David stands before me, watching as the mules and horses are loaded with blankets, seed, canned goods, squawking cages of chickens, and tools. I’m thankful spring is here, being as there is less hazard and we will have growing plants to harvest and more animals to hunt.

There will be an influx of thousands of people into the mountain. It will be a tough first year as we work to build a city in Dragon Valley, but I hope the people will be happy and well cared for. The endless summer will help, but we must take care not to overtax the land and animals there.

Flash has been suspiciously absent today. Zephora saw him and I caught a glimpse of him speaking with Jace and Tim when I was distracted with Nova’s speech lessons, but he hightailed it out of the inn as soon as he saw me looking. He knows something is coming, he just doesn’t know what… yet.

That cat brings a light to my life I haven’t had in quite some time. He’s like the brother I lost. The brother who’s now returned to me… different.

I sigh, turning my mind back to the Shifter in the cells beneath the courthouse.

“What’s wrong, son?” David asks, not turning from watching a donkey struggling against his handlers, his braying stabbing my sensitive eardrums.

I’m silent. I’ve never entrusted anyone with this, with these decisions. But I need wisdom beyond my wavering soul. Beyond my emotions. I have those around me I can trust… those around me I need to trust and hope they don’t betray me in the end. “Can we speak?”

He glances up at me, his eyes showing surprise. “Sure. Tim, keep up with the tallies?”

Tim grunts an affirmative, taking the vellum from David and marching into the fray of people, animals, and wagons.

Jace looks between me and David and the retreating bald head of Tim. David juts his chin at Tim and Jace sketches a quick bow, racing off after his friend.

I follow David, and he takes me through streets teeming with people to a placid stable. The horses munch on hay and chickens cluck while a sheep or two release baas.

I immediately relax, feeling more at home here among the animals than around hundreds of humans. A few guards follow me everywhere now, Sir Rey and Bridget’s father among them. It is… stifling, but when I complained to General Brackenridge, he started laughing and walked away.

“Secure the perimeter, please. Ensure no one is close enough to eavesdrop,” David says, using my guards as something more than mere guards.

Sir Rey nods, and Bridget’s father and the multi-colored eyed Shifter I set free back in the Werecat village, Hiphrate, both bow. They leave, and I follow them with my ears, allowing my ears to grow into tufts and searching for any heartbeats or breaths other than the animals within the stable.

Short breaths and the scent of a fear-filled boy comes from a few stalls down. I peer in the stall, and the boy quavers from behind the horse, his eyes wide and terrified. He’s skinnier than a boy his age should be. He can’t be much older than Jed, but is smaller than Barry. His eyes glint golden, reflecting the little sunlight that penetrates the shadows of the stable.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Come out.”

He ducks from behind the horse, keeping his eyes on the ground. I tilt his chin up when he gets near me and his eyes flash with anger and his ears grow points and fur. He snaps at my fingers and I chuckle, which only seems to make him angrier. His body begins to morph, his tunic shredding and the shift taking over a full minute to leave him whining and panting on the ground, a gangly pup more than a grown wolf.

“Hi there.” He looks up at me and his lips pull back in a snarl, a growl rumbling from his chest.

I shake my head, grabbing him by the scruff and picking him up even as he tries to bite me. “I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, quite the opposite.”

He whimpers, tail tucked as he slicks his ears to his head and finally stops fighting.

“Highrate, would you mind to take this little guy—” he growls “—sorry, big guy to Flash and make sure he finds food, clothes, and a place to belong if he wishes to come to the mountains?”

The scraggly black wolf perks slightly at the sound of food. “Yes, food. Follow this Shifter and you can have meat sticks, honey buns, and whatever else you might want. Just promise you will not hurt anyone who does not attack you.”

His tail wags between his legs and he gives a tiny, hesitant yip.

I set him down and watch as he slinks behind Hiphrate, who gives him a smile and encourages him with an endless stream of what they would find to eat along with warm water and clothing. The pup perks up, trotting to keep up with Hiphrate's long strides.

I sigh, nodding at Sir Rey who watches the small enclosures and paddocks around the barn, and make my way back inside with David at my side.

“How’d you know he was there?” David asks.

“I could smell him.”

He shakes his head. “What I wouldn’t give for such heightened senses.”

I sit on a bale of hay, staring at the plain brown logs which make up the walls of this structure. The walkways are swept clean and the stalls have fresh shavings, the sharp, nearly sweet pine scent nearly making me sneeze.

David pulls out a stool from who knows where and sits beside me, taking a pipe from his pocket and lighting it. The sweet scent brings back good memories and I smile.

“My past is not something I am proud of. Quite the opposite.” I pick at a string within the hay, plucking it out and running it between my hands. It catches on the calluses on my palm. “I became Master Gray by accident, killing the Shifter charged with punishment of the pups when I was fifteen. From there, I was forced to torture young Shifters to purge them and make them one with the darkness.” Bitter loathing coats my voice and bile rises in my throat.

I look up, and find David studiously not watching me. Somehow… that helps. I speak in a monotone, telling the story as if it’s not my own and detaching from the emotion.

