That night, Oryen dreamt a dark cloud drifted over Kolraga and dumped a lake of rain into the canyon. As it flooded with water to waist height, Beau stood over him with a knife, berating him, telling him it would be his fault if they all drowned. Oryen had nothing but a bucket, which he filled and climbed the walls of the canyon to dump on the other side. At the end of the dream, he shouted, "This isn't working! It's pointless!" Beau glared at him and pointed at the bucket. "Of course it isn't working, look." Oryen stared into his bucket to find that there were holes in the bottom. Then Beau took the knife to his own chest, carved out his heart and offered it to Oryen.

"Here. Will this help?"

Oryen's snarl of frustration and fear woke him so suddenly that he nearly toppled from his hammock. His skin itched and burned. His bones felt bruised. When he looked down, his hands had turned blackish grey with fur, his fingers tipped with long claws. As he looked, and his breathing evened, the hair and claws receded.

The dream receded too, a tide come in with the moon and withdrawing at sunrise. In its place, the memory of the assassination attempt set his heart hammering again. It had kept him up. A choking fear of a future narrowly averted. One in which Oryen had been reunited with his brother only to see him immediately murdered.

He wanted to speak to Lazro, but he had Kappa training that morning. The other werewolves already rustled out of their hammocks. As Oryen swung out of his, something white caught his eye. Crushed petals. The flower Aryeta had put in his hair had fallen out in his sleep.

The day didn't improve. The capricious weather deemed summer's sunshine had overstayed their welcome, and the deluge of rain that followed turned the training arena into a mudslide. Oryen could keep up with, if not outpace, many of the other Kappas, now—not that Serove rewarded his increase in strength and skill with anything save a grudging, 'That wasn't shit.' If this was considered Serove's good books, Oryen only got a footnote, and it would likely get scribbled out soon because a Sigma appeared midway through sparring to announce Oryen had been requested in the dining hall.

Requested by Lazro.

All the Alphas, save for Reyz, were eating lunch when Oryen arrived, sopping wet and covered in mud. Everyone went quiet except Oryen's brother, who rose from his chair.

"Ah, hell, the rain. Could someone get him a towel?"

He put a hand on Oryen's shoulder. It sounded like he'd slapped a puddle. Apart from the bandage on his arm and the deep crack between his brows, Lazro looked no worse for wear, but it was still good to confirm as much with Oryen's own eyes.

"I'm glad you're here," Lazro said. "We're just waiting on Reyz. He'll be here soon."

"Yes, it would behoove us to have the closest witness to the assassination here to give an account," said Tavell. "In particular since he helped avert that disaster."

A Sigma came in with a towel. Oryen wrapped it around his shoulders, though it was a fruitless effort that only mitigated how much he leaked on the chair as he sat down in the empty one to Lazro's right.

He did not sense the static in the air. He smelled it. Like the coppery oxidation of fresh blood, the werewolves in the room eyed his position next to his brother with a hint of suspicion.

So they wanted Oryen's account of what he'd seen during the party, but they didn't like where it positioned him—at Lazro's right hand.

The only one who seemed non-fussed about Oryen's presence was Kalysto, who twirled her fork and stabbed her pasta salad with uncalled for violence. It looked like she'd taken a faylan stick to the face at practice. A red weal across her cheek, one eye swollen shut and purple as a plum.

Oryen's suspicions bristled. She'd been the only one absent when the assassin made his play.

The tension seesawed when Reyz entered the room, a spring to his step and soaked as thoroughly as Oryen. He nudged Oryen amiably with his elbow. "Got caught in the downpour too?" and sat next to his wife. He said to everyone, "Good afternoon."

And Kalysto said, "It was."

Reyz muttered, "Harsh. But anyway, I've been searching outside Kolraga for any holes in our security, any sign of Kahleir. I didn't find anything. Just a couple tag collectors. The usual."

Lazro said, "I figured as much, but thank you for looking. Since we're all here now, might as well get into the nitty gritty. It seems Kahleir is trying to kill me." Murmurs of unrest and agreement. Oryen's heart plumetted just hearing the words. Lazro continued, "The question is, what can we do to stop them, especially if they've found their way into Kolraga?"

Tavell said, "It's just like them to make an already uncomfortable situation worse. It's my opinion that we should rip the problem up by its roots."

Kalysto said, "You're suggesting we— What? Take up arms? Wage a war against them?"

"I am suggesting we are already at war and have been since the attack outside our walls," Tavell said confidently. "An ambush which killed your mother-in-law, not that you seemed to care."

"You're right. I didn't. She was a poisonous cunt, that woman."

"Kaly!" Reyz's affront masked a deeper pain. That was his mother she spoke of. "Christ, I know you don't mean what you say half the time, but it still hurts."

Oryen balked, his shock mirrored in many of the others. It never ceased to amaze him that Kalysto got away with the things she said or that she said them at all. Her hair-trigger callousness erupted without any clue as to what tripped the wire of her temper.

Lazro raised a placating hand. "Please, let's not pick at old wounds or speak ill of the dead."

Kaly sneered and went on anyway. "I didn't say I disagreed with you, Tavell. It's just you talk about 'uprooting Kahleir' like that's not skipping a bunch of fucking steps. We don't know where they're rooted. We don't know who their Alpha is. We don't know shit about them. No one does."

Tavell made an impotent noise of disagreement.

"Regardless," Lazro intervened, "Mardero's resources hinge on our ability to maintain some degree of peace inside quarantine. We won't get anywhere by treating Kahleir like our foes."

Kaly snorted.

Lazro didn't appear phased by her derision. If anything, he viewed her with a twinge of sympathy. Oryen could only theorize why—she'd suffered a great deal of loss, far as he knew. Her family, her mother-in-law, her husband. But of the latter two, one she had nothing good to say about, the other she'd been accused of murdering herself. Maybe it was all a facade hiding a well of grief, problems too deep to understand when viewed from the surface, but Oryen still found it difficult to see Kalysto through the lens of her hardship when she did her best to spit in the eye of anyone who looked at her.

"If you have insight, Kaly, I'd love to hear it," Lazro said.

Kalysto's icy stare met Lazro's across the table, penetrative even with the black eye. "Reconnaisance."

"Risk the lives of our Kappas searching for Kahleir?" said Lazro.

Beside Oryen, Zarkerya stiffened, her scent gone flinty and sharp with adrenaline and fear. His newfound senses added layers to the conversation, both those spoken and unspoken.

Zarkerya never wanted Jezarri to join the Kappas.

"Risk our own in search of Kahleir's stronghold?" said Lazro.

Kalysto shrugged. "Some poor fuck dies every now and again when we send them to pick up new recruits at the gate, or to pick up the ration convoys from LycanCorp."

Sharply, Zarkerya said, "Those are moderate but necessary risks. What you suggest is suicidal."

"Well I wouldn't be the crazy one if I didn't make wild suggestions from time to time," Kalysto said. "Don't think of it as spying then. Think of it as bridge building. You want to avoid violence? Not possible unless someone gets chummy with them. Someone who can convince them we hate LycanCorp just as much and are only accepting their measly handouts and half-baked 'keep the peace' efforts because those are the lemons we got for lemonade."

Tavell sniffed. "Befriend Kahleir."

"I'm not volunteering," Kalysto clarified. "You asked for my opinion, so there it is. In the mean time? Kolraga's walls protect, sure, but all Kahleir has to do is get enough werewolves inside, and suddenly Kolraga's not our cosy little fortress anymore. Not for Lazro, not for us. It'll be another cage. Or a tomb."