Anji floated across a sea of utter void. She blirying to focus her eyes on any source of light but failing to find any. Turning her head left and right had made thid disgusting oily liquid pour into her ears, but not a single spsh apa. trol of her body below her neck was gone, and even moving a finger was an impossible task. Fear crept into her as the water soaked her fur, weighing to begin sinking her body.

  “Anyone!” she tried to scream, but no sound escaped her parched lips. Not a groan, not a whisper, not even a breath.

  Stillness. A perfect silenveloped her. Am I in the Abyss? Anji wohe Abyss, the pce where all sinners of the Wolf Tribe go after their demise. Oathbreakers, cub-syers, inpetents, faithless, and cowards headed straight to its fiery and cold depths to suffer unimagiortures and endure lifetimes of torment before the Spirits allowed them to be reborn, tempered and wiser than before.

  It felt… unfair to be here. Anji was still young and cubless; she chatted with Mom and Dad this m, exgi gossips, telling them farewells, and she was sure that she had dohing to deserve to be here. Dad always taught her to treat others as she would have them treat her, and Anji lived by that rule, never harming a male in her life. Perhaps the spirits punished her for not stopping the dominations in her pack? But they were the ones who created them in the first pce!

  No, it had to be something else, and her mind wandered, searg for a reason. She always tried to befriend and help everyone. Big or small, she refused no plea for help. Whether it was bandits holding someone hostage or a need for tokens, she gave it her all, Normie or kin. It was a bit tedious at times a her with dozens of scars marring her once-beautiful body, but the reward was well worth it. Joy of mothers reunited with their cubs. A gleam of hope in downtrodden eyes. Well, and friends. Tons and tons of them, all over the Outer Lands.

  Maybe this is it! Vanity! She alrided herself on being perfe inate, never mopping in the darkness. That, and she dyed her hair. ging her natural appearance must’ve ahe Spirits. Yes, this is it. Anji decided, looking around. Shamans told tales of the Abyss as a pce of brimstone and fierce rage, or absolute cold, where the guilty were strung up in iron frames, their limbs stretched ad infinitum, cruel rusty bdes pierg their regrowing skin and ans, and a firm grip on the sce of the guilty dehem escape into madness.

  Instead, the Abyss was far more insidious. The threat of drowning apanied by utter silence. Anji enjoyed ughter and needed panionship. Never since her very birth, since her dear brother died, had she been alohere was always someone by her side to keep her pany. Could this be her sin? Could it be that she helped others not out of the goodness of her heart, not as a det person, but as a frightened hypocrite, a coward uo bear the thought of being all alone? Was that it? Was that all she was?

  Well, the shamans spoke true about ohing. Helplessness. The true nature of the Abyss, an ultimate torment. No matter what you do, no matter how strong you were, here and for decades to e, you will be helpless, hearing only your thoughts, and even they will vanish in time, swallowed by silence…

  “No!” Anji screamed, opening her eyes to the white light on the ceiling.

  “She is awake!” Anji blinked, greeted by Wolfkieen soldiers from her own pack, Kaisa, Bogdan, and Marco, standing on a chair.

  A stench of aid medications assaulted her nostrils, f Anji to frown. She bliwice, trying to believe that she was alive. Weariouched her, threatening t the wolf hag bato the sleep’s embrace, but she forced herself to stay awake.

  “How…” She licked her lips, gratefully gulping water from a fsk held by Kaisa. “How long?” Anji asked again.

  “At ease, loser,” Kaisa said smugly. She closed her eyes, ign the angry growls of the offended pack, and corrected herself. “Sorry. I was worried and ran my mouth again. Just a few hours.”

  “We are in the Hall of Charity, Wolf Hag,” added the sed in and of Anji’s pack. At a fused look, the woman quickly expined. “It is a pce to provide basic mediecessities to the less fortunate iy. The mayor andeered it for the soldiers with non-life-threatening wounds in need of recuperation. At least that was the inal idea.” Hearing a strained groan, a shadow passed over the scout’s muzzle. “Civilians are also being treated here instead of in a proper hospital, sihere are too many ihe rest of our pack is either back at the base or helping to clear the rubble.”

  “Kaisa stood by your side while you slept!” Marco added eagerly. “She called us when you began to stir! Dor. Diego! Anji has woken up!”

