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Chapter 1

Skye was never born. He simply appeared. It was a mile within The Great Forest, in a clearing where the canopy's leaves made stars of the sunlight and seem to turn the very air to gold. The ground was an open field, a quilt of flowers and grass, patched together by such soft soil that it could have been the garden of a great king. Surrounding it, the trunks of trees which seemed to shimmer in the golden air and dance in the breeze of the canopy. The air above, a blue sky with silver clouds scattered throughout. It may have been the most beautiful day that had ever graced The Southern Province.

In this glorious clearing, beneath the safety of the golden trees that surrounded the garden, and in a bed of soft clovers, is where Skye awoke for the first time. He opened his eyes, and they strained to adjust to the glow of the world's beauty. His pointed ears flicked at the air when the soft breeze tickled them, and the seductive aroma of a thousand flowers filled his wet black nose with delight.

When his eyes adjusted the wolf-kin spent his first hour in this new world simply stared into the clearing, thinking of nothing and sitting with his back to the trunk of an oak tree. The clearing did not move, except for a small breeze that must have found its way through the forest to make the flowers sway and dance. In his second hour, Skye broke his gaze from the clearing and reached down, picking one of the flowers from its stem and turning it around in his paw like a curious puppy. He brought it to his wet nose and smelled it, letting the aroma fill his senses before he let the flower fall from his fingertips. He looked at his paws, and moved his sharp black claws, then stretched his arms outward as if he had just awoken from a century of sleep. For all he knew, that could have been the case.

Skye stood up from the ground when his tired mind had fully awakened, and his eyes no longer felt heavy with sleep. His legs stiffened like those of a statue, and he struggled to loosen them to working order while bracing his fatigued body against the tree he had awoken under. Skye stumbled to the center of the clearing, falling twice, but managing to push himself further, trying best he could to avoid crushing the flowers in his path. When he stood in the center, his eyes drifted back and forth through the clearing, watching the flowers and the trees that seemed to fill him with the glow of angelic light.

It wasn't long before Skye snapped himself out of his stupor, and rubbed his eyes as if he had just looked into the sun. He watched the clearing sway in the breeze for a few moments more, and thought to himself that he must return to it someday, to feel the golden light surround him again. For now, he felt that he had to leave. Skye began to walk.

The direction he chose was random, or maybe the suggestion of instinct. He stepped across the edge of the clearing and into the tree line, leaving the golden glow of the sun and the aroma of seductive flowers behind him. In the instant he left the sanctuary he had appeared in, the world turned to generic woodland, with a ground of rigid soil and green brush, and a canopy that let less of the sunlight pass into the open air. Skye's leather boots protected his paws as he hiked over the roots of trees and ascended the rises of eroded ground. The ground was thick with foliage, and pushing through it was made even more difficult as the low-hanging pine branches blocked his path.

Passing under one of these branches, and through a dense patch of brush, Skye reeled backward as he felt something on his back snag. It almost knocked him to the ground. The trees seemed to have reached out and grabbed him by the scruff. When he turned frantically to see what was stopping him, his paws traced a curve of polished wood, clinging to his back. He pulled it, and found that the wood was sheathed to his cloak. When he removed the bindings he undid the snag and brought the wood in front of him, there in his paws was a polished bow of golden-brown wood. The same tone as the trees that had surrounded the radiant clearing. It bore no markings, but when he brought the bowstring to his claws and pulled, the weight felt natural and sturdy. This was a bow of good making; perhaps by a master fletcher whose name Skye would never know. But he did not wonder where the bow might have come from, as he now felt as though he had carried it with him all his life. It was familiar, as if he had been reunited with an old friend. He smiled as that thought came to mind.

Skye soon found arrows set in a quiver on his back as well, with the same quality of construction, and the same golden wood. He knocked an arrow and pulled the bowstring back, aiming at a faraway tree. Though he had just appeared in this new world, Skye somehow knew that he was a marksman. The skill was there in his mind, gripping the bow and aiming forward like an archer trained by a master hunter. His stance, perfect, his breathing quiet, and ready to cease for a steady arm. Skye was ready to fire and test his weapon. But before he could, Skye remembered where he was, and eased the bowstring back to rest. He reached backward and set the arrow in its quiver once more, then swung the quiver off his back and counted the arrows within. Eleven in all; a limited amount, of course. He did not know what awaited him in this forest, and wasting even one precious arrow would be a loss he might not be able to afford.

He sheathed the bow, slinging the quiver to his back once again, and continued his hike, careful now not to let his bow become snagged in branches again. He succeeded well enough, but new problems arose. It was difficult now to keep his green cloak from billowing outward, and making enemies with the thorns and burrs that latched to it like a tick latches to skin. Skye's tail also caught some of the damage, as his fur picked up all that his cloak did and more. He tried to keep his tail up, and wag it faster as he walked when he realized it, but the fur on the end was already dusted in dirt, leaves, and twigs. If he found a river, he would have to wash it.

