PROLOGUE

Against the pale gray of the early dawn’s cloud-covered, snow-flecked sky, in the near silence of the coming morn, a light svelte shape loped along in great, graceful bounds through the deep snow. Four slender legs, willowy tail flowing behind, ashen fur pale in the dim light, the figure paused only once to cast a cautious look over one shoulder, ears flicking and searching for signs of pursuit. A form was on the horizon, a dark shape looming between the expanse of the gray sky and the white landscape. The pale figure turned, striding quickly away.

A mighty black paw, ivory claws extended, lashed out in warning at the dark skeletal form, which skipped backward out of range with agility that belied the gaunt, haggard figure. Ears with tattered edges wilted atop her head, her once gleaming coat now dull and covered with a layer of dust, a leering grin spread across the bony jaw, revealing a maw lined with fangs stained the colour of soot. “Now, now, dear brother,” she scolded, hissing voice icy and acidic. “You are thinking with that thing that you call a heart again.”

“Senka,” her brother snarled, a sonorous, enraged sound rolling from deep within his strong chest. “I’ll not allow your wicked paws to touch the young ones.” Sturdy muscles twitched beneath the glossy ebony fur, balancing upon the very edge of readiness should the face-off come to blows with his deceptively gaunt, implausibly violent sister. Such a sister had forsworn her father, ill-treated her mother, had once beaten her young niece to an untimely death, and driven her sister from her home.

“Oh, come, Nuada,” she purred in a voice that was sickeningly sweet, cold yellow orbs glinting maliciously. “I want only to play with the tiny loves.”

Nuada’s sky-blue eyes narrowed to threatening slits, ivory fangs bared. “Heartless beast. You wish to kill them, just as you killed our sister’s daughter.”

Senka gave a shrill laugh, leisurely coming forward, lanky crooked tail swaying behind her. “Just one of them, my brother. The little white one.” Her yellow eyes flashed. “I can see,” she whispered, “the thing he will grow to be, and I do not like it.”

A soft mewling came from her shoulders where a pair of tiny kits, one as ashen as his mother, the other black as shadow, clung to the safety of her strong back. She gave a glance at the kits, rosy-coloured eyes soft and loving. “Hush, my loves,” she whispered in a voice that was quiet and mellow. “Beyond the hill is a human village. You will be in safe hands there.” Another look to the horizon behind showed the black shape coming ever closer.

Nuada sneered. His sister possessed a bizarre gift of sight, vision of what was yet to come. Though he had learned not to doubt what her foresight told her, he had always failed to see the justification in her reasoning. “What is it that your sight tells you that you so dislike as to bring about his premature demise?” She grinned her awful, mocking grin. “Tell me, Senka.”

Senka chuckled, creeping nearer as her younger brother backed a step for every one she moved ahead. “Curiosity killed the cat, dear brother. Let the question simmer a while. Perhaps I will tell you when that pretty white fur has gone red and his little blue eyes dull.” He could see her hind legs prepare to tamp down in readiness to spring, her yellow orbs glittering with thoughts of a kill. He could feel, in response, the fur raise at the base of his neck, his muscles tensing, the tremendous need to protect boiling up from deep within him.

“Nacarra,” Nuada growled, low and deep in his chest. The graceful ashen form of his consort standing protectively over the young ones glanced up at her name. “Go.”

Nacarra shook her head in defiance. “I’ll not leave you, Nuada…”

“Do as I say!” he ordered, his resonant voice commanding that she would not flout the charge, claws flexing and blue eyes burning. “A human village is nearby. Flee with the kits. Wait for me there.”

In the muted light of a sun not yet peering over the rim of the land, Nacarra’s ashen form slipped over the last knoll that separated the wild territory from the bounds of the human provinces. Nuada had called it a village, but it was not much more than an makeshift parish for roving humans, consisting only of brown canvas-covered wagons, a few rickety fences housing shaggy oxen-like creatures called qadir, and the burnt out remains of camp fires. The traders had never been uncaring of Nacarra’s kind as a huntsman might have been. Occasionally, they would leave slabs of meat on the roadsides during particularly harsh winters, and they never thought to bother her kind, the ‘Areli’ as humans called them, the lions of God.

The qadir snorted, nostrils flaring, black eyes wide, and they stamped their large hooves in alarm when she crept near. Nacarra crouched, ears flattening against her head as she glared up at the big easily frightened beasts, rose orbs meeting ebony. She stole past silently, low to the ground, and hid in the shadows beneath one wagon, rosy eyes glittering as they peered out from the shade. From above her head, a soft snoring came, and her pointed ears flickered at the sound. Nacarra tilted her head, raised her eyes to peek through a small crack in the rickety floorboards of the wagon.

A bit of warmth radiated onto her cheek, melting the icy layer of frost on her fur. The curtains were drawn within, casting only dim light inside the wagon’s walls, and she noted the shape of a human tucked snugly in bed, a fluffy pillow under their head, buried beneath a heap of cozy fur blankets, various colourful trinkets and knick-knacks strung from the ceiling, chinking quietly in the shade.

