Violet

Getting used to everything I had seen, and the fact that I now had my own wolf, felt serene.

She never spoke as she accompanied me, padding silently at my side as I wandered through the half-buried city. When I stopped, she stopped. When I moved, she moved. There was something almost endearing about it.

While looking through the ruins, I crouched before a section of wall that had been protected from the worst of the erosion. Faded colours clung to the stone. It might have been a beautiful mural, but the image was too damaged for me to make out.

"It must have been beautiful back then," I whispered.

My wolf settled beside me, its warmth radiating against my arm.

She didn’t say anything.

Her silence had unnerved me at first, but it was odd how she found every opportunity to press herself against me.

I always found myself leaning into her warmth in return.

The visions surfaced again and I remembered the flames burning this place down. The children screaming, the wolves pouring through the streets...

I blinked away the tears that threatened to come out and sighed.

Lycans had lived here, walked these streets, looked up at these buildings and called them home.

And then they had all been hunted down.

The wolf’s fur brushed against my shoulder, grounding me.

I opened my eyes and kept moving.

The day passed on, and I was still exploring. The deeper I went, the more sadness engulfed me.

The sand had buried so much.

Entire buildings were swallowed up to their rooftops, only the domed peaks visible above the pink dunes. I tried digging in a few places, using my hands and then my syzygy to shift the heavy sand, but the structures went deep. What I could see above the surface was only a fraction of what lay beneath.

I found rooms with high ceilings and graceful arches, their walls worn smooth by centuries of wind-blown sand. I found courtyards that might once have held gardens, now filled with nothing but dust and silence. I found what might have been a great hall, its floor buried under feet of sand, its windows gaping empty at the sky.

Some buildings were oddly lying sideways too.

Everything was faded, eroded, and lost. Just when I thought I would be excited by my findings, I felt very sad.

I never found the symbol of the Rector household, and a lot of the buildings and rubble I had uprooted from the sand provided little to nothing.

The scrolls and documents I had found had been wiped clean, and that was besides the papers that didn’t immediately crumble when I touched them.

On the third day, I sat against the wall of a collapsed building and tried to think.

I wanted to go deeper into the sand, but I knew doing all that would take a very long time.

Bei would be very worried about me at this point. But I wasn’t sure how I was going to return. I did not have any maps on me, and I doubt it would have helped navigating this hidden region.

However, my wolf’s presence had sharpened something inside me. My sense of time and direction.

The connection between us was still new, and strange, but it was already changing how I experienced the world.

I wondered if this was how the other wolves could navigate spaces just relying on their wolf.

I stared into the horizon.

A thousand years.

The number kept echoing through me.

Of course there would be barely anything left. A thousand years of this city being slowly devoured by nature. It was no wonder I barely found anything yet.

I thought of Zephyr walking through these same streets. Not the burning city from the vision, but after. Crawling through the wreckage, searching for the children she had lost, and finding only bodies.

Had she passed this building? Touched this wall? Wept in this courtyard?

The grief was not entirely my own, but I felt it as deeply as if it were.

[ - ]

The following morning, I was prepared to leave.

I couldn’t stay any longer.

Bei was out there somewhere. Waiting, and possibly terrified.

I had no idea how many days had passed since I dove into that lake. It could have been a week. It could have been longer.

"I need to go back," I said quietly, stroking my wolf’s fur.

Her ears flicked toward my voice. "Why?"

"I will be back. I need to do something first," I answered. "To make sure history does not repeat itself. Bei would also be likely worried about me."

"Your companion," she said knowingly.

I nodded.

Then a thought occurred to me. I turned to fully face my wolf. I could never get used to just how large she was. Even slightly larger than Rowan or Kael’s wolf.

"Why did you call me through that underwater space when I could have just come here on land?"

She stared me dead in the eye.

"You were not alone. I will not bring wolves here to desecrate this place."

My eyes widened.

I had initially wanted a few wolves to come here to help restore this place after things had fully settled. But I would have to consider it another time. Especially not to soon.

This would be a discussion with her for another day.

"I understand... wait... what can I call you? Do you have a name?"

While in Zephyr’s body, I hadn’t noticed her ever calling her wolf by name. Not even when summoning her.

The wolf’s ears flicked.

"Why would I have one?"

I blinked. "What?"

"A name is not necessary when we are one."

I frowned, something twisting in my chest.

Why would she not have a name?

"Then I’ll call you Zephyr."

The wolf went still.

"That is not necessary. That was your first—"

"Please," I whispered.

I moved closer and lifted my hand, pressing my palm against the side of her face. My fingers threaded through the soft white fur, tracing the golden lines that shimmered beneath my touch.

"I’m sure you miss her," I whispered.

My wolf didn’t respond.

But I felt it.

A tremor ran through her massive body. It started small, barely perceptible, but it grew until she was shaking against my palm.

That was when I saw the tears.

I was stricken. I had never seen an actual wolf weeping.

The grief hit me like a wave. Not just for Zephyr, but for all of them. Every incarnation. Every death she had witnessed. Every lifetime she had watched me live and die, never being able to reach me or save me.

My own eyes burned.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her neck, pressing my face into her fur. I cradled her massive head against my chest as best I could.

"I’m sorry," I choked out. "I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone."

I held her tighter, my tears soaking into her fur.

"Zephyr. Please, have the name." I whispered again.

Zephyr pressed closer, and for a long moment, we just stayed there, two broken things holding each other together.