Frigid air filled my lungs, and I breathed deeply of it. It felt almost like inhaling ice, and yet the sensation was invigorating. Spring had arrived, but within the heights of Spirane's mountains that meant something different than it did to the wolves at lower altitudes. Though the snow had begun to melt patches still clung to the peaks, and the temperature remained freezing - or close to it - at the highest elevations. Still, it had been enough to clear the way to a place that was considered hallowed ground among my immediate family. Daenerys had shown all of her children this place, a place where she had often come to clear her mind in the thin air of the highest point any wolf could reach in this range. It was a wide shelf of rock, big enough to comfortably fit at least 7 wolves, and yet I sat there alone.

My head was angled towards the heavens, and I stared up into oblivion. Nothing in Moladion reached higher than this peak, except for the occasional bird who dared to fly so high. Had I tried to fly too high? I closed my eyes against the world, unsure of my place in it. Despite all of the joy in my heart at rejoining the pack and reuniting with my closest friends, there was a heaviness there too.

'I will never stop working for it,' I had promised my mom the day she had accepted me as her heir.

And yet when the time had come, when that elk had nearly taken her life, it was not me to step forward and look after the pack. My heart had warred with me, but the close bond I felt with my mother had bade me to ensure her wellbeing first and foremost. And then the one thing Daenerys had told me she didn't want to happen, happened - the pack had been thrust upon one of her children unexpectedly. All things considered, it seemed that Kalseru was doing a fine job leading the pack. I had always looked up to her, she had such a way about her that just screamed 'royalty,' an elegance that I'd never quite achieved. And yet it had been me to accomplish each task set forth by our mother to prove that I would be a good leader. Had all of that been for nothing?

'I never wanted that for you and your siblings - the rivalry.' Daenerys' words echoed in my mind.

Of course a part of me was consumed with jealousy that Kalseru had been the one to take Daenerys' place when she had been forced to step down. But she was my sister above all else, and I loved her. And I didn't regret my choice to ensure the survival of our family's matriarch. We couldn't lose her the way she'd lost her parents. She had always been so strong for us, through the disappearances of both Leonidas and Jericho, through the loss of our home and the will to regain it for us, that I had to be strong for her in that time. And yet, had I sacrificed my future in that decision?

Taking another deep breath, the cold air threatening to freeze my nostrils, I opened my eyes once more and sighed. Mahogany eyes haloed in fire lowered to look out across the mountains that sprawled beneath me. I knew I would always have a place here, but I wasn't sure if I could settle for less than I had strived towards my entire life.