Like a ghost, Nacarra crept out from under the shelter of the wagon, slipping up the flight of a few wooden steps to the door, and she ever so gently took each kit between her jaws, nestling them down into a straw laundry basket, filled to the brim with sweaters and trousers, which lay next to the entryway. The kits mewed at their mother, wondering at this strange-smelling cradle, and she gave each a soft and loving nuzzle with the tip of her black nose. “Hush, my loves,” she said especially quietly. “Do not be afraid.” She lifted her head, glancing back the way she came. The dark figure on the horizon would be very near now. “You are in safe hands should I not return.”

Full of regret and grief, Nacarra moved away in silence, and once again crested the hill. She was met by the sneering, skeletal form of Senka.

Her piercing yellow gaze, glaring with a twisted calmness, followed the movements of her brother’s graceful ashen consort as she gathered the two young kits onto her back and fled without a word or a look back. Nuada stepped between her and the path of his companion. Senka’s sinful stare flickered over him. “Am I not allowed to follow her?”

“Over my dead body,” Nuada snarled in return, blue orbs promising pain.

Senka gave a shrill chuckle, muscles tensing, sooty fangs bared in a malicious grin. “That can be arranged… dear brother.” She launched ahead, black claws exposed from their sheaths.

Nuada’s hind legs tamped down, ivory claws drawn, and he leapt to meet his sister in air. His greater weight carried her backward, paws slashing, claws and fangs cutting into fur and flesh. Senka easily righted herself, landing softly upon all fours, tail waving angrily. She disregarded the bleeding torn skin left on her shoulders as though they did not exist. Nuada ignored the gaping wounds she placed on one side of his face as the blood rushed readily from them, layering his ebony coat, watching as she paced before him, yellow eyes glinting.

Lightening quick, Senka lunged, her jowls slavering. Her paw connected with his jaw, knocking his head to one side as her fangs latched onto the skin at the base of his neck. Nuada gave a howl at the pain, sliding awkwardly as her last blow suggested his body travel one direction and her teeth jerked him in the other. She dug her claws into the snowy ground, dragging her brother along, shaking her head as a dog might, feeling flesh tear under her fangs. He quickly regained his footing, leaping forward to slam his skull against hers, and the grip she had on him loosened.

Nuada wheeled, forepaws connecting with her ribcage, and she tumbled to the ground in a cloud of snow, disoriented as she was by the good crack to the head. She tossed herself to her feet, eyes wild, and she vaulted ahead. The topside of her head knocked roughly against the bottom of her brother’s jaw, exposing his vulnerable throat to her black fangs. Her jaws locked about his windpipe, crushing and suffocating the life from him. Nuada tried to draw in a surprised breath, but felt that he could not, and Senka flung him to the snow, her teeth still fastened, blood gushing against her mouth. He brought a paw up, claws tearing into her ear, and though she winced, she did not relinquish her hold. Seconds, each like an eternity, crept by, and Nuada’s half-hearted attacks grew weak. Senka patiently waited as his paws sunk to the snow, orbs became dull, and the death spasms came to an end, eyes gleaming in satisfaction.

Dark blood caked Senka’s fur. A dozen new wounds decorated her body. Her head hung low as though she did not have the strength to hold herself, one ear dangling from only a few cords of skin, great chunks of fur ripped from her shoulders. Still, her crazy yellow eyes glittered. “Dear sweet Nacarra. I regret to inform you that your beloved Nuada is dead.”

Nacarra’s fierce eyes and set jaw did nothing to show her pain. “Will you kill all the humans in the world too, Senka, to reach my young ones?” Senka’s eyes narrowed in annoyance, and the ashen Areli grinned. “No, never you. You fear the humans. Isn’t that why you sought to destroy my kits? Because your gift of sight told you that I would take them here, to the one place where you are too spineless to follow?”

Senka gave an angry growl. “Foolish creature! You have ensured your precious white kit’s ruin, abandoning him to become a spoiled, mollycoddled pet, all fat and lazy.”

“I have not,” Nacarra snarled back. “I have promised their safety, and trodden on your plot.”

Senka’s muscles tensed, fur standing on end with outrage, eyes flashing. “Then you will follow Nuada to your grave.” She vaulted ahead, fangs bared and aimed for the proudly displayed ashen throat, even as fortitude burned in Nacarra’s rose-coloured eyes.

The sun peeked over the horizon, casting long shadows across the snowy landscape, and the travelers woke with the daylight, oblivious to all that had occurred in hours of pre-dawn. Wagon doors swung open on well-oiled hinges, and the trading men and women got busy about their business of amassing the camp, preparing for the road that morning. One plump woman, wearing a skirt the colour of the sky, a white blouse, and a green kerchief about her graying hair, gathered laundry baskets from each wagon doorstep, singing a cheery tune as she moved from one cart to another to a washbasin set before her own wagon.

“Little lark in the sky, singing twitter-tweet-tweet, twitter-twitter song sweet. Hopping ‘cross branches high, singing twit-twit-tweet, twitter-twit… Goodness, what is this now?” She tentatively lifted a brown chemise from one basket with two fingers, peering curiously at the pair of furry bundles huddled beneath. “My gracious!” she gasped, one pale hand going to her chest in surprise. “Geb! Oh, Geb! Do come see this!”

An aging man hurried to her side, staring at the little black and white kits now mewing in the basket. Hesitantly, he reached down, old calloused fingers gently taking hold of the fuzzy bundles, one in each palm. The kits were silent, sapphire and ruby orbs large and inquisitive. Geb gazed back, his gravely voice but a whisper. “Where is their mother?”