadly to see her so hurt and angry. He peered off into the trees and answered solemnly, "I am Nkwe, Prince of Tribe Yfel, born of magic to She of Madness. I killed in her name, raping and pillaging along the countryside, without conscience or care. I have slit the throats of children or else strangled them with my bare paws. I have raped bitches in front of their husbands, who I had stabbed and forced to watch. I have sown chaos, destruction, and fear, leaving only blood and fire in my wake. . . . and I have done it with pride." He fell silent, staring at the grass between his feet, waiting for Taiga's disgust or anger. He was surprised when she dropped her head on his shoulder and slipped her arm in his.

"Taiga, I don't deserve you."

"You are not that male anymore," she whispered.

"I don't know who I am anymore," he said, thinking of his scattered clan, his dead siblings, and all that had been lost to fire and blood.

"You're mine," Taiga whispered.

He glanced at her in surprise. She was smiling at him warmly. And then she was kissing him on the lips, softly, tenderly. He went very still, thinking he should stop her, surprised by the fervor with which she was kissing him. But he let her keep going, unable to move as uncertainty and surprise kept him frozen in place. He hesitated but kissed her back. And then her little paw had slipped up his deerskin skirt, and she was touching his penis.

Nkwe frowned against the pleasure. He could feel himself hardening at once and pealed his lips from hers. He bit his lip. "T-Taiga . . ."

"Shh," she whispered. Her long lashes fanned down as she looked at his mouth . . . and kissed him again.

He leaned back on his paws, as if to escape her tender compassion, her forgiveness, her love. He did not deserve to be forgiven for the things he had done. But she loved him still. And the fact . . . terrified him. He was stammering a breathless protest when she pushed his skirt up his thighs . . . and buried her face between.

Nkwe frowned against the sudden pleasure of her lips and tongue. It was the first time a female had gone down on him of her own freewill. And the fact that she was tasting him and sucking him and trailing kisses down his shaft simply because she _wanted_to made it that much more intense. All his life, he had been afraid to let a female get this close. He lived his life keeping the females of his tribe at bay, and the only time he became intimate . . . was when he forced it on another. But this . . . this was new. And terrifying. And wonderful. And as he watched her mouth devouring him, he realized . . . this was love. This was what he had been denying himself for so very long.

"Don't be afraid anymore," she whispered later when they were sitting under the tree together.

He held her tightly in his arm, afraid she might vanish, afraid it wasn't real, that he would wake up alone with Mogethis in some dark, strange forest and it would all have been a dream. He stroked down her thick black mane, and she sat with her head on his shoulder, and he thought she sounded so blissful and content.

"Who did you love before?" he asked her sympathetically. He had long wondered. Her husband had probably died in the earthquake, leaving her with child.

"Would you believe me if I told you?" she whispered sadly.

Nkwe frowned slightly. "Why wouldn't I?"

Taiga's lashes fanned down. "I loved Etienne, the King of Varimore."

Nkwe went still. He didn't know if he should believe her, after all. Before he had a chance to respond, however, Mogethis returned, and they set out again.

Some months later, Taiga gave birth to healthy female pup. A dog. She died giving birth to it, and Nkwe buried her beneath the tree where they first made love. His work done, he knelt over the grave, the little pup wailing in his arms. He closed his eyes when he felt Mogethis touch a sympathetic paw to his head.

"The girl was telling the truth," Mogethis said in amazement. "The thing looks just like Etienne. But how is it possible? A vixen having a dog brat? We should smother it."

Nkwe scowled. "Shut up, Mogethis," he whispered as a tear trembled over his cheek. He stared dully at Taiga's grave. "I will not listen to that sort of talk."

"I only worry," she said apologetically. "This is magic like we've never seen. That child was created as a tool for the gods. Didn't the girl say she served Maret? Do we really want Death on our heels?"

"And do you think it would please Maret if we strangled her child?" Nkwe said through his fangs.

Mogethis remained silent, and Nkwe didn't have to look at her to know she was staring uncertainly at the wailing pup. She had always been pragmatic and cold, even where children were concerned. In her mind, no life was too precious if it endangered her loved ones, and she saw the pup as a danger to them. Because it belonged to Maret and to Etienne, the Child of First Light.

"Besides," went on Nkwe and dropped his eyes to the pup in his arms. He tickled its chin, and it stopped crying to stare at him. "I'm not sure she's even fully dog. She has a tail like ours . . . and little fox ears . . . and magic tingles through her."

"It may have died in its mother's womb had we taken her to that star," Mogethis realized. "See? I told you I felt something."

"Or she might have survived. She's not just a dog. She's . . . some impossible hybrid. A dog-fox. What Maret meant for her . . ." Nkwe shook his head. "Only time can say." He smiled at the pup. The first one born in The Last One.

"Perhaps Maret meant nothing at all," Mogethis said. "She is Death. She is Endings and New Beginnings. A new species is a new beginning. Perhaps she wants dog-foxes to breed and thrive. If not simply for her own amusement."

"Well . . ." Nkwe sniffed and Taiga's grave blurred as more tears rose and fell. "I hope she is amused by my suffering. Perhaps she took Taiga . . . simply to punish me. And I would deserve it, wouldn't I?"

"Come, little brother. We should not linger here. We must find milk for this child, if you are determined to keep it. Though I think we should take it to its father."

Nkwe scowled. "I could be her father. She doesn't need Etienne."

"I would rather Maret walk in his shadow than in ours, baby brother." She touched Nkwe's head affectionately.

"Fine. We will take her to Etienne. But we will keep her for a while, at least," Nkwe said. He looked at the grave again and thought, Or perhaps forever. How could I ever let you go?

"I wonder what Etienne will name the thing."

Nkwe frowned. "Stop calling her a thing." He got to his feet and paused to look at the grave again. "And why should Etienne name her? He wasn't here, helping Taiga give birth to her. He didn't love Taiga. And he will not ache now that she is gone." He barely noticed when Mogethis put a soothing arm around him. His eyes were fixed, angry and pained, on the grave.

"Zeinara is a nice name," Mogethis said quietly.

Nkwe blinked. Zeinara. Yes. He smiled at the pup, who giggled as he tickled its chin. Zeinara. That would do.