  She tried to stand up and found out that her wounded arm and leg were still numb and refused to bulge. Needles pierced her body, carrying both nutrition and medication through rubber tubes, and sensors littered her chest, sending data to a nearby terminal. Her cheeks flushed red at the sight of two tubes ected to... more private parts of her body under a b.

  Stained gss was installed in the walls of this spacious hall. Each circur window was adorned with various saints of the p’s faith and shone a pleasant kaleidoscope of light. Only a few patients, like Anji, had an abundance of space, and most beds were crowded together, with just enough room for nurses and doctors to pass by. Moans, screams, and the sts of fear, sweat, and blood permeated the air. Medical staff worked tirelessly, removing pieces of stone and gss from bodies, ing wounds, and trying to save limbs and ans. The medics didn’t share the same uniform color, but the red marks uhem. Words of fessors and priests brought fort to the patients.

  A doctor, dressed in a stylish blue robe of a private medical ic with a golden snake encirg it, came closer, checked her eyes and body, and decred that the worst part was over and her immune system had overe the toxin. The man asked her to try to move the fingers of her numb limbs, and with some difficulty, Anji did, to the cheers of the Wolfkins.

  “Good.” The doiled, carefully removed the bandages, and whistled. Blood had long since dried at the edges of her closed and sewn wounds. “The bleeding has stopped. My, your kind truly is a marvel. It is an honor to work on such a magnifit body.”

  “Pnning on taking a patient to dinner, are you, Doctor?” Bogdan teased.

  “Wouldn’t mind it going further o, but I was given an uanding that your people prefer a singur partner, while I belong to every beauty,” the doctor answered unabashedly. His fingers lightly tested her damaged limbs, sparkling a tiny sting of pain. “Apologies, dy. Your muscles are still partially pressed due to the poison. Although our catalog was uo identify it, I assure you that the numbness and partial paralysis will st at least two days. Worry not; the worst has passed, and your heart and lungs are safe. I’ll schedule you for the scar removal procedure once your body has finally flushed out this filth.”

  “Yeah, yeah, turn her into a real princess,” Kaisa said with a shit-eating grin.

  “No need,” Anji said quickly, blushing.

  “All women are goddesses,” the doctor said warmly after finishing cheg for infmmations and ging the bandages. “No matter their in, they must be treated with reverend care. Sihe mayor has enlisted the help of our private id entrusted you to my care, you will abide by my reendations, Miss Anji. We ot allow uglio persist.”

  “You…” Kaisa examihe man’s perfect facial features, his well-built physique, free of any wrinkles or imperfes. “You are an Iternian.”

  “Guilty as charged.” Diego fshed a white smile. “But let’s not speak it too loudly. Officially, citizens of my homend have nht to interfere in iional affairs between the Recmation Army and another try.”

  “Going to be puherwise?” Kaisa inquired.

  “Indeed, and terribly so: a fine and a stern warning, apanied by finger-wagging and perhaps a ban on practig outside of Iterna for a few years, what a nuisance.” Diego rolled his eyes.

  “Sucks to be you,” Bogdan said. “Doesn’t sound fair o. But you have my thanks for saving lives, sir.”

  “Oh, please, if I get grounded, I’ll just pitch my sob story o and earn twice my sary in donations,” Diego ughed. “Really, I don’t really give a fuss about it, and after your superiors rudely interrupted my m routine, I feel obligated to return the favor. So don’t worry, rex; nothing will happen to anyone in my care.”

  “What about Cordi?!” Marco tugged at the doctor’s robe. “My friend. She is an Ice Fang of the Sunbde household. No one knows where she went.”

  “Well, that’s just no good.” Diego sat fortably and produced a terminal from a pocket. “No woman should ever be abandoned. Cordi, Cordi… Ah, you mean young Cordelia Sunbde-Wintersong? She suffered a punctured lung and was escorted, along with the cubs... what a ridiculous name... from Houstad to the Sunbde family estate in the far west. No further information is avaible, but in the worst-case sario, a Wolfkin should survive a missing lung fairly easily.”

  “I attest to that,” coughed Sindy from a nearby bed.

  “Diego! A patient is having a stroke!” A nurse called. “We risk losing him!”

