Chapter 3: (Niko)

Niko’s shoulder still ached at times, the faded scar now covered by new fur as though that feral’s teeth had never carved into the tender flesh. More of a phantom pain than anything, it wasn’t the first scar Niko had acquired over his years, and it wouldn’t be the last.

All around him the Wandering Realm shifted in minute ways, never truly settling, instead twisting and writhing in impermanence. Always out of the corner of his eye, never when he looked directly at it, did it change. A towering pine tree one instant, and a barren fir the next, nothing held its shape, as if possessing some fickle will forever trapped in a cycle of change.

Sniffing the ground, his claws digging at the fresh dirt to raise any hint of the old man’s scent, Niko searched the ever-changing landscape. Echoes of crows squawked one moment, silenced the next as they turned into butterflies.

Nothing. Not even the merest hint of his smell.

They had hidden him well in the Wandering Realm, altering the makeup of his territory to blend in and fade into the mists of the shifting landscape ... but they hadn’t hidden him that well. Niko’s own veiled twist to the trick should have guided him right back to his territory, and yet it was as if it had never existed in the first place.

This left one of two options, either he’d untangled their obfuscation and rehidden himself, or he was dead. Given the complexity of their work and sheer combined willpower it had taken to hide him, the former seemed unlikely, even if he could find collaborators who wouldn’t immediately turn on him. That left only the latter.

Had they found Erolyn by pure chance, scouring the Wandering Realm until they’d finally unearthed him? Unlikely. If they had, the families would never have let Niko and the others off. If anything, they’d have been captured and locked away in the deepest cells, likely by their own families, to garner the secrets of obfuscating their presence here. And it seemed equally unlikely that they’d found him in the human world for the same reason.

So, the feral must have killed him. Locked in his research lab, Erolyn had finally done it, awakening a powerful new Freiji unfettered from the old bloodlines. Too powerful. Unable to control him, the feral had broken loose, claiming the mountain as his birthright and taking Erolyn’s life in payment.

Colorful flower petals danced on Niko’s exasperated sigh, floating off as dandelion puffs only moments later.

If only Erolyn had ever taken them to his place in the human world, then they might be able to figure out how he’d done it, rather than cobbling together half-remembered ramblings and random guesses. It had to be near Mount Waris, given it was the feral’s new home, though they’d surreptitiously searched that entire place months ago to no avail. Getting the feral talking might be the only way to find that location ... hopefully he hadn’t trashed it on the way out.

With an irritable snort, Niko kicked the dirt with his hind legs, spraying it into the air, before setting off elsewhere.

The others would want to know about this.