The structures are rougher than I expected. Built for function, nothing fancy. Wood and stone. Smoke rising from central fires—three of them, no, four, the fourth one's almost out, someone should tend that before it dies completely.
Hanging racks with meat drying. Venison, probably. Maybe elk. Someone was in the middle of skinning a rabbit when we arrived—good size, clean kill—and they've stopped now, knife in hand, watching us pass.
Watching me.
The knife needs sharpening. I can tell from here by the way they were sawing instead of slicing.
"That man's going to ruin the pelt," I mutter to Kestria. "Someone should tell him."
"Maybe not your first introduction."
"I'm justsaying. You can see it from here. The angle's wrong too—he's cutting against the grain. You start at the hind legs and work up, not—"
"Mel."
"Fine. But it's painful to watch."
Nugget clucks. One sharp note. Everyone within ten feet turns to look at the basket.
"Shh." I tuck her wing back in. "You're not helping."
That one's hostile, arms crossed, jaw tight. That one's curious, leaning forward, no visible weapons. That one—a woman with a baby on her hip—oh my gosh, she's so cute, look at those chubby thighs—pulls the child tighter against her, stepping back into her doorway. Not hostile. Scared. Of me.
A young man near the drying racks elbows the boy next to him, muttering. An older woman is sitting on a stump near the far fire, gray-haired, weathered, watching me with eyes that don't blink. She doesn't move. Doesn't react. Just watches—sharp and still and taking everything in. She's been doing this a long time, whatever this is.
"Who's the woman on the stump?" I keep my voice low—not that it matters with their hearing.
"Which—" Kestria follows my gaze. "Orel."
"She looks like she's deciding whether to let me live."
"She looks like that about everyone."
"That's not comforting."
"Wasn't trying to be."
Then I see him.
A man steps forward from the crowd.
I don't recognize him at first. Lean. Sun-dark. Shirt hanging loose, and there's a scar across his shoulder where thefabric slips, and—
Oh.
Oh.
I stitched that.
I was twelve. He was bleeding in a ditch, leg caught under a branch, barely conscious, and I didn't know what I was doing but he was going to die if nobody did something and nobody was going to. So I did. Thread boiled three times because once didn't seem like enough. Hands shaking the whole time. I remember the shaking.
He was the first wolf I ever treated.
I didn't know he was anything else.
He's walking. Toward me. Into the open space between me and everyone else, and everything goes quiet, and everyone is looking, and I'm holding a pink chicken.
"Melori."