“The Masters are replaced when one is killed. Most times it is by the one who kills them. Years after I became a Master—” I spit the word with loathing “—I was done. I left, but not without leaving behind some who had become, if not friends, then allies. One such was Yellow. But I always knew there was something about Yellow. Something different. Oh, Allfather, what did I do?” The words burst from my throat and I breathe deeply, trying to control myself and just get to the end of this nightmare. “Yellow is my brother by blood.”

“Alec?” David asks with surprise.

It would warm me to know he remembers the name I gave him when we first met if my soul wasn’t churning within me.

My stomach clenches at the horror of what I did. Of where that brought me. I twist as bile rises in my throat, and I empty my stomach beside the bale where I sit.

I sit up, wiping my mouth and leaning against the stall at my back. A horse nickers and a bristly muzzle nuzzles my forehead. I give a weak smile and pat the nose, wincing when he snorts on me. Animals can sense emotion, and this is a sweet boy trying to find out what’s wrong with his low nickers and perked ears. It somehow helps calm my nerves and my stomach stops clenching.

“The boy I ignored and even punished as Master Gray now sits in a cell, having captured my Pa and leading him to his death. But I know he never meant for him to die. He put me in an impossible situation with only one out… but I chose another. In one way, I am the one who killed him. If only I had listened to my instincts when I saw Yellow as a pup those many years ago, I might have gotten him out or shown him that I still cared. My brother wouldn’t have been left in the hands of monsters alone to become one. He was not like me. He was a gentle and honest soul. They broke him. They broke him in ways they never broke me—” my voice chokes off as sorrow rises from deep within and a whimper breaks from my throat.

“What did I do?” I whisper.

David sits his hand on my shoulder and squeezes as I pinch my eyes shut, trying to deny the rise of emotion within my chest that bubbles beyond my ability to hold. That Pa’s gone hits in full force, making me realize I will never talk to him again, never hear his wisdom, never get his advice nor see his proud smile as I wrestled with the boys. He should be the one here today, working me through this situation. I stop fighting it and let the emotions come, grieving Pa, grieving my gentle brother who's come back a stranger, grieving the many choices which led us here, on opposite sides of war.

I know my brother is not entirely to blame. He learned to be a sociopath to survive. He learned to hide himself and perhaps even lose himself to numbness to keep from breaking further at what he was forced into.

A light shines into places I haven’t wanted to look back on for a very long time. I shy from it, but something guides me to look at my past and see. See the things I was forced to do and the numbness which overcame me in that time.

And I realize… he is me.

Yellow is the me before I met Pa. He is the me from before the Allfather worked on my heart and taught me redemption and even joy was for all, not just those who were good.

I am looking at myself from four years ago, and I don’t like what I’m seeing. In fact, I loathe it with a hate that is hard for me to comprehend. I need to forgive myself once more… and not just for myself, but so that this hate I had against myself doesn’t rub off and flavor the emotions I have for Yellow… for Alec.

Eventually the out-pour of unfathomable grief stops, but the tears don’t.

“What do you want to do?” David asks, his voice soft.

I shake my head, turning my face so it is cloaked in shadow and he cannot see my tears. “He’s my brother, but he is responsible for so many deaths. Deaths he was forced into by a strong Alpha, but I know not what he did with or without Command, or if he was Commanded at all. He may be near innocent, or he may be guilty of crimes you cannot comprehend. He claims the Guild needs to be, that the Black and the Purple are in a power struggle and if one were to overwhelm the other… that things could turn from bad to worse. I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know where the truth or where justice may lay.”

“You know, when you were first brought here, you had saved our lives, but you were still a semi-insane Shifter with strength and a past we couldn’t comprehend. You were dangerous, and I needed to protect those I loved. Shasta was enamored with you. That child doesn’t know danger if it slaps her in the face.” I laugh, wiping my face and turning to look at him. He watches the wall, seeing something in the past I cannot, a doting smile on his face. He turns, his eyes drilling into mine. “I had to know if you were trustworthy, so I asked Morgana to find the truth of your intentions.”

My jaw clenches. “The tea—”

His grin broadens, even if it is slightly guilty. “It was by my request. I had to know.”

I shake my head. Once, I would have been angry at the invasion into my privacy that tea forced me to disclose to near strangers. But knowing them as I do now and being in a similar position… I understand.

“You suggest a similar approach?”

His smile grows brittle. “Find out if the brother you loved is still there, son. You might be surprised.”

I nod. He gets up, groaning, and I realize there are deep bags beneath his eyes and a limp in his step that was not there before the battle.

“Go get some rest, sir. Thank you for the help… and being willing to listen.”

He grips my shoulder, and I think we’re both surprised when I don’t flinch. His eyes widen… and then soften. “You are a good man, son, one who was forced into some terrible things. I do not begrudge you the decisions you have at your fingertips with the power now bestowed on you, but know you go it not alone. Not anymore. I will support you until my last breath, and then will beseech the Allfather on your behalf for eternity.”

I look up at him and give a tiny smile. “Thank you, sir. Truly.”

He pats my shoulder, then leaves me to my thoughts, slowly limping from the stable.