Somewhere deep inside I pried at my memories, the very first moments of my life that I could recall. I wracked my brain, trying to recollect if ever there had been a time I had looked upon Swallowbane’s face and called him brother. But there was nothing to be found; the search was useless. It was evident, however, that he plainly remembered me. Perhaps in those days of my youth before he had vanished from the mountain he had watched me from afar. Hardly a child anymore, indeed. So much had changed since he had left. So much about me, and so much about the mountain. Spirane knew the taste of blood; her soil quenched its thirst on the deaths of my parents. But such was the way of the world, and it was best that their bodies remained here, becoming one again with the mountain that their lives had been anchored to. It was the place that had always brought them back together, no matter the time or distance apart.

My words seemed to physically break him, and I remembered that pain, fresh as if the wound had been cut open in my heart only yesterday. To lose one’s parents was inevitable, for that was the way of the world, time should always take the parent before the child. But this had been different. They had been torn out of my life, our lives, by the jaws of another. They had not been given the opportunity to grow old in one another’s arms. Instead, they had died entangled in a bloody embrace, ripped from this world and unto another. For a moment, my ears flicked backwards in distress, watching Swallowbane as he tried to grasp the reality of what I had just told him. He asks who, and immediately my ears flick forward again, eyes narrowing and lips quivering. My teeth are exposed as I snarl the single terse word, her name, the usurper who had made such a mess of my life; “Purge.”

It mattered not to me if the whole thing had been accidental or not. The usurper had struck her attacks with such ferocity it had taken my mother’s life before her time. I knew the ways of battle, and no strike need be so strong as to take another’s life when fighting for the right to rule. She was a malicious wolf, and she would pay for the sins she had wrought upon the lands of Moladion. I knew I did not stand alone in my need for vengeance, and some part of me knew that Swallowbane would join me in my quest to rid Moladion of her filth once and for all, whether I asked him to or not.

The anger flourished within me as it always did when I was forced to speak of that vile creature, and I knew that I needed to quell it, lest it seek to control my heart. I pivoted, moving to stand beside Swallowbane as I spoke of the tomb. No further words were spoken; I simply began to move, trusting he would fall into step beside or behind me. I descended the mountain, moving with sure and graceful steps. I remained silent, eyes forward and focused. If there were things Swallowbane wished to know, all he need do was ask.

Finally we broached a line of trees and emerged into the clearing that housed our parents’ tomb. Stones of all shapes, sizes, and colors made a massive crypt. Walking forward, I approached the massive rose quartz stone that marked the head of the grave; it had been placed by Sleekwing a mere few inches from MoonGlow and Alcide’s noses. I knew that with the passing of time all that would remain of them now was their bones, that their flesh was now one with the mountain. I lowered my diadem, touching my nose to the stone in a silent greeting to my parents, before lifting my crown once more and looking again to Swallowbane.