Blood doesn't stain crimson fur.

It dripped from the tod's reddened jowls, and he glared down at the white, lifeless pelt of the fox beneath him. Or, that's what the color used to be.

Blood stains silver fur.

He licked his chops, the bitter liquid curling his tongue with a twinge of iron. His father always said the taste of victory was sweet––the flesh of his enemies was like a ripened fruit. Pluck them from the leaves, crush them between your jaws, and let the juice run down your chin.

Colborn couldn't stand the taste of blood.

His hide bore the color of Flame because he was strong. He was fierce. He wouldn't stop until everything in his path was destroyed. The fox beneath the fur had little say otherwise.

"Clear the dens." His voice was gruff and emotionless. He didn't let his mind flicker to what it meant for those inside.

The second-in-command dipped his coal-nosed snout. He was a fox much smaller than Colborn, but his fiery fur bristled all the same. "Yes, Kriger."

A group of foxes fell in behind him, trotting across the rocky outcrop toward the hollows formed in the snowy base of the rocks ahead. Tods and vixens alike formed his army, the latter never more than disposable females.

Colborn's eyes drifted across the battle's gray background. The opposing force had no commander now; he lay dead on the earth. The Shadowborn army littered the ground like ash in the aftermath of a raging fire. A few fading embers stirred between them, battered and bleeding, and their red-furred sides rose and fell slower with each breath. One met his gaze and whined.

His paws stepped past the bodies with little care, their lifeless flesh beneath his toes now as cold as the icy wind nipping his fur. He stopped at the ribcage of a fellow Flameborn soldier. She bore no visible death-sentence, only tattered fur... and a broken leg. Her brown eyes drifted upward, and they glistened with a plea for mercy.

That was what she'd be given.

Colborn stretched down, widening his muzzle so that the chill of the air met his teeth. He felt the vixen's fur bristle against his gums, and the hide gave way beneath his bite. More blood spilled onto his tongue, and he closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch the terror in her face as he yanked his jaws away.

A yip pierced the sky.

He spat the chunk of oozing flesh on the ground, and he stepped away without looking. The warmth in the back of his throat made him sick, but if he had to bring her back home to his father instead, to watch him torture and kill the injured vixen, he would've hurled.

The weak had no reason to live. The weak had to die. And if his army saw him letting a soldier desert, it would be his own windpipe in the dirt.

Turning on his paws, Colborn heard the wails. He kept his back to the mournful cries, remembering the days when he was there in the massacre. His father would be standing here instead, while vivid whimpers dug their claws into Colborn's mind. He could see the face of every kit he ever killed, hardly more than one himself.

Finally, the echo of suffering died, just like each mother and its young.

His second-in-command stopped at his shoulder. A ball of marbled fur hung from the fox's jaws. He stretched out his muzzle, and Colborn took it without a second glance.

"The area is clear," Brandr said, his eyes glowing. "You did it. Jarl will be pleased with our victory."

Colborn was sure his father would, but his stomach only churned as he held the dead kit, a hideous symbol of victory. Its eyes hadn't opened, yet its pale fur was spattered with red. He blinked back the tears before anyone could see them.

Blood doesn't stain crimson fur.

–❈–

She listened to the silence. Eyes closed, head tilted, she traced their scrabbling paths beneath the tundra.

Ice crunched under their tiny feet. Blood pumped through their rounded bodies. The vixen could hear two thudding heart-beats somewhere below.

One of them strayed from the tunnel that led toward her feet. But the other trudged blissfully along, ignorant to the deadly jaws that hung just above a layer of snow.

She lowered her chest so that the snow-colored fringe brushed against her forepaws, and she steadied her legs. Each footfall grew louder. It was nearly beneath her.

She shifted her weight to her rump, so that her front was light and she could focus on her aim. Just a little more.

Before she could lift off from the ground, the ice trembled with a hum. She broke her stance to regain her balance, and a scowl yanked at her jowls. Her ears sank as the lemming skittered away, and she whirled around to face the source of the blundering steps.

"Oops, were you trying to hunt?"

She scanned the icy-furred fox from her nose to her blunt, black nails. Her pelt held a shimmering hue like that of the sky, and the vixen's teeth glinted in the sunlight. The glow was as blinding as the tundra.

"You know I was, Karina." The words came out a hushed snarl.

Karina's eyelids narrowed, but she merely scratched at her ear with an aimless paw. "Not like you would've caught it anyway, not without any depth-perception."

She forced out a breath, before filling her lungs again slowly. "I make do, Princess." Her nose tipped downward in a nod. "And to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Her sister harrumphed. "Quit calling me that, Skadi." Karina rolled her eyes, as if she didn't bask in every ray of praise she received. A snarky smile graced her muzzle. "Mor wants to speak to you."

Skadi froze. Why did the queen need her? Her heart quickened and her mind raced. What had she let slip?

She swallowed her worry and deadened her expression. Skadi looked up at a younger, flawless reflection of their ruler. Karina was perfect. Never once did the vixen draw the scrutiny of their mother, not in the way that her damaged sister did.

The vixen turned on her paws and flicked her tail in Skadi's scarred and silver muzzle.

Her stomach growled as she followed Karina across the snow. She knew that the lemmings laughed from their tunnels deep in the icy ground. The taste of blood would have to wait.

