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And yet, the question didn\'t leave her head.

She had walked through that day feeling as if her limbs were lead.

It had been a month since the portals were closed, her parents were lost, and Aaryn disappeared. Every day since, she\'d gone to sleep vowing that the next day would be easier. That she would find joy, somewhere, somehow. And every day had been proven to be only more painful, and heavier than the one preceding it.

As Elreth left the market after a breakfast she hadn\'t been able to eat, she shook her head. There were so many things to be grateful for. Why couldn\'t her heart find even a speck of joy in them?

The humans who had intended to destroy the Anima had been rousted, destroyed—and the voices as well.

The Kingdom was lighter, happier, cleaner somehow, because the voices were gone, too. None of them had realized the number among them that carried the voices—or the influence those souls had on those around them. Everyone had remarked that the sun seemed brighter. That hope was more… present. Even Elreth could appreciate the difference—there was less fear in the hearts of those who were leading, and fewer petty squabbles among the people.

Even though they\'d lost people—including Huncer, who\'d been lost in the earthquake—even though Elreth felt like she hadn\'t found space in her heart to grieve that yet, most of the Anima had survived. A war with humans and their weapons, yet they could count the souls lost in only a few dozen?

After facing the shared threat of the human invasion, and the voices removing the traitors from among them, the Anima banded together. Elreth had kept the betrayal of the Protectors in the human world secret to the Elders and Alphas, and as such, the people saw only the Protector\'s role in keeping them safe. There was greater unity and humility among the tribes than Elreth had ever seen.

And the Protectors were shifting.

It was… unfathomable.

To see them running through the market in beast form… to witness the joy of family members sharing an experience for the first time… even Elreth had smiled, though she\'d had to force herself to it. But even she could grasp the incredible shift in their people—no pun intended—as all of these changes added up to a safer, happier Kingdom.

She should have been overjoyed. And perhaps, if Aaryn was there to share it with her, she might have been. Even grieving her parents… Gar seemed to be able to spend some parts of the day with a smile on his face—and she\'d definitely heard him roaring more than once. He was just like their father…

Elreth shuddered and started down the trail to the Royal meadow.

She could, on the outside of it, see the wonder and beauty of what had happened in Anima. And she could appreciate the value of it.

But her soul couldn\'t celebrate.

Her heart couldn\'t leap.

As the Protectors took their first steps and flights in beast form, Elreth wondered if she could even find hers.

She felt dead inside.

She couldn\'t eat. She couldn\'t stay asleep.

She hadn\'t cried in three days.

All she wanted to do was lay in the furs, pull them over her head, and sleep. And yet, whenever she did, her mind brought her back to that crucial moment—that moment when she\'d looked at Aaryn and told him to go, despite every instinct gnawing at her not to do it.

And even though she knew if she could go back she wouldn\'t change the decision—look where it had brought them—she still hated it.

It felt like she\'d given him away. Like she\'d had him in her grasp, and she\'d just handed him off to the Creator and…

She shook her head, her teeth clenching so hard her jaw ached.

Wanting to get away from this thick blanket of death in her stomach, she shifted to her lion and began to run, but she reached the Royal Meadow so quickly it barely helped.

Shifting back to human form while she was still in the grasses, she looked up to see the sky—mostly blue now, but hints of orange as the last of the sunrise haloed the mountains.

Elreth stopped and stood there, watching the color fade into bright blue, watching the mountains shift from dim shadows before it, to white-capped blue and purple peaks that blended into brown and green closer to where she stood.

​ Anima was a beautiful place. So clean. She inhaled deeply, her body automatically searching for the scent of her mate—and breaking her heart all over again when she realized she\'d never find it.

Fuck she was tired. And so, so angry. And so, so sad.

And so numb—yet in so much pain.

How was it possible that she felt so much, she was beginning to feel nothing?

She turned and looked back towards the trail to the City. There was a danger that if she returned to the Cave now, as she\'d intended, she would crawl into bed and never crawl back out.

And that made her think about Aaryn\'s mother.

And that made her think about Aaryn.

And that made her turn on her heel and start for Gar\'s tree house just so that she wouldn\'t have to be alone with her thoughts.

But then, just before she reached it, she heard him roar and that had her fleeing back to the cave with her hands over her head.

She couldn\'t do this anymore! She couldn\'t be around people who were happy and in love and…

Sprinting into the Cave, she shoved the door back and ran in, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached. Her head spun.

And she was so frantic that it took a moment for the long body at the table to register. It wasn\'t until he stood, his long limbs wiry and tanned, his hair gray at the temples and peppered throughout that she slid to a halt, wide-eyed, her jaw almost on the floor.

"Uncle Behryn?!"

"There you are," he said, and his voice was so soft and so sad. It wavered. "I\'m so sorry I didn\'t get here sooner, Elreth. The messengers forgot us. We didn\'t even know. And then the earthquake…"

His eyes were pained, pleading with her to understand.

Elreth sucked in a breath and threw herself into his chest.Â