The sun died slowly over the Scorched Marches, bleeding crimson across the horizon like a fresh wound.
Meera sat at the cave entrance for first watch, her body a catalog of pain. Every muscle ached. Her hands were raw from thornwood and stone. Her feet throbbed in their inadequate wrappings. But she was awake, she was alert, and she was doing the job Kael had assigned.
That counted for something.
The Marches transformed at sunset. The brutal heat gave way to cold that seeped up from the stone like exhaled breath. Shadows lengthened, turned the familiar landscape alien and threatening. In the distance, she heard the first howls of dune jackals beginning their night hunt.
Twenty feet behind her, the outcasts prepared the evening meal.
Meera could hear them without looking: Renna's methodical chopping, the hiss of roots hitting hot stones, Zira's quiet humming—some Windborn song that sat just on the edge of Meera's hearing. The sounds were domestic, ordinary. They made the vast emptiness beyond the cave feel less absolute.
"You're supposed to watch out there, not in here."
Kael's voice. Close enough that she jumped.
He settled beside her at the entrance, his movements economical and silent despite his size. In the dying light, his amber eyes seemed to glow from within—predator eyes, adapted for hunting in darkness.
Meera forced herself to look back at the Marches. "I can hear you all. If I can hear you, I can hear threats approaching."
"Overconfident."
"Pragmatic. My body can't handle staring into darkness for hours. I'll go blind from eye strain. But my hearing is good. Better than yours, probably."
She felt rather than saw his surprise. "Bold claim."
"True claim. Beastmen have better scent, better close-range vision, better physical strength. But humans evolved for endurance and long-range sensory processing. I can hear shifts in wind pattern, small changes in ambient sound, things that don't register consciously but alert me anyway."
Silence.
Then: "Your father taught you that."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes." Meera's throat tightened. "He believed if humans and beastmen understood each other's strengths, they could build something neither could alone."
"And where is this something now?"
The cruelty was casual, almost lazy. But it hit like a knife between ribs.
"Burnt," Meera said flatly. "Everyone who believed in it either dead or scattered. Satisfied?"
Kael was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had lost its sharp edge. "I'm sorry."
Meera blinked. "What?"
"I said I'm sorry. That was... unnecessarily harsh."
She turned to look at him fully. His profile was silhouetted against the dying light—sharp angles, fierce features, but something in his expression that softened the predatory lines.
"Why did you really let me stay?" she asked.
"I told you. Pride."
"That's part of it. Not all."
His ears swiveled—a gesture she was learning meant discomfort or consideration. "You want me to say I saw something in you? Some spark of worth that moved my cold beast heart?"
"I want you to tell me the truth."
Kael laughed—short, bitter. "The truth. Fine. You reminded me of someone."
"Who?"
"Myself. Three years ago." He picked up a small stone, rolled it between his fingers. "I was alpha of a pack. Thirty strong. We had territory, resources, stability. Then the drought came. Food got scarce. Water scarcer. I made a choice—refused to raid a human settlement for supplies because I believed there was another way."
Meera heard the weight in that past tense. "They left you."
"Half of them. Said I was weak, that an alpha who wouldn't take what he needed wasn't worth following." The stone cracked in his grip. "The other half stayed. Loyal. Stupid. They starved with me."
"That's not your fault."
"Isn't it?" His amber eyes found hers, and the rawness there stole her breath. "I chose principle over practicality. They died for my choice. So when you stumbled into my cave, half-dead and desperate, talking about owing me and working and not running from debts—" He looked away. "You were making the same mistake I did. Thinking loyalty and honor matter more than survival."
"They do matter."
"Tell that to my dead packmates."
Meera studied him—really looked, past the fur and fangs and otherness. Saw the guilt etched into his posture, the way he held himself apart even among the other outcasts, the careful distance he maintained.
"You keep us at arm's length," she said quietly. "All of us. You lead, but you don't bond. You assign tasks but don't share meals. You're here, but you're also... not."
His jaw tightened. "Observant."
"Obvious. At least to someone doing the same thing."
That earned a glance. "And what are you keeping at arm's length, human?"
Everything. Everyone. The possibility that I could matter to someone again and they could destroy me.
But saying that out loud felt like skinning herself.
Instead, she said, "My name is Meera."
"I know."
"You've never used it."
"No."
"Why not?"
Kael turned the broken stone over in his hand. "Names create connections. Connections create vulnerability. I've had enough of both."
"So have I," Meera admitted. "But I'm starting to think that might be the point."
"What point?"
"The growing. The... becoming less broken." She gestured back toward the cave, where the others moved in their evening routines. "None of them are your pack. But they're here. That has to mean something."
"It means we're all too weak to survive alone and too damaged to trust fully. That's not a pack. It's a collection of failures."
The bitterness in his voice made her chest ache.
"My father had a saying," Meera said softly. "'The tree that survives the storm isn't the strongest. It's the one that learned to bend.'"
"Your father is dead."
"Yes. But his ideas aren't." She met Kael's eyes. "You let me stay because you saw yourself in me? Fine. Then see this too: I'm not giving up. Not on surviving, not on maybe—possibly—building something worth having. Even if it's just nine outcasts in a cave in the middle of nowhere."