Skadi's gaze scanned the powdery horizon. On one side towered the frozen summits. The wind blew from the other, bringing with it the nose-scrunching scent of salt. She watched sunrays dance on the distant waves, sparkling with a beauty she never dared envy.

They stopped at a cluster of rocks. Rugged gray corners peeked out from beneath the snow, and Karina used her claws to clear some of the crystalline slush from a dark hollow between two stones. She tucked her head further inside, and a faint voice urged her deeper.

With a swallow, Skadi followed.

Her pelt brushed against the narrow tunnel. She crawled forward on her belly until it widened out and the floor became level. Skadi shook the snow from her fur, finding comfort in the warm refuge of shelter away from the biting wind.

The roof of stone stood just above Karina's ears, trekking toward another hollow opening on the other side of the den. Shadows filled the farthest corners, obscuring the foxes curled on the cold, hardened floor. Each had their nose tucked beneath a thickly-furred tail.

A final vixen with tan bristling beneath her sprouting winter coat stood at the threshold, and she stepped sideways to allow the vixens passage.

After passing through another doorway, she drew her gaze to the center. She squinted in the hazy light and tilted her muzzle to the right so she could focus on another grayish-blue fox before her.

The queen stood tall in her presence, while a single fox flanked each side, always alert and watching. Karina lowered her forequarters to the earth, and Skadi followed suit. Their mother's cold eyes traveled over both of them, before she returned the gesture with a simple nod.

Skadi straightened her back and sat at the paws of their ruler. Karina joined her mother's side.

"Your maj—" Skadi began, only to be interrupted by a bark.

"You were not given permission to speak."

She snapped her muzzle shut and turned her gaze to the ground.

"I called you here," the queen stated matter-of-factly. "I will do the talking." The old vixen's lips had taken on a scowl, and Skadi glanced up at her aging whiskers. They drooped with a perfect reflection of her sagging skin. Finally, she turned her nose to the left.

Skadi hadn't seen him when she entered, the shadowed silhouette near the corner. She recognized the tod with a sinking heart. He met her eyes with an apologetic blink.

"This is one of the foxes from the most recent troop of soldiers we sent to the mountain pass." Her mother's tone grew terse.

Biting her tongue, Skadi eyed the bloodied nub at the end of the silver fox's spine, knowing the words that came next.

The queen gave an exasperated sigh. "You let another die, Skadi."

Tears begged to frame her vision, but she held them back with a stone-like visage.

"This troop was your responsibility. You were supposed to prepare them. Their success relied on you alone," the vixen chided. Karina stood beside her, imitating her mother's judging eyes.

"You've failed me again."

Skadi whimpered. In her heart, she echoed the name of the one she had failed the most.

"The next troop that you're in charge of better make it out alive, with Flameborn blood beneath their nails." Her queen spoke through gritted teeth, but all Skadi heard were mumbles.

Blood. Death. He was never coming back.

"If not, it'll be your worthless, one-eyed corpse to rot in that battlefield."

She fell at her queen's feet. It wasn't with reverence. Only a sorrow that no fox in the Shadow Skulk would ever understand. Not anymore.

–❈–

A giggle filled the space between the trees. Earth-toned paws kicked at the air, the same color as the bark of the evergreens.

He placed his teeth around the vixen's foreleg and shook his muzzle. Saliva soaked into her fur, but she only grinned and yanked away, returning the attack with a kick to his chest.

Trygve flopped on his back. "You got me, evil Flameborn. I'm dead." His eyes fluttered closed, and sticking out his tongue, he tried his best to stay completely still as a rough, wet lick tickled his cheek.

A sharp pain in his nose forced out a yelp, and water rushed to his eyes. Trygve shot up and shoved her tawny-pelt with his shoulder. This time, she landed on the leaf-littered ground, and he stood over her with a curled lip. "No fair, Dagny. We agreed, no nose-biting."

He shut his eyelids tightly until the pain dissipated, but when he opened them, the fox below only blew a spit-studded stream of air into his face. Trygve fell back with a grimace, shaking out his fur, while Dagny leaped upward and snapped at his ear.

"Quit being such a kit, Tree!" She landed with a whirl, facing him in a play bow. "Do you think the Flameborn fight fair?"

He fell on his rump and rubbed his ear with a paw. "I'm not a kit," he objected. Standing quickly, his thick-furred tail flicked with determination. He replaced his frown with a mischievous smile and bounced toward her. "And you're a lousy warrior."

After a few moments, both foxes were rolling on the ground in a fit of laughter. Trygve breathed a sigh, and looked over at his friend lazing in the afternoon sunbeams that leaked through the trees.

Afternoon.

"Scat, I've got to go!" He jumped to his paws and sprinted toward the trees. "I can't be late for the Council meeting."

The vixen was quickly in front of him. "Are you really going to that stuffy thing?" she teased. "Only old, grouchy foxes care about it."

Trygve pushed past her. "I'll have you know that Beste is not stuffy or grouchy." He titled his nose toward the leaf-less canopy of branches in feigned annoyance. "Besides, one of us has to keep up with what's going on with the war."

"Nothing that ever involves the Leafborn. Or its infants." She smirked, and Trygve tried to find a retort. Maybe she was right, but he was going to support his grandmother nevertheless.

He turned to Dagny and licked her muzzle. "It's okay that a simple kit like you doesn't understand adult stuff." Trygve cooed the words in a mocking tone.

Her shrill tone called after him as he took off into the forest, but he ignored it. "I will hurt you, Tree."