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slammed her staff into the ground. As she completed the spell, a shimmering barrier materialized between the buildings on the right and the wall of rubble on
    the left. Walking swiftly, she returned to the group and nodded to Duras.
    “Now we go,” she said coldly.
    The fang moved quickly back the way they had come. No one turned to watch the fate of the Nar. Only Bastun looked to see them beating against the ethran’s invisible wall as the dead engulfed them. Then Syrolf blocked his view, scowling with sword in hand to keep the vremyonni moving.
    After a few blocks, losing themselves in the maze of Shandaular’s streets, Duras broke the silence.
    “What is happening, Thaena? How did Nar get into Shandaular?”
    The ethran didn’t answer right away, her steely gaze fixed on the road ahead. Similar questions were at the forefront of Bastun’s thoughts as well, but he wondered not how the Nar got in, rather why they would come to such a place at all.
    “We’ll return to the second wall,” Thaena answered. “I remember seeing an intact gatehouse. We shall tend to our wounded and discuss the situation there.”
    Duras nodded, apparently not wishing to press her further on the subject, and moved to direct the lead warriors toward the gatehouse.
    Bastun noticed a trail of little spots appearing ahead of his every step—each one a bright scarlet, dripped from the wounds of the warriors. Some of them pressed against deep cuts, while others tried to disguise a slight limp. This behavior too—though a common point of pride among all berserkers—was also taken from the wolf, who would hide or attempt to ignore injury to stay with the pack. It was another reason Bastun wished he’d been one of them—and also one of the primary reasons he was not and never would be.
    “You wasted no time ignoring the rules of your exile, Bastun,” Thaena said, still looking forward.
    “I did what I thought best,” he replied. “I—I meant no disrespect.”
    “The Nar have… changed things,” she said, her eyes scanning the shadows among the ruin, and let the matter of rules and laws drop. He too could not keep from wondering if another ambush awaited them, though his heart raced at her nearness. “The Shield s hathran may be in need of our assistance.”
    “You suspect the Shield to be in danger?” he asked.
    “I can imagine few other reasons for the Nar to be here, in this broken city,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “And no one comes here without a good reason.”
    He said nothing else, thinking of his own reasons for being brought here and the life he might know upon leaving again. The presence of his old friends tangled his thoughts and hopes for a different life. At the moment he wished that the wychlaren had chosen someone else to lead this mission, someone he could look straight through and despise without complication.
    Thaena glanced at him, her eyes unreadable within the wychlaren mask, and whispered, “Thank you, Bastun—for ignoring the rules.”
    “There’s no need, Thaena, I—” he said, trying to catch her eye before she returned to careful study of the dark corners they passed, but she seemed already far distant again, “It’s nice… to hear something familiar.”
    “Familiar?”
    “Your voice, speaking my name,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
    She looked at him once, before quickening her stride to join Duras at the head of the formation. Bastun watched her until she became just another blur in the fog, another set of anonymous footprints in the snow. Sighing, he chided himself and shook his head.
    “You’re welcome,” he said under his breath.
    After his sister’s funeral he had not been allowed to meet or speak with anyone before being taken away to the Running
    Rocks. The wychlaren had thought it best. The rumors were spreading, and due to his magical talent he would be joining the vremyonni. They thought that with time the stories would be forgotten and that the rumors would fade