More coyotes trickled into the room, and pale blue eyes marked their progress and where they chose to stand. Some lingered on the edges, while others found mates and friends and family and settled close to them. When it seemed that all that would come had come, Ezekiel drew himself up to speak.
She listened to his words as if she were one of the crowd seated below, her silver-ringed ear flickering back against her head as the news trickled into the seemingly stuffy air of the creaky old mansion. The building made her claustrophobic, she who could snuggle into a tiny earthen den or find herself buried under a snowdrift and not panic. Or perhaps it was a combination of that and the foreboding words. She did not know Halo well, but it said something that their greatest warrior had fallen.
The news of the mansion was less relevant to the cave-dweller, but she knew she would work among the others nonetheless. It would give her an opportunity to know the scouts and fighters and builders, to dig her tendrils even deeper into the fire clan she had been inexplicably drawn to.
Ezekiel looked to her.
Swallowing carefully, not letting her pale throat bob under the gaze of her comrades, Vesper took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. She knew what information she could deliver best, and at length she lifted her chin and spoke. Her voice carried less of the authority that the Aquila had naturally, but it did not make her sound weaker. She had been forged in a more solitary and perhaps colder fire than the coyote king.
“Some of you might know, but a pack of wolves has gathered in the north.” Her blue eyes flickered over Myrika briefly. “New Dawn has little love for coyotes, but the alpha Zalen has expressed that he does not want trouble. Their goal is similar to ours: to have a home for themselves. That said, while I doubt Zalen would order an attack on us for petty reasons…” Her tone grew harder, colder, perhaps forced but no less serious. “You should take care. Do not give them a reason for violence. The word of the leader does not always equal the thought of his followers, and I don’t know the others there.”
She knew it was a disaster waiting to happen, two packs bearing prejudices against the others’ species not even thirty miles apart. She did not want that, however—did not want the war between wolf and coyote to continue. New Dawn would be the beginning of peace, she hoped, existing with its similar but opposite ideals near Inferni.
The next news she would impart might not affect the others as much, although Ezekiel had seemed surprised. She frowned for a moment then continued. “Ichika no Ho-en has had a change in leadership. Their former leaders are gone, and a woman called X’yrin Exultare leads.” She wondered who had known Razekiel and Naryu, and who knew the Nomad woman Vesper had come to see as her mentor. These fond emotions were forced under a tone of detachment as she addressed the clan. “What changes come to Ichika as a result are anyone’s guess. X’yrin is a warrior, but she abides by their peaceful ideals. I do not foresee problems between Ichika and Inferni”—if only for Vesper’s sake—“but caution is the best path to take as always.”
She wondered what else there was to add, or if she had said too much, and looked down at the others for their reactions.
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