“The Altian wilderness proved to be everything I could have imagined. Relatively untouched, its serene silence belied a perilous landscape fraught with murderous plants, steep cliffs, bogs, and poisonous insects. That’s to say nothing about the beasts that inhabit it.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

All of it was standard. One day to the site, three days back to lose any tail that might have found them in their travels. Four hours sleep the first night, six the second. They crossed two more rivers. Illian watched the skies. Gormin led their party, while Terald, Kit, and Ren traded off watching the rear. The dragons were their own type of watch, but they were watching less for humans than for beasts. There was little conversation through the long days, a smattering in the evenings. Everyone was aware of the gravity of their situation. They had gone from enemy territory to enemy territory, traded one edge of the border for the other with no safety in sight.

There was no sign, at first, that anyone was following them. They were deep in the heart of the woods now, the canopy overhead so thick they walked through a permanent twilight. It kept the temperature unseasonably low, but invited black flies. Bek had learned small magical methods to repel the biting insects ages ago – they did not like the short, sharp bursts of static electricity he pushed like a web over his skin – but not everyone was so adept.

Though he had heard tell of the mythical beasts that populated the forest, they were surrounded by beasts of the ordinary kind. Squirrels, chipmunks, mice, rabbits, deer. They were not used to humans. Some watched them pass, making no move to run whatsoever, even when they saw the wolf. Nothing out of the ordinary made itself apparent to the party, with the exception of a series of white, cloud-like wisps of mist overhead, shimmering deceptively against the starker greens and blacks of the forest canopy - spider silk, and the spiders it belonged to were either extremely numerous, or extraordinarily large.

When things changed, they changed abruptly. There were beasts in the trees, following them slowly and stealthily. One of the dragons became aware of it first, and ignored them for a time. As morning bled into afternoon of the third day, it became clear they were not going to be left alone. Towards the front of the group, Bek saw Gormin glance back at Cevora, who pointed towards the dragons, and then the trees.

“They know it is the tree wolves,” Skourett spoke to him silently, and Bek nodded, staring blindly into the surrounding forest. The dragons had flickered in and out of visibility enough times that the tree wolves must have known they were there. All of the hatchlings were invisible except Cevora’s pearly beast, Kestria.

They kept going for another thirty feet or so. At that point, Gormin turned to call down the line. “Backs to the trees, folks. We have visitors.”

They moved quickly, shuffling up against trees as wide around as two of them together, bark wrinkled and gray and wet with moss. All of their eyes turned upward.

“Cevora?” Bek heard Silver ask as the silence pressed in around them. The woman made a sound that said she was listening, unwilling, he assumed, to take her eyes from the trees.

“What is Nersvrian?”

“Where have you heard such a phrase?” the princess asked sharply.

“The birds,” Silver said more softly.

Cevora muttered something under her breath. It was Hiyein who answered. “It’s what they call us,” he said with a gesture upward, “To us, it means ‘the beast kin,’ to them, it means traitor.” For once, he did not look amused.

Silver was clearly about to say something else, but froze suddenly when the air around them vibrated with some impending spell. Bek threw up his shield immediately, catching everyone in a ten-foot radius, and felt the magic hit. It was a screaming gust of hot wind meant to intimidate more than harm. Tree wolves were like every other type of wolf; they did not like to approach head on, and when they did, they knew better than to appear weak. Especially in front of humans.

“Should we stop them?” Skourett’s hiss came to him, startlingly close to his right shoulder.

That was not Bek’s call to make, and he heard Cevora make it instead. “Let them come,” the princess stated firmly, so everyone could hear above the wind. “Clearly, they have something to discuss with us.”

Abruptly, the pressure on his shield vanished. Bek held it in place, glancing sideways at Cevora. She looked no less ready for battle than any of the rest of them, including Silver.

Ahead of them all, one beast alone stepped from the trees, head high, violet eyes glittering dangerously. On the ground, the tree wolves looked more panther than wolf, and acted more wolf than cat. Bek dropped his shield when the creature raked them all with its gaze and then curled its lip around one of its canines, rumbling something no human could take as anything but a threat.

“Traitors,” the beast barked then, “What business?” Guttural, broken words. Bek was used to them because of Zien, but he was used to broken English. In Altian, the words he knew were mangled nearly beyond comprehension.

“We’re passing by,” Gormin spoke for them all, at Illian’s nudging, “on our way back to where we belong. We mean no harm.”

The beast flicked its ear, a gesture of irritation he recognized well.

“Trust is earned,” the beast snarled. Around them, the forest came alive with the thunder of the other tree wolves, growling, yipping eerily in the gloom. Silver might have understood. The wolf, by the way the fur rose along its spine and its ears swiveled, definitely did.

“The dragons have given us their trust. We walk with them,” Gormin stated factually.

“They overstep. Not welcome here,” the tree wolf growled.

