Chapter 79: Beast-kin Border Control

The next morning, sunlight shines soft and low over the fox-kin village, the long communal table set up outside for breakfast already crowded with early risers and the smell of something baked and cinnamon-sweet drifting out from the kitchens.

Serenith floats a lazy circle above the far end of it, watching Lucien and Brina deep in conversation, and finds herself, entirely against her better judgment, practically swooning at the sight.

Lucien sits with his chin propped on one hand, elbow braced against the table, leaning in and listening with genuine, undivided attention as Brina walks him through some finer point of wolf-tribe custom, her paws sketching shapes in the air to illustrate whatever she’s describing, her whole face shifting rapidly through a dozen small expressions as she talks.

Lucien matches her step for step. A knowing smile here, real interest there, open disbelief a moment later when she says something apparently outrageous, prompting her to insist, laughing, that she’s telling the truth.

There’s no smirk anywhere in it. No swagger.

Just a man genuinely, fully absorbed in another person’s story.

Kamiko passes by with a full platter balanced on one arm, catches sight of Serenith’s expression, and stops dead. She glances between her and Lucien, then back again.

“If your eyes got any dreamier,” she says, “I’d start to wonder if you’d been enchanted.”

Serenith startles, snapping out of it, and laughs a little too quickly. “It’s just, it’s amazing to see, that’s all.” They both look over again, watching him lean further in, nodding along at something Brina’s saying, eyes fully locked onto hers.

“None of the usual performance.” Kamiko notes.

“He hasn’t flirted with Brina once. It’s a miracle.”

Lucien finally glances up and spots them both, waving them over with a broad, easy grin.

Kamiko saunters over, smiling, already mid-sentence about the good breakfast she’s brought them both, only to be cut off entirely as a thin tendril of shadow magic snakes out from beneath the table and snatches the platter clean out of Kamiko’s hands. The food vanishes straight down into a pool of shadow at Kamiko’s feet, gone in an instant.

“Valgereth!” Kamiko gasps, spinning in place, snarling up toward the trees. “Give that back, right now!”

Val’s laugh echoes back from somewhere up in the branches overhead, entirely unrepentant. Kamiko huffs, dragging a hand down her face.

“That dragon is genuinely starting to irritate me.”

Lucien and Serenith both laugh at that.

“Better get used to it,” Lucien says. “Val’s basically financing half of what we’ve got planned. He considers that a reasonable service fee.”

“I hate non-silent investors.” Kamiko groans. “Sorry, I’ve come empty-handed.” She says as she slides into the seat beside Brina. “Apparently this business trip requires regular offerings to a certain draconic stakeholder.”

“It’s fine. Lucien and I already ate a while ago.” Brina waves it off easily.

“Oh,” Kamiko says, glancing between them. “You’ve been out here a while, then.”

Brina nods. “He brought me breakfast and has been interrogating me about wolf-kin customs, and my own life, honestly, for about two hours now.” She smiles, warm, a faint flush rising under her fur. “We’re just talking. But it’s been nice, actually.”

Kamiko glances between the two of them again.

“Just gathering some insider information.” Lucien shrugs.

Kamiko leans in and whispers something to Brina, low enough that even Lucien doesn’t catch it. Brina glances toward him, considers it a moment, then chuckles softly.

“I know what he’s like. I can handle myself.” She shrugs. “He can actually hold a proper conversation. He makes me laugh, even if he’s still entirely too weird for me.”

Kamiko glances back at Lucien, who’s now pouting openly, gaze fixed somewhere off in the middle distance after catching the tail end of Brina’s remark.

“I suppose there’s more to you than meets the eye, after all.” She laughs.

“I’m layered.” Lucien grins, brightening instantly.

“You’re impossible.” Kamiko laughs harder.

Serenith chuckles softly beside her, still gazing at Lucien with that same dreamy, unguarded look, entirely unaware she hasn’t fully shaken it yet.

By midday, the carriages are underway again, rolling toward the wolf tribe’s territory through steadily thickening forest, the fox-kin village and its warm, welcoming chaos already falling behind them, replaced by taller, darker trees that seem to swallow the road’s edges the deeper they travel.

At the treeline’s edge, a large, craggy hill rises up out of the forest, grey stone jutting through moss and root like the bones of something ancient, half-swallowed by the forest and clearly, deliberately left that way.