  “ing, Najwa!” The stylishly dressed doctor jumped away to help treat the violently vulsing civilian. “Nobody likes a quitter, so you, mister, are staying with the team!”

  Anji’s body itched intensely as it repaired itself, aomach rumbled with hunger. She could almost imagihe flesh moving uhe dried crust of her blood, knitting itself back together. To distract herself a little, she surveyed the hall. Several Wolfkins and Ice Fangs rested here, kept in a healing a, with oxygen masks on their snouts. Many cked limbs.

  So many wounded. And how many more died? And how many more have died? A pang of sorrow shot through her heart at the sight of a doctor shaking her head and c a civilian’s face with a bedsheet. Two nurses rolled out the bed with the deceased. We failed you. I am so sorry. Diego was tireless, bio-enhang teology of Iter exhaustion at bay, and he was saving life after life, instrug his colleagues along the way. Anji forced the sad thoughts out and smiled, f herself to be certain and fident before her friends and subordinates.

  “That’s the Bootlicker I know!” Kaisa grinned. “No paper cuts are going to keep you down. No way, no how.”

  “Kaisa, would it kill you to be… you know what? Fuck it. Thank you and Anji for saving my and Marco’s ba back there.” Bogdaended his paw to Kaisa, who spat at it, hissing at the soldier. He shrugged, wiped his paw , and shook paws with Anji.

  “Rot in the Abyss, male, stupid, idiot, piss-head!” Kaisa patted Marco’s head tenderly. “I wasn’t trying to save you; it was my duty!”

  “And Mard his friends?” Anji asked ily. She blihe sleep away. Not now.

  “The pipsqueak? Well, that’s personal. He gifted me a sweater. Ice cubs aren’t bad either. Offered me a pork pizza once.”

  “Thank you for saving us, sister!” Kaisa slithered from the embrace of the beaming Marco. “Uhm, why were you two even around? I thought you were assigo the orphanage. Do you like ics too?”

  “No! I have nothing to do with this degeneracy! It… ure luck. I was going to… po…” Kaisa mumbled, retreating aep back.

  “Kaisa was looking fdan to apologize,” Anji said, smirking at the rage in her friend’s eyes. Nope, not letting you off the hook.

  Kaisa growled once more, pag bad forth like a ered animal. Her fiwitched, releasing the cws’ tips, and Anji’s pack jumped to shield their wolf hag, only to be asked to move aside by Anji herself. She didn’t enjoy it. But Kaisa had to keep going, to improve herself, step by step. There was no shortcut to take. Mom always taught young Anji that if you have done something wrong, you must apologize.

  “Male… Bogdan,” Kaisa corrected herself. “That little talk you and I had… you were right. I am sorry that I was angry at you.”

  “Beat it.” Bogdan lifted his paw. “I was over the line.”

  “No. I was… is an unworthy leader.” Kaisa cracked one shoulder, then another, straightened, and seemed to grow taller as she pointed a fi Bogdan. “No more. I will grow to be a proper leader for my pack. I’m going to bee a warlord, and I’m going to take my pack to the very top, and I’m going to surpass Warlords Janine and Ashbringer; just you wait and see. But that doesn’t ge the fact that you are a stupid, arrogant, stinking male!”

  “Love you too.” Bogdan grinned. “Keep it up, and I just may end up naming one of my future daughters after you. Oh, I see that: Little Kaisa, stop being a killjoy like your namesake a’s go eat that cusack.”

  “T-try it, and I’ll rip out your still-beati!”

  “ you be quiet, please?” Diego returned, looking Kaisa and Bogdan over. “If you are engaged in some bizarre mating ritual, take it outside. I am tractually obligated to respect all traditions, but I will not tolerate you disturbing the rest of our patients.”

  “We are just rades!” Bogdan and Kaisa blurted in unison, and this time, it was Anji who allowed herself a grin of vengea their expense, ringingly giggling like a young girl straight out of the pit.

  There was little doubt that Bogdan would find a way to get back at her, and she could already envision Kaisa’s sharp toeasing the life out of her during their spar, but by the Spirits, watg them slowly turn crimson was so worth it right now! Anji stopped giggling and roared with ughter, and her pack soon joined in. Bogdan shrugged, settled Mar his shoulder, and the two brothers added their voices to the fun. Kaisa swung her head suspiciously from side to side, sniffing the air, then chuckled, relutly rexing and enjoying not being excluded from the fun, though Anji could bet her thumb that the woman would strangle her before admitting that side of her. Oh well, work in progress.

