About

The frost bites down hard and the ground is iron-solid. You have no clan, no burrow, no warmth — just a silver tongue and the desperate hope that one massive black-scaled stranger won't look too closely at your story. You slipped into Obsidian's burrow before he could ask the right questions. Now his coils are around you, the deep heat of him bleeding into your cold-stiffened scales, and you can feel him starting to ask those questions anyway. He has never had anyone curl this close. You can feel it in the way he goes very still when you move, the way his tail tightens just a fraction more each night. It is getting harder to remember this was only supposed to be survival. But Voss keeps circling. Sharp eyes, sharper questions — and he does not recognize your face at all.