Time passed with the seasons, and each day slipped away without the reappearance of Gul. I felt at once relieved that he had not returned to Glorall since I had shown him the place I called my home, and also frustrated. Where had he gone? Why had he vanished as quickly as he had appeared in my life? Perhaps he truly was only the ghoul he had told me he was. A ghost who would haunt my dreams, never walking alongside me again. My imprint was such an enigma to me, impossible to understand though there was nothing I had wanted to learn more about in my life. But without him near, such a thing was not within the realm of possibility. He'd not come for me, and he'd not come for Glorall. I was not a traitor to my alpha, to my pack. With that knowledge firmly recited each day in my waking mind, I had begun to seek some normalcy in my life once more.

Having made my desires to serve the pack known to Eden, he'd assigned me a task to show my capabilities. My goal was to become Glorall's Arbiter, the judge for the pack. It was not so much a desire to pass judgment against others that attracted me to the rank, but rather the responsibility of helping others find their place within the pack. From a young age I'd always been inquisitive by nature, and perhaps my more intuitive side could be put to good use in such a roll. And if nothing else, completing the task set forth to me would show not only Eden but also myself what I was capable of within his hierarchy

Eden had asked me to seek out a foreign girl who had been lurking around the pack of late. Her scent had been easy enough to pick up, but each scent trail I'd found led back out of the pack once more. Even the freshest set of her paw prints was weeks old, stale and clearly showing her exit of Glorall. So I began to search further afield, thinking perhaps she had picked up on the fact that someone was looking for her. I wandered away from Glorall, but there was no sign of her. It seemed as though she had moved on from these parts, and I would not go hunting across Moladion in search of her.

But as I reached the threshold of the grotto, I recalled days spent wandering in their depths, where I had first met Aithne. There was a tugging at my heart, an aching in my bones at the loss of the shewolf I had once called friend. And even deeper than that was the loss of my brother. I sighed softly, turning as if to return home to Glorall. The wind shifted, then, and another scent came to me, wafted up from the depths of the grotto. Looking back, I did not hesitate, too curious at this turn of events to pause and think through the situation before moving down into the darkness, unsure - and yet somehow certain - of what might lay beneath the surface.