Trygve knew the Leafborn's improvised army had been split in two. According to Ormr, Har would be headed to the perilous cliffside border to face off against Shadowborn warriors, ones far more prepared for the fight. He couldn't go and help him, not at the same time as searching out the landbridge.

Stopping in his tracks, the moonlight glared down at them through the barren branches. Dagny nuzzled him, an understanding nod proceeding all words. She was selfless, brave. She didn't hesitate to help him fix the mess he'd made. A true hero. His heart panged as he uttered the same words his mother had told him, knowing he wouldn't be able to live with himself if she didn't make it back safely. "Be careful."

She rolled her eyes and scoffed, taking off across the woods in the opposite direction. Trygve turned his eyes to mountainous wall towering on the other side of the Leaf Skulk, the side that looked over the fjord, but not without a rocky and dangerous climb. According to the bits and pieces he and Dagny gathered from Ormr's words, the covered entrance to a secret pathway connecting it to the Shadow Skulk lay somewhere along the stone.

The night dragged on as he raced along, ever slowed by his throbbing injury, and his eyes searched through the darkness. A soft pink hue touched the ground beneath his paws, dawn peeking over the horizon. Black clouds still swirled in the sky. The wind had stilled, the thunder had ceased, but an eerie thickness still hung in the air.

And finally, he found it. A small tunnel hidden in the crevice of the rocks, and he squeezed through it, just big enough to fit a single fox at a time. Passing through a dark cave, he hobbled toward the open ring of light on the other side. In the fading moonlight, glinting waters stretched along the valley in both directions, and a horrible growling sound met him from the front.

A mass of bristling, snarling and thrashing fur crowded the land bridge. His eyes focused on the limp and lifeless forms in between the paws of fighting foxes. But he shut it out, and he took a deep breath. He had to be brave. He had to stop this.

Trekking forward, careful to duck past snapping jaws and flying claws, he made it to the center of the fight. There, he saw them, an icy blue-furred fox locked in battle with Ormr. He only guessed that it could be the Shadow Queen. And not far from her tail were more pale foxes. His gaze met one with a single, bloodied eye, and he traced the newest scars on her muzzle with a bristling anger.

Baring his teeth, standing up as tall as he could on his long and clumsy limbs, he shoved between the two skulk leaders. Trygve faced them both with a fierce glare.

"You have to stop this, Ormr!"

His eyes widened in disbelief. "Trygve?" A glint of fury flashed in his gaze, scanning Tree's injury then the look of sheer determination on his muzzle. He shook his head. "Get out of the way, kit," he snarled. "You don't know what you're doing."

The Shadow Queen scoffed from his other side, her breathing labored with exhaustion. Blood dripped from wounds in her pelt. "Letting children fight your battles now, are we Ormr?"

There was a mischievous snark to her tone, at the same time scornful and teasing. Like the two foxes knew each other.

Ormr growled again. "You can't stop this, you naive fool. This battle's been brewing longer than you've been born. Laine's always had it coming."

A hum of confusion filled Trygve's throat, and he watched the queen's muzzle sink, a look of guilt twisting into a scowl.

"You're one to speak about children," he sneered, "when Skadi there has fought your battle so far. And your own kits, well they're hardly the image of perfect." He cocked his head and stalked closer, shoving Trygve out of the way. "Do they even know? That their mother is a fraud?"

–❈–

Skadi heard the familiar voice, her heart growing warm. She raced toward the source blindly, not caring about the dangers that likely littered her path. She had to help. And when she reached him, burying her face in his warm, sap-scented fur, the words of the elder met her ears.

"Fraud?" she echoed. All around her, hushed whispers broke out. The snapping of jaws and the sickening crunch of bones seemed to stop, and if she had them, all eyes would be on the queen.

Trygve's weight shifted beside her, reaching down to dress the wounds on her face with a gentle tongue. She shoved his muzzle away. There were more important things to hear––more truths to uncover.

The queen cleared her throat, the words hesitating to leave her tongue. "It's not like you're innocent yourself, Ormr," she said quickly. "I'm sure your skulk would be interested in just where that Shadowborn vixen came from, the one you killed for your precious power."

A deep-throated laugh emerged. "I was smart enough to tell my army before, and they don't care. We're interested only in taking the power that you hold too. I've already disposed of your sister, what more is killing you?"

Skadi couldn't help but lean closer. Her sister? A Shadowborn vixen that Ormr killed?

"I think it'll be more of a shock to your skulk, that their all-powerful queen chased off her own littermate, the true heir to the throne. That she needed me to kill her. You didn't even have the spine to do it yourself."

The queen snarled. Muttered questions met Skadi's ears, wondering if the words he spoke were true.

"And then there's that pathetic creature."

Trygve's breathing hitch. Skadi knew the elder's words were focused on her.

"Why do you even keep it around?" he asked. "Guilt? You could send your sister off to die, but you couldn't bear to kill her deformed offspring?"

