I'm not about to give thanks or apologize.

[Ezekiel de le Poer]

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     She spoke of children and the coyote smiled ruefully, but said nothing. There was no place in Ezekiel’s path for children or a woman. His purpose had been singular, approached with the same headstrong drive that he had carried since birth. Had he stopped to indulge, he would have lost his course. Some things, though, were unavoidable—the war was unavoidable—but he had welcomed that and loved it in a way that he would never love a woman. Too many unsaid things passed between warriors, things that could not be understood by those who did not speak the tongue.

Ezekiel watched her move, knowing he was studying her as he might any other stranger. Talitha’s walk was not the one he recalled. Trepidation lingered in her steps, as if she might stumble and fall into some unseen abyss. The boy did not need to guess why such unspoken fears haunted his sister. For the briefest moment, while her back was turned, his eyes turned remarkably terrible like their father’s. Hatred still lingered within the boy, though deep in the same recesses where it remained hidden and unseen to the world.

She rose and he was all smiles, all sunshine and summer days, and she took his hand as a child might. The blonde grasped her own firmly, unwilling to let her spirits fall. “I’m glad you’re back too,” he replied, walking with ease in familiar land, silent despite the things he wore—each were strapped down carefully so that he barely made any noise. “What’s happened since I was gone?”

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