Adair didn't notice the wolf until Silver brought her to a jarring stop. She looked up to reprimand him but instead saw the flash of yellow eyes as a ragged wolf darted behind a boulder a few feet away.

"Did it see us?" she whispered, fingers tightening in Silver's hand.

"I think so," he replied, slowly backing toward the railing. Adair followed him, heart pounding in her chest. "Don't move fast. Maybe it won't want to bother with such big prey."

"Wolves don't travel alone, Silver," Adair said. "And, in case you've forgotten, there's no food anywhere around here. I think they'll bother with the only bit of meat on this mountain-side."

The wolf moved again, peeking around the edge and staring at them. It wasn't very large, but a pack of even just three would easily be able to overpower her and Silver. Adair drew her sharpened bit of rock and held it in front of her. A pitiful weapon, but at least it might give the wolf a reason to be cautious of approaching.

After a minute of stand-off, the wolf was finally joined by its pack mates. They scrambled down from the higher path, skidding to a stop in a semi-circle around Silver and Adair. Each was painfully skinny and shedding fur even though they needed it for warmth. They stared at the two humans with hunger in their eyes and hot breath puffing around their muzzles.

Silver edged in front of Adair, his arm outstretched across her chest and his head blocking half her vision of the wolves. A bit of annoyance struggled its way through her fear and she pushed him back to the side, leaving her front free. If she was going to be eaten by wolves, it might as well be while she was fighting. Nothing said failure like a cowering corpse.

The lead wolf broke away from the semi-circle and lunged forward. It didn't come within range of Adair and Silver, but close enough for them to get a very good look at the gleaming incisors in its red maw. It growled and barked, a sight far more terrifying than anything her old dog Eros had been able to do. She hadn't realized something that only came to her knee could be so vicious. Spit flew from its mouth at each bark and landed, smoking, in the snow.

"Off!" Silver shouted, waving his arms in an attempt to shoo the wolves away. It might have worked on a farm dog that was a little too zealous in its guarding of the land, but with this pack it was almost as if he had invited them to dinner. The whole semi-circle pressed in, forcing Adair and Silver to lean farther onto the railing. Adair risked a quick look over one shoulder and immediately whipped her head back around when she saw the dizzying height of the drop on the other side. Either be eaten, or dashed into a powder on the rocks. A tough choice. Adair tried to calculate which would be more painful, but she was interrupted when the first wolf finally lurched forward for a real attack.

Adair screamed and dived to the right, just narrowly avoid the snapping jaw of the wolf. It did catch her cloak and she came up short as it yanked backward. Her feet flew out from under her and she landed on her hands and knees, panting heavily as the wolves scurried to take their advantage. Silver tried to reach her before the animals, but he only had enough time to kick at the wolf on her cloak before the pack had descended on her.

White teeth and red tongues filled her vision, and Adair's arms flew up to block them. Knowing her life would be over in a second more, she opened her mouth and shouted the first thing that came to mind.

"Stop!"

It was silly, really. They were not trained. They were not humans. Her words meant as much to them as a deer bellowing in distress. Yet they stopped. And they stopped as if they had been turned off. They weren't dead, or even frozen, just stopped in their tracks and looking at her with cocked heads.

Wanting to take any chance he could get, Silver dashed forward and threw snowballs at the beasts, yet even then they didn't budge. Their yellow eyes circled toward him, their lips pulling back in snarls, but they stayed in position. Adair slowly sat up, pulling her cloak around her legs and noting that it was no longer in the jaws of the first wolf.

"Why aren't they moving?" Silver asked, giving up on his attempts to make them flee.

"I don't know," Adair murmured, pushing to her feet. The wolves merely watched her stand, alert but no longer volatile. "I think... I think they listen to me."

"But they're wild."

Adair circled around the pack of wolves and stood behind them. They slowly pivoted to watch her. She raised a hand. "Back," she said. They all scooted backward, stopping when she lowered her hand. "Sit." They sunk to their bottoms, obedient as a lord's hunting dogs.