But though he did not know how to avoid the dirty hazards of the ground, Skye found that he knew how to survive. In these woods, he felt somehow home; as if he was protected by the very trees, and that nothing here would come to harm him. The wood he gathered lit for him well when he built a fire for the night, and he even shot a rabbit for dinner, skinning it, bagging the leather for later tanning, and cooking the meat for supper. In the back of his mind, Skye felt somehow that the forest was making this all easier for him. It was as if it gave him the food and the fire. He even found a shelter on his second day hiking the forest, hidden beneath a hillside where stone jutted out from the edge of the dirt and shielded him. It even rained that night, and the forest had gifted him a dry place to sleep.

Days passed, and Skye did much of the same for each of them. After the rain, the weather stayed consistent, and he traveled slower, enjoying the forest for as long as he could. At times, he wished that the forest might stretch on forever, but somehow he knew that he was nearing the end.

His stomach growled on the final day of his hike, and he clutched his belly through his leather armor. He felt weak now, as he hadn't eaten in a day. Skye thought it over, wondering if he might keep going until he found something by chance. In the end, he decided that he had survived off of feral rabbits and berries for too long. It was time to hunt for real game. He had seen feral deer in the distant woods as he hiked for the past few days, and sometimes they had fled as he approached them. Skye walked onward, watching the ground, and when he found a line of mashed dirt he crouched down for a closer look. It was a feral deer trail, found after just a few minutes searching. Hoof prints littered the churned mud where the brush and weeds had been trampled away. The tracks were fresh. Ferals traveled here often.

So Skye decided this was the best place for his hunt. He looked not far to see a large pine, whose branches would make a fine post for him to be hidden from sight as the feral deer trotted by. Pines were always the easiest to climb, but when Skye tried to ascend he found that he was unsteady. He had discovered many skills in the past few days that he inexplicably knew, but apparently tree climbing was not one of them. He lost his balance on more than one occasion, cursing under his breath as he braced himself at the last second against the pine tree's trunk. He decided not to climb farther than he needed to, and just a few feet up, he waited.

It took a few hours, as Skye's belly began to twist and turn, pleading with him to feed it. Doubt began to prod at him about making the right choice. The sun began to set somewhere beyond the canopy where Skye couldn't see it. The air turned to pink and gold, the breeze began to settle for the night, and the forest became as silent as an inn without ale. Skye's hunger made him weaker than ever, and his eyes became heavy, begging to shut for sleep. All that kept him awake was the sudden shift in his balance whenever he started to nod off. Hours passed before Skye heard the sound of hooves trotting through the brush; the exact thing he had been waiting for.

Skye stood up on the tree branch, almost losing his balance once again, but bracing himself on the nearby trunk. The sound of the feral deer was growing louder, and Skye hurried to pick up his bow. He knocked an arrow just as the first deer appeared from beyond the trees. Pulling back on the string, he waited, his ears perking up to judge how many would come. His guess was 5. Two small, two medium sized, and one sounded as big as a moose. That was probably the stag. That was too much for him to eat today. He would kill one of the does.

And when the does appeared, Skye let his arrow fly. But, it did not fly where he wanted it to. He stumbled right before the shot, losing his balance on the branch and tumbling downward. He heard a scream from one of the deer before his head smashed into a branch, and then his shoulder met a root on the ground. He felt the bone break, and screamed as well. He looked up. He had shot the stag. It bound toward him with an arrow in its neck and slammed its antlers into Skye like a soldier kills with his halberd. The antlers did not pierce him, but Skye felt them break a rib below his armor. He grabbed for something at his side, as the deer smashed his leg with its hoof. Skye yelled again, and then growled as he pulled a dagger from his belt. He swung it, and hit the stag's chest. Blood fell from the beast, and stained Skye's chest. It screamed again, stumbling to the ground, and beginning to shrink away. Skye held his dagger straight out at the stag, and their eyes met. In those eyes, as they both panted like overworked dogs, Skye saw the stag decide to run. It turned, and bounded into the brush. The does and the fawns followed. Skye wondered if he had injured it enough to kill. Probably not.

The concussion from his fall set in, and made his head reel. He tried to stand, but yipped when his broken leg made itself known, and his shoulder shrieked with the pain of both shattered bone and dislocation. Skye whimpered as the forest that he thought was protecting him began to blur, and the night began to grow darker. He tried to resist, desperately working to keep himself awake and stand up, but each time the pain overwhelmed him. He had appeared just a few days ago, and now he was dying, all because he had fallen from a tree. It was a stupid mistake, and he cursed himself again. He looked up at the canopy, where the moonlight now shone through the leaves and lit the forest with silver. The trees turned black with shadow, and stood around his dying body like the mourners of a wake. Staring up at the failing moonlight, Skye sank deeper into the embrace of pain and darkness, and the night consumed him.

He awoke the next week to the warmth of a hearth, a splitting headache, and a bed that smelled of felines.