“The dragon kin cannot forgive such words,” Skourett rumbled. From the twitch of the tree wolf’s ears, Bek knew it heard, and when it snarled into the surrounding trees, he could only wonder what sort of conversation they were caught between. It was not the dragons who acted next, however, but Silver.

Bek had no chance to react when she shoved away from the tree and strode forward, glaring in the direction of the beast who so resembled Zien. Cevora called her back sharply, but Silver did not respond. The wolf had gone with her, and Bek was sure he was not the only one who saw how ready it was to rip the throat from any beast that threatened Silver. There were times when he could almost forget that the wolf was a wolf, and when it bared its sickle fangs and laid its ears back, he was reminded forcibly.

“It is not your place to question the dragons,” Silver said. Bek glanced at Illian, their eyes meeting for the briefest of seconds. Everyone could feel her magic. They all knew, in that moment, that she understood the beasts, and the beasts understood her. But he did not think that was the only reason for the surprised glance Hiyein and Sori shared, or the shock on Cevora’s face. Silver was quiet. Sometimes, a bit too much of a pushover. She never argued, except with him. She certainly never commanded, facing them down with an expression as unyielding and cold as winter – an expression like that she had turned on the tree wolf.

Silence reigned again. The dragons had fallen silent, the trees around them still.

“You are Sheurai, I presume,” Silver said, her voice filling the hush. Tsunami. A name Zien had mentioned long ago, in speaking of the past ages. Bek wondered, from their angle, how many people could see when Silver smiled a strange, disconcerting smile. Baring her teeth. Like the wolf who stood, stoic but protective, at her side. “Welcome us, and the dragons will forgive you.”

The tree wolf rumbled something, head held high.

“That is their alpha,” Skourett’s breath was hot on the back of Bek’s neck, “she claims that now she understands why the dragons have given these humans their trust. Like the nightwings, she calls Silver nerske…beastspeaker.”

“Come,” the alpha barked suddenly, turning and flicking her two-pronged tail at them expectantly.

“They plan to take us to their den,” Cevora was clearly also using the hatchlings to understand what was happening, “If we are to be allies, it would be hard for us to refuse.”

Several of their group looked doubtful. No one would have followed if Illian had not taken the first step forward.

“Then we go. The dragons will come with us. Silver,” he demanded, and Silver turned slowly. Bek could not see what expression she showed him, but after a moment, she glanced at them all, looking flustered and embarrassed. “Well done,” Illian praised.

She blushed as he passed her with Gormin and Cevora, and continued to blush when Ren patted her shoulder on the way by and Estir said, “That took courage,” in passing. Bek paused in front of her, gesturing for her to go ahead. Silver did, casting him an apologetic glance.

“I think you made Cevora angry,” he said too softly for those ahead of them to hear. Silver cast him another sideways glance.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled after a minute, “I shouldn’t have jumped out there like that. What I said wasn’t exactly nice. The tree wolves could’ve—”

“In a situation like that, you did exactly what Illian would’ve wanted,” Bek interrupted her, “there’s no need to apologize.” Silver fell silent, and after a moment, she nodded. When she sped up a bit to walk in front of him, he did not follow. It was clear she was keen to be left to her own thoughts, and so was he.

“This was the dragon srinn’s plan,” Bek muttered just loud enough that he knew Skourett would hear, “with one of you beside them, even someone with no ability to speak with the beasts can understand them.”

“Etrion srinn is wise,” the dragon’s response came quickly, “but understanding is not enough. Our presence is not enough. Among beasts, the strongest is srinn. This is Law. This is how the dragons rule.”

“Yet the tree wolves listened to Silver. All she did was threaten them with your power.”

“No…” He waited, pushing aside a branch that would have whipped him in the face if he ignored it. “The others agree. Words are nothing before the strong. Today…I cannot explain.”

“Try,” Bek suggested, feeling Kit and Terald’s eyes on him from behind. He wondered if the dragons had said something to them.

“I cannot,” his dragon persisted, “when a beast stands before its srinn, it will know. When a power meets a greater power, it will know. When the weaker stands unflinching, when it speaks without doubt…there is an instant of uncertainty. Which is stronger? The weak one who appears so certain, or the one whose strength is cast into doubt?”

Bek nodded slowly, because he did understand. A bluff. Catching a glimpse of Skourett’s bronze eyes between the trees, however, he was less sure of his interpretation. The dragons were not interested in bluffs, and there was nothing particularly remarkable about them. Anyone could pretend to be stronger than they were. If what he had seen of the hatchlings was anything to go by, the greatest weakness the dragons had was their belief that they were always the stronger one.

“Avalone and my sister say this is what makes humans strong,” Skourett’s rumble found him again as the trees ahead of them thinned, revealing a sheer cliff stretching some hundred or more feet up into the canopy. Avalone was Sori’s dragon, Bek recalled as he cast a questioning glance into the trees. “They do not display their strength as the beasts do. Plotting and scheming, one must always question what they’re hiding. That is even true of Silver.”