---

The land had transformed. Nate scarcely recognized it, and if not for the gigantic tree towering over the tunnel he'd been told could take him practically anywhere, he might not have believed he was back in the nestled shelter where many had taken respite from the bitter wrath of foreign powers.

Would they still be here, in this familiar place where so much was not the same? Love had brought back the sun. Trees woke from slumber into vibrant fresh green stretching off into the horizon. Blossoms of a hundred hues sprawled beneath them mixed with sugargrass. Butterflies swarmed the skies above, brilliant metallic blue like magical beings themselves.

Nate smiled soft, and crossed the long stone path to shore, shoulder aching with new scars from a wound that should have killed him.

No. Had killed him. Twice dead, and changed in ways still further which he could distinctly feel but not explain.

Ko-Ga had still recognized him. The crow sat upon his shoulder now, appearing in almost every way the same as he always had (minus a few feathers.) You might think him unchanged, but for the wisps of smokelike blue that trailed off his feathers now and then. He'd become something unmortal. Perhaps all of them had.

But Nate realized that if Mythris flung him to far reaches in the influx of magic, she may well have done the same to the others. He might return to empty shelters and old scents on the wind. He wanted a reunion, but realized that in spite of which had come to pass, this might be more than it was fair to hope for.

He realized too that disappearing for ten days, and returning with a glowing bird, a glowing feather, and death-defiant ripple in his fur from a wound that could not have truly healed in so short a time without the meddling of spirits, might mark him outcast regardless. He didn't know what the Seal Hunters, or the Sharadoii, or the Aedui, or even the Diné, thought about such things. He only knew men had been willing to kill for far less obvious miracles.

Finally wide paws splashed onto rocky shoreline. A redbird flitted through the trees on the woodland's edge, singing.

He took in a deep breath. Swallowed. Then lifted his head and howled.