She hadn't told anyone where she was going, at six months old now she was no longer a helpless pup tumbling over her own paws, apprentices shadowed hunts and learned the world. They proved themselves. Sitting around camp listening to the same stories and doing the same chores felt unbearable when there was an entire horizon beyond Jakten's borders. So she had followed that horizon.

Even from home, she could see its dark silhouette of the mountain stretching across the bay like the spine of some sleeping beast. Its peaks rose from the earth in jagged rows sharp enough to resemble enormous teeth biting into the sky. Naturally, she had decided she needed to see it for herself.

Though the climb was harder than she expected.

Loose stone shifted beneath her paws, wind screaming through narrow gaps in the rock like distant voices. And more than once she slipped and caught herself at the last second, claws scraping against stone. Her shoulder screamed from where she'd slammed into a ledge, but she refused to slow down. If the Jakten warriors could climb mountains, then so could she. And eventually, she reached a narrow shelf overlooking the bay. The mountain's immense shadow stretching across the water, swallowing much of the it beneath a veil of gray blue gloom. The ocean beyond glittered in sunlight, but here everything seemed muted. The young girl snorted.

That's it?

She had expected something far grander.

—