"Are they someone's feral mutts?" Silver asked, approaching cautiously. He stood just a few inches to Adair's left when the dogs began growling softly.

"Hush," Adair said, and they silenced. She grinned triumphantly.

"I can't believe it," Silver said, eyes wide.

"You try," she said, stepping back. As soon as she did the dogs shifted, not moving from their spots, but bunches their muscles as if they anticipated they would.

"Up." Silver raised a hand and stared them down. This was the face he used on the horses and hounds, the one that usually had any domesticated animal fall down in service to him. She'd seen it many times back at the old home, and she watched the wolves fully expecting them to snap to attention.

Only they didn't.

They began snarling and yapping, teeth mashing together and clouds of fog billowing around their heads as their hot breath stirred the air. Silver jumped back as the closest wolf made an attempt to snatch him. Adair quickly commanded them to still once more and ordered was restored.

"They only listen to you," Silver said, his voice just barely shaking.

Adair looked on the wolves and suddenly an idea came to her. If wild wolves listened to her commands, and only her commands, then something beyond the natural was at work here. She didn't know if they were the ones with the powers or if it was she, but she had an inkling that they might be able to understand more than the simple commands given out to dogs and horses. So she walked right up to the lead wolf, kneeling so that it could look her straight in the eye. Silver outstretched a hand, uncomfortable with her proximity to death, but she ignored him.

"I want you to find some rabbits and feed yourselves, and then I want you to bring one back for us," she said. After a moment she added, "Don't rip it up too much, either." With that she stepped back and the wolves organized themselves back into the pack before disappearing down the path in a whirlwind of gray fur. Adair watched them go with a faint smile on her lips.

"We shouldn't stop," Silver interrupted. "It's getting toward night and we need to find somewhere to shelter."

They slowly picked their way to the top of the ridge and looked over the edge. It was a steep, yet climbable, incline to a crevice between the two ridges. There was a sort of natural, massive outcropping of rock that covered a smooth bit of shelf-rock large enough for a very large house. They set their sights on this, hoping that at least having the wind off their backs might make for a more comfortable night. The wolves would be able to reach them if they could find any rabbits, and they might be able to make a fire if they could locate any wood or dead grass.

When they reached the outcropping, they immediately spotted the cave paintings. On every wall there were an assortment of drawings done in a primal looking style, of stags and wolves and even people. They were lumpy and blurred, made from clay, and some strange, spiral writing was under each group paintings. Adair ran to the nearest one, resting her freezing fingers over its surface. These were tribal paintings. Her people's hands had made these.

Beautiful. All of them.

She circled slowly, taking it in. This might have been the sight of a camp, before the tribes had died out. Indeed, toward the back of the outcropping there was still a pile of spindly sticks for firewood. It was a miracle Adair was shocked to find. Silver hurried to build them a fire to warm up by as the sun was already past its half-way mark in the sky. Adair stayed by the paintings, wondering if her mother had ever seen these. Been in this place.

"You need to get warm," Silver called after a merry little fire burned in the center of the room.

Adair shuffled toward him, but didn't sit. Her eyes scanned the valley that stretched out in front of the outcropping. It was a clear day so far, with no snow in the air. Just the growing shadows across the pure white. The fire burned behind her, struggling to heat the vast space. A smaller cave would have been better, but Adair wouldn't leave here now. She'd found a piece of her past.

And maybe it was that little piece of her history which freed something cold inside of her. Perhaps touching the paintings and linking herself with the tribes of old sent that splintering feeling of crystal power coursing through her body. At any rate, she felt the urge to do... something. She didn't know what it was, or why she was raising her arms and pointing them toward the sky. She wasn't even aware, at first, of the snow that gently began to drift from gray clouds that sprang from nowhere. It wasn't until Silver walked into her vision with a concerned look on her face that she realized that she was the one that brought the snow. Her hands were drawing it from the sky.

The power of the North exploded in her heart.

----

A/N:

Next week we're skipping ahead a few years to when the girls are adults! To a time when certain fellows enter their lives. ;)