As they approach, shapes begin moving through the forest alongside the road, keeping pace easily. Figures running low on all fours, cloaks snapping out behind them, the glint of a weapon occasionally catching light between the tree trunks. Never quite close enough to get a proper look at, never quite far enough away to ignore.

Lucien leans out the window, taking it all in. “We’ve got company.”

“I do hope this gets interesting,” Val says, casually, from the opposite seat. “Haven’t seen a single person die all week.”

“That is not remotely something to be hoping for on a business trip.” Lucien scolds.

“Maybe not for you.” Val scoffs. “My business trips used to end in a few torched villages, back in my day.” He says, something almost like fondness shifting over his face.

“You’re impossible.” Lucien shakes his head slowly.

“Now you sound like the women in your life.” Val chuckles. “Must be what a few days of celibacy does to a man like you.”

“I don’t have to stand for this kind of slander from a business associate.” Lucien says, clutching at his own chest as his expression crumples further. “That’s unfair, actually! I’m emotionally fragile right now, and you’re making light of my very real suffering.”

Val bursts out laughing in response.

“We seriously need to work on our HR skills once we’re back in the Ashlands,” Lucien adds with a pout.

A sharp whistle cuts across the forest just then, and the whole caravan rolls to a sudden stop.

A dozen large, heavily armed wolf-kin emerge from the treeline in a loose ring around the carriages, weapons drawn, boots and paws landing near-silent on the leaf litter, moving with the loose, coordinated ease of a pack that’s done this exact maneuver a hundred times before.

A howl tears up from somewhere deeper in the woods, and the largest of the wolves leaps clean onto the roof of the center carriage, throwing his head back to answer it with his own howl. A long, rolling note that raises the hair on Lucien’s arms even through the carriage wall.

The wolf-kin warrior turns to address them all.

“You enter the lands of the Shadowfang tribe,” he calls out. “State your purpose. And pray the tribe finds it worthy.”

“Draven.” Kamiko scowls as her head pops out of her own carriage. “Get off! Right now. I just had that lacquered.”

The wolf squints down at her, then yelps and hops straight off, ears flattening. “Sorry, Lady K, didn’t realize it was you. You should’ve sent word ahead.”

“Didn’t have time,” Kamiko says. “It’s an unscheduled visit.”

“What’s that smell?!” he mutters, already turning toward Lucien’s carriage.

He’s cut off mid-thought as his own nose lifts sharply, sniffing at the air, ears pricking forward, fur bristling along his spine. A low growl builds in his throat.

Serenith gulps, watching him stalk closer.

“He’s a guest,” Kamiko calls out, sharp. “An honored one. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t—”

But it was too late.

Draven rips the door clean off Lucien’s carriage in one motion, tossing it aside into the underbrush.

“I just finished paying that one off.” Kamiko cries under her breath, dragging a hand down her face.

The wolf yelps and jumps back a full stride, dropping instinctively into a four-legged crouch, growling low at the open doorway as something approaches.

Val steps out. He straightens his cuffs, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the whole display. Every wolf present takes a reflexive step back at once, fur rising in unison down every spine, some ancient, bone-deep survival instinct making it very clear, all at once, that whatever this is, it is not prey.

Val looks around at the ring of wolves, adjusts his collar with two brisk motions, and strolls over to Kamiko without a trace of urgency.

“Call off the mutts,” he says, mild as commenting on the weather, “before I eat one of them.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Kamiko assures him quickly. “They’re usually far better behaved than this! Stand down!” Kamiko calls out. “You don’t want to mess with this one.”

The surrounding wolves growl at Val in ragged unison, weapons raised, a dozen sets of teeth bared at once in a show of force that would have flattened most travelers on the spot.

Val gives them a slow, half-lidded, entirely unbothered look in return, and lets out a single short puff of flame from his nose, the flame curling slowly into the cool afternoon air.

Every wolf present yelps and drops immediately into a sitting position, ears pinned flat, tails tucked so tight against their bodies they’re practically invisible, weapons clattering forgotten to the forest floor. The entire pack transformed in the space of a single breath from a wall of blades and teeth into something closer to a row of nervous, well-trained puppies.

Draven, still crouched low near the ruined carriage door, makes a small, strangled sound and doesn’t move at all.

Val chuckles, satisfied, brushing an invisible speck of ash from one sleeve.

“I suppose you were right.” He glances toward Kamiko. “They can be well behaved, after all.”

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