  A buzzing opped their ughter, and Kaisa and the scout from Anji’s pack grabbed their terminals. Eyes narrowed, and the two women exged ghe scout baring her ne submission.

  “We have a job to do,” Kaisa said, putting the terminal back. “All of you, back to the base immediately.”

  “Give me a sed,” Anji asked, trying to get to her feet.

  Kaisa rolled her eyes and snapped a finger against Anji’s nose.

  “You stay here and recover, B… Anji,” she said softly. “Seriously, we... care for you. This time I owe you lives. Besides, your warlord has arrived iy; your pack should be fine.”

  “We will, Wolf Hag. You have taught us well,” the scout firmed, bowing. “Wolf Hag Kaisa, the orders were urgent.”

  “You keep her here until she is fully recovered; even if you have to her ae her to do it, do you hear me?” Kaisa told the doctor.

  “P, spare me from eggs teag the chi. Not my first rowdy patient.” Diego waved his hand.

  Anji’s worried eyes followed her friends as they left, and even the pleasant relief of having the tubes removed from her body didn’t help to ease her worries. Who will be alive and who will be dead when we meet? She fell on the pillows, crudely making prayer gestures with one paw, begging the Spirits to keep them safe. She wasn’t stupid. There could only be one reason for a sudden summon.

  A call from the doctor’s terminal distracted her. Anji strained her ears, trying to learn anything, but to her surprise, she found herself uo pick up even a single word, and Diego’s expression startled her. The once smiling and pleasant doctor had ged; an ugly scowl of pure, unadulterated hatred twisted his face, and his bck eyes glowed, taking on a bright yellow hue. Anji was about to ask what was going on when fatigue overcame her and dragged the woman back to dreamnd.

  This time, the dream brought another familiar nightmare. It was always the same with her; if there was ohing Anji hated in her life, it was sleeping alohis was the time when she was losing the iron hold of her dreams, and her mind always sucked her into the same memory of her being ba the womb again, hearing the ti of her brother beating nearby and sensing the warmth of his f body. Tic. Tic. Tic.

  No. Anji pleaded, trying to wake up. I don’t want to remember.

  She told no one. Anji remembered everything: every moment of her life, every sed she was awake. She carefully asked other Wolfkins if they possessed the same trait, earning surprised looks at the mere suggestion that anyone recalling their time spent in a mother’s womb. Several soldiers whispered behind her back, thinking the woman was mog them oing crazy.

  But she didn’t! Anji remembered it. sce came to her at a very early age, and she was locked in the fines of Mom’s body, rejoig every time a familiar paw proudly patted her belly. She floated in silence, uo speak or even wave her paws. Listening to her brothers and sisters die. Stillborn. Their ans never developed. Years ter, she learhat this was to be expected. The first litter was the hardest for all the females of the wolf tribe. Almost none of the cubs survived. But their deaths brought ge to the grieving parent, and the litter was full of healthy cubs.

  Anji and her brother were the lucky ones. His faibeat kept her sane a her pany. Tic. Tic. Tic. The sound was faint, barely audible, but it was a sign of life in this prison. And then, one day, it stopped. The little heart gave out, leaving Anji alone in the darkness, floating among the bodies of her family. For weeks.

  “I don’t want to be alone!” Anji yelled, breaking through the curtain of dreams, and Diego’s ed face weled her back to reality.

  “You are not alone, Miss Anji. Please calm down; foy faothing bad happeo you; it was just a nightmare, a side effect of the poison; breathe easily, yes, like that,” the doctor said encingly, holding her by the wrist. How… how could she have thought that he had yellow eyes? The man’s eyes were perfectly normal bck.

  After cheg her pulse, Diego called over a nurse, the woman to help A. She half expected the usual mediutrition paste, but to her surprise, the food the nurse brought her was something divine. She was served real crabs, mashed potatoes, a thick cusack steak, and plenty of juice to quench her thirst. Or droerson. The smell of her unusual lunch turhe rumbling of her stomato a wail, and Anji helped herself, fetting her manners as she shoved the crabs into her mouth, breaking their shells on her fangs against the nurse’s insiste to eat these parts. This was the fourth time she had eaten real seafood, and she found the food simply delicious.

