The Breaking

Epilogue

The old territory felt cool and familiar beneath Randolph’s paws. Perhaps it had been selfish for him to return when there were so many wheels in motion back in his old territory. Or perhaps it was foolish of him to think he could leave those things behind to indulge in comforting surroundings while his wounds healed into yet another set of scars on his ancient body. If he stretched his senses out far enough, sniffed the breezes that blew across the oceans or simply bothered listening to enough human chatter, he could piece together what was left after the debacle that Liam had started.

None of that mattered now.

Liam was gone. The Full Blood pacts had broken down and the humans dragged into immortal affairs. Those things were unavoidable. Randolph knew as much because he’d spent too many years trying to avoid them. The only task remaining was to try and steer things so they fell in the most beneficial direction.

Beneficial to the humans? That was no longer a concern. Liam might have been right in thinking they had to be put back in line before the Skinners got even better at their craft.

Beneficial for the Full Bloods? He thought he’d known what was best for his brethren for all of these years, but perhaps he was wrong about that, like he’d been wrong about so many other things.

Beneficial for himself? That brought a smile to Randolph’s long snout and a sparkle to his multifaceted eyes. He might have fooled himself into thinking he was sitting out while the rest of the world turned and everyone played their games without him, but that was absurd. It was inevitable that Cecile’s Jekhibar would be taken from her. But since that had been such a battle in itself, perhaps the second Unity Stone would be forgotten for a while. Randolph clasped his prize in a fist that could feel the Torva’ox seeping from the perfect little trinket hidden away by Lancroft for centuries. All of the machinations, all of the fighting, even help from the First Deceiver himself had been necessary to shake things up enough for not one but both of the Jekhibar to rattle loose. As his reward, Randolph played the part of expatriate for a few glorious days.

Or had it been weeks?

Even if it had been for an hour, a few precious seconds, his time in the familiar moors was worth the trouble of getting there. Some Full Bloods spoke ill of short spans of time, as if seconds didn’t matter simply because they had so many of them. After over a thousand years of life, however, time hadn’t lost its meaning for Randolph Standing Bear. He knew only too well how different one moment was from the next and how valuable each minute could be. The others wouldn’t see that. There was no way to speak sense to closed ears and no way to show truth to eye sockets filled with nothing but scar tissue. Sooner or later this terrible moment would have come, and he felt no shame in wanting to be far away when it finally arrived.

The Breaking had come and gone. Randolph was sure of it. He’d sensed its passing just as he could feel the fog drift through his fur and smell the humid day turn into a damp night. Moving in slow, deliberate steps that allowed his claws to sink into the same soil that had once squished through sandals wrapped around the feet of a young Celtic boy, Randolph headed back toward civilization. His pace quickened until the moors were behind him and a new tumultuous world lay ahead.

There was no more time to be bought.

No way to hold the Skinners back.

No way to rein in the other Full Bloods.

Too late to stall the fight between us and the humans, Liam’s memory whispered into his ear, but not too late to win it.