Kael stared at her. The silence stretched, became heavy.
Then, so quietly she almost missed it: "Meera."
Her breath caught. "What?"
"Your name. You wanted me to use it. So. Meera." He rolled it over his tongue like tasting unfamiliar food. "It suits you. Stubborn. Sharp consonants."
Despite everything—the pain, the exhaustion, the grief—Meera smiled. "Was that almost a compliment?"
"Don't let it go to your head."
But there was warmth under the gruffness. Something that hadn't been there before.
They sat in silence as the last light faded. Meera returned to watching the Marches, but now she was hyperaware of Kael beside her. The warmth radiating from his body. The scent—smoke and wild earth—that made her hindbrain whisper safety in ways she didn't understand.
The way her heartbeat seemed to synchronize with his breathing.
"You smell different," Kael said suddenly.
Meera tensed. "Different how?"
"I don't know. Less... afraid. Less like prey." He shifted, and she caught the movement of his head tilting toward her, inhaling deliberately. "More like... pack."
Her throat went dry. "Pack?"
"Not mine. I don't have one. But the scent of belonging. Of fitting." He sounded confused by his own observation. "Strange."
It should feel invasive, Meera thought. Him scenting me, analyzing my smell, commenting on it."
But it didn't feel invasive. It felt intimate in a way that had nothing to do with touch.
"Is that... normal?" she managed. "For Shadowpaw?"
"We scent-mark pack members. Bond through shared smell. It's how we know who belongs." His voice had gone rough. "But you're human. You shouldn't register that way."
"Maybe your nose is broken."
That startled a laugh out of him—genuine, surprised. "Maybe."
Behind them, Zira called out. "Meal's ready! Who's feeding the watchful martyrs?"
Sivan appeared at the cave mouth with two bowls. They handed one to Kael, one to Meera, their expression unreadable.
"Interesting conversation?" they asked mildly.
"Private conversation," Kael corrected.
"Of course." But Sivan's eyes gleamed with knowing amusement as they retreated.
Meera looked down at her bowl—more root stew, but this time with precious scraps of some spiced dried meat mixed in. Luxury by their standards.
"Eat," Kael said. "Watch duty is four hours. You'll need the energy."
"You're staying?"
"Someone needs to make sure you don't fall asleep and let dune jackals waltz in."
"That's not very trusting."
"I don't trust. I verify."
But he settled in beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and ate his own portion in companionable silence.
The stars emerged one by one, impossibly bright in the high altitude. Meera had grown up with these stars, had learned their patterns from her mother's patient teaching. She found the Hunter's Belt, the Serpent's Coil, the Five Wanderers.
"Do Shadowpaw have star stories?" she asked.
Kael glanced up. "A few. Most of our lore is oral, passed alpha to alpha. But yes. See that cluster?" He pointed to a tight grouping near the horizon. "The Lost Pack. Seven stars for seven warriors who died protecting their den. On clear nights, you can hear them howling."
Meera listened. The wind carried distant sounds—jackals, shifting sand, her own heartbeat. And maybe, just maybe, something that could have been a howl.
"I hear it," she whispered.
"Or you want to hear it."
"Same thing sometimes."
Kael turned to look at her, and in the starlight, his amber eyes were molten gold. "You believe in things that aren't proven. Hope. Honor. Star-howls. That's dangerous."
"So is thinking nothing matters."
"Fair point."
They finished their meals in silence. Meera set down her bowl, returned to watching the darkness. But some thread of tension had loosened between them—not gone, but less sharp.
After a while, Kael spoke again. "One week. That's what I gave you."
Meera's chest tightened. "I remember."
"What happens after the week?"
"I... don't know. I assumed you'd decide. Either I'm useful enough to keep, or I'm not."
"What if I asked what you wanted?"
She turned, surprised. "What I want?"
"Yes. If you survive the week—and it's looking likely you will—what's your goal? Where do you go? What do you build?"
Meera hadn't let herself think that far ahead. Surviving hour to hour had consumed all her energy.
But now, looking at the cave behind her with its carefully tended fire, at Kael beside her with his guarded but genuine curiosity, at the vast Marches stretching endless and dangerous and somehow beautiful—
"I want to stay," she heard herself say. "Not just survive the week. Stay. Build something with all of you. Make this—" she gestured at the cave, "—into more than just hiding. Into home."
Kael was silent for a long time.
Then: "That's a tall order for nine broken outcasts."
"I know."
"Probably impossible."
"Probably."
"Your father would be proud of your foolishness."
Meera smiled despite the ache in her chest. "Probably."
Kael stood, brushing dust from his legs. "Finish your watch. Wake Renna at third moonrise. Get at least five hours of sleep after." He paused at the cave entrance. "And Meera?"
"Yes?"
"Don't die stupidly. I'm starting to find you less annoying."
He disappeared into the cave before she could respond.
Meera sat alone in the darkness, her heart doing something strange and fluttery in her chest, and for the first time since Kiran's betrayal, she let herself think the dangerous thought:
What if I could belong here?
The stars didn't answer.
But they didn't need to.
To be continued...