In the wee hours of the morning, Ghosteater padded across the burned plain, the fine ash and crunchy cinders not quite shifting beneath his once-paws. He had almost reached the valley the evening before, but the firestorm had sent him racing back up the mountain. The soft creatures’ rainforest had protected him from the flames, but reaching it in time had been a near thing. His only other hope would’ve been to shelter in the silence, and that might not have worked out so well.

He saw the pup from far off, huddled on the bank, shuddering with cold. He noted her lack of garments and thought it strange. Then, ever cautious — or usually cautious, at any rate — he sat down and considered her.

She was undoubtedly the source of the working. The marrow of the valley had her scent to it. A fire-worker, then? He opened his mouth, breathing deeply and tasting the scents. No, not fire — heat. The marrow was thrumming with the echoes of the energy it had been worked to produce.

No wonder the émigré wanted her. The wolf chuffed, disgusted. Humans and their games.

The isolate’s cinder-filled wind played through his fur. The language it spoke was ancient and strange.

He looked back at the girl, curled up on the blackened earth.

Hatchling, the wind sighed.

Flee.