Skadi's muzzle fell open. What did he mean? That the Shadowborn outcast––Sindra––was her mother? The rightful queen. And suddenly, the lies came crashing down around her. The secret was out. Everything she'd ever been told, none of it was true.

"Why did you stop?" Laine's voice rang out above the crowd of stilled foxes. Desperate and pleading. "Kill them! All he speaks are lies!"

Not a single fox stirred. None except for the deep voice of her brother. "No, Mor. It's all true. We're done fighting." His growl stood in front of her and Trygve, blocking Skadi from either foxes' wrath. Then, a shrill bark of agreement from Karina joined him.

"And now your own children hate you." The Leafborn's voice broke through the silence again. "Making it all the easier to destroy you, now that your little skulk of lies has shattered like ice." His snarl grew louder, and Skadi heard the stone scrape beneath his claws as he prowled closer to the vixen.

She was tempted to say something, to stop more useless bloodshed, but still she yearned for the wicked old fox to feel just a fraction of the pain she'd caused her.

It still wasn't right.

"No," Skadi said firmly. "Because we aren't divided." Warm blood rushed to her face as she felt the pressure to unite her skulk––to speak the truth she now realized. "If my mother was the rightful queen..." She paused to take a deep breath. "Then that makes me her heir." Tilting her muzzle in the direction that she knew her siblings sat, she hoped for some word of support or agreement. Skadi imagined Karina's shocked and broken expression of pain. Kleng's judging glare.

But her brother stood tall at her flank, and Karina joined her on the other. Trygve supported her with a tail-wag from behind.

"We will stand together," Kleng said. "For whatever our queen decides."

Skadi let out the breath she was holding, her heart swelling with a semblance of joy. Pride. Love for her family.

Another snarl drew her ears. "Then you'll all die."

In a moment of flurry and panic, Skadi was shoved backward. A fox stood over her––shielding her from any dangers above, while gasps filled the air around her. She wished she could see what was happening, that she could know the source of the yowling struggle just strides from her paws. Then there was a choked scream, and the thud of a body against stone.

She recognized the fox it came from with a sinking stomach, but couldn't quite find it in herself to be sad. The former queen was dead.

–❈–

Colborn feared he was too late. The stench death already permeated the air, swirling beneath the very first of dawn's light. In the growing illuminance, the two armies stood over the sea on a narrow bridge of stone. Fallen bodies lay among them, but the fighting had grown still.

Both sides simply faced the other, a mixture of brown and white. His eyes were drawn to a pale-furred vixen with a pelt the color of the sky. He'd never met the Shadow Queen, but he'd heard plenty of stories––vile, wicked things that his father had likely made up. In his mind, she had a clean slate, just like he hoped she'd give him.

The clouds above stopped booming. Perhaps the storm was over. In both the sky, and here below. A small group of foxes sat in front of the Shadow Queen and the dark-furred tod across from her. He was a large and lanky creature, seemingly the strongest out of the army around him. Colborn knew little about the Leafborn, but he guessed this must be its leader.

In a flash, the landscape changed. The Leafborn leader was atop the old vixen in a moment. Her reflexes were no match for the youthful tod, and he withdrew his jaws when the queen's thrashing had grown still, blood dripping from his muzzle.

She was dead. Colborn was too late.

With a wicked snarl, the Leafborn opened his mouth to speak. "This fight will never end, not until all of Eventyr falls at my paws."

Colborn arrived among them as a roar erupted from the sky. The light of dawn faded just as quickly as came, and the clouds fled from the sky. Panicked breaths filled their muzzles as they realized a Flameborn was in their midst. Before something more striking lit up the dark void above.

The same flash of color as before, but this time, it held its place in the sky. There were four stripes of glittering light, stacked atop another, reaching across the heavens. They rippled like the sea, but twinkled like the stars. Violet, yellow, green and red.

Two foxes around him fell. A Shadowborn––one with only a single, blind eye––and then a young Leafborn. They hit the ground like they'd been stricken ill.

Colborn felt weak. His legs buckled; his chin smashed into the stone beneath him. Snapping his eyes shut, thrashing his legs without any control, he felt like he was on fire. Every muscle burned, each bone felt weak and brittle like they'd been held over a flame, and he swore his lungs were filled with smoke.

When he opened his eyes, he saw crimson. A haunting red glow painted everything in his sight, but a vivid color struck him. A violet iris stared back––the blind vixen, and her white pelt began to ripple, taking on unnatural shapes. Then there was the Leafborn, who clenched his jaws and howled in pain. His eyes glowed too, greener than spring grass and as bright as stardust. The stone cracked beneath his paws, and vines snaked out from each crevice like living, breathing creatures.

His pain grew unbearable, lapping at his body like a starved inferno. He screamed his anguish to the sky, and walls of dancing red light rose around him. Crying foxes fell back from the ring of flames, and the air sizzled from the heat. Dark smoke billowed upward to fill the sky.

The flames didn't burn his crimson fur.