  After thanking the nurse for her help, Anji heard an Ice Fang fiddling with a terminal in her paws, furiously typing in request after request. The woman’s legs had been repced by two sleek metal replicas, one ending at her knee, and her body was covered in severe scalds that had burned away entire swaths of her once fluffy, silken fur. Around her neck, the Ice Fang wore a medallion with the crest of the Summerspring Household.

  “Hey,” Anji greeted the crimson-eyed woman. “Name’s Anji. Any idea what is happening outside?”

  “Greetings, Lady Anji. Malerata Summerspring, a knight-captain in the service of the te Tancred Ironwill,” she said in a hushed voice. “As, I know little; the medical personnel chose to limit the patients’ ability to view the as I have learo my dismay, and my rades abide by that rule.” The womaended her paw, and Anji shook it before realization hit her.

  “The te? Does it mean?” Anji asked in shock, l her voice. Sword Saints were equal to Warlords. To imagine one fall in her lifetime… Surely she must’ve misheard…

  “Five me, dy; I fot you were in a a.” Malerata bowed her head. “My liege was murdered today, and his killers are still at rge.”

  “You have my deepest dolences,” Anji said, meaning every word and g the woman’s paw. Truth be told, she had no idea how Ice Boys viewed their sword saints, but to Wolfkins, a warlord was another mother, aernal monolith in whose shadow one could weather a storm, and a trusted friend ready to listen and help. That art of her problem with Onyxia. When the warlord was around, she listened and gave the right advice. The problem was that Onyxia was rarely around, trusting the judgment of her wolf hags. “If there is anything I do…”

  “Thank you, Lady Anji. Your kind words are already enough. The stant positive propaganda in the news is the reason for my sour mood.” The knight put the terminal aside, irritated by the limited access to the . “Staying in here, uo know about the situation outside, irks me.”

  “No point in mopping about it. Say, how about a little game to pass the time? Let’s ask each other questions. The rules are simple: only the truth is allowed,” Anji proposed. Seeing the woman’s uain face, she pressed on. “e on, what else are we supposed to do here? The first question is yours. Hit me with anything.”

  Malerata pressed a fio her lips, w, and then dared to speak: “A hundred apologies for the frivolous question, but why is your hair white? From my limited iion with the Wolf Tribe, I have learhat your kind always bears either predominantly bck, brown, or occasionally reddish fur. Do you, by any ce, have blood of our lineage c through your veins, dy?”

  “Not to my knowledge!” Anji ughed, pig up one of her braids. “Call me Anji, by the way. My Mom once brought a dusty old ie to read. The heroine of the story was a woman with immacute white hair. She was kind and smart and fier battle and never quit, no matter what the odds. I became a fan, and when my family visited a settlement, I bought a hair dye. Cousin, you should have seen the look on my Mom’s muzzle the m! She thought I was cursed!” Anji sighed happily at the memory. “My turn. Is it true that your kind needs cold to mate, and that is why you always mate in refrigerators?”

  “What? No!” The knight-captain coughed. “Why would you even think that? What kind of degraded and depraved mind would it an act of love in a refrigerator, of all pces? I assure you, Ice Fangs, enlightened and blessed by the Twins and the Blessed Mother, will oop so low. We are simply too perfect for that; unrivaled excellence, restraint, and humility are in our nature.”

  “Well, we didn’t see any of your kind jumping on the boys during the heat season, so we thought your kind couldn’t do it in a warmer climate.” Anji hesitated, unsure if she could reveal the sed part. Oh, well, she promised the truth, right? “And there was this oime, a few years ago. I screwed up and was given cooking duty in the crawler. So there I was, opening the refrigerator partment, and there were two of my cold-loving cousins, busy making new lives on top of the ed food …”

  “I need not hear more, truly, Lady Anji.” The knight raised her paws. “On behalf of my order, I apologize a thousand times for the sight you have been forced to e is disgusting in more ways than one. But… what is this ‘heat season’ you spoke of?”

  Surprised that Malerata didn’t know, Anji began to enthusiastically expin the cept to the woman, curious as to why the knight’s face seemed to grow more and more horrified upon hearing the expnation.