the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight
{drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
The earth had shook, but he had not felt it—not where he had been. The afterlife had been peaceful in a way the young stallion was unaccustomed to. It had been quiet, smothering, the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders. Reminding him that he had not belonged there; reminding him that he was a trespasser although at times he had felt like a prisoner.
He had not intended to go there; it had been an accident, an exercise gone rogue.
He had overextended himself trying to protect his family, casting the net of his magic wide to gather them together and hide them. Some had gone quietly, as if they were slipping into a slumber. Others had fought. (Magnus had been vicious in his anger, and it had been draining to keep him there, to quell him. Woolf had tried to reason with him but words were useless when the gold stallion kept thrashing against the chains and barriers.)
But it had been easy at first, too easy, and that had made him arrogant.
It had been like flexing a well-used muscle, the action surprisingly easy. He, along with Bright, had simply drawn upon the collection of family under their control—tapping into them like a well that ran deep. But then the war had come, and death, and it had become too much. They had begun to fray and stretch too thin. He had seen the exertion on her thin face and he had known his own had mirrored it. Then they had snapped—like rubber bands that had finally met their breaking point. It had all dissolved around them, their control whiplashing and them catapulting to places where the quiet had weight.
It had taken time to regain themselves there. It had taken time for them to draw themselves back together, pulling the pieces and atoms toward the center—rebuilding their form like Beqanna would eventually craft her new Mountain. But they had, eventually, and they had set to work rectifying the situation. They had become the ultimate chess players of their own family, drawing together souls, planting triplets, waiting for the birth so that they could use the sudden burst of life as a catalyst to send them home.
He had felt it building in his bones for weeks, for months. The slow crawl of the life in Victra had been building in them and he had felt his powers within his reach. They had been close—so close!—to finding their way back home, but it had eventually been for naught. Because Beqanna had other plans in mind, and the shifting of her lands and tectonic plates had catapulted them back to the top of the Mountain. It had been confusing—jarring even. The air thin, the ground unstable, and he alone. Completely alone.
So he had begun his trek down the craggy slopes and then outward. He was not sure when the change happened, except that he is sure that it did. He felt it bleed from him until he was but a husk of the stallion he had been, the magic silently seeping from his veins to leave him quiet and alone. Bright was not here, and he had no way of pulling on that invisible string to see if she was at the other end. He could not feel any of his family for the first time in his life. It was isolating for someone who had always felt so powerful, so in control of his circumstances. He found that he did not care for it much.
When he reached the Forest, he stuck to the edges of it, his green eyes glittering out from beneath the thicket of his mane. This was a new land—a new experience altogether—and he had no protection from it, except the silent immortality slowly racing through his veins. So, he did what he did best. He observed. He studied. He watched from afar.
And he gathered all the information slowly, like a weapon, to his breast.
Woolf
