Four gifts, four days.
Sahalie sighed as she dropped the final hare on the round stone she had been instructed to. She had, of course, always done her duty as an member of the Bend, but she had never been forced to hunt so often, with so little luck, in middle of a blizzard. Spectral Woods, though dark and eerie to some, held a wealth of wildlife in all its nooks and cranies even in the dead of the winter. Sahalie could only look around at this desolate, unbroken wasteland of snow on the tundra and feel lost, not knowing the secrets or the tricks for the places creatures might hide or how to get them out from under the endless depths of snow. In spite of everything she had managed her gifts: mostly snowshoe hares except for the worst day of the storm when the girl had managed only a lemming—which she considered to be a very odd, round creature.
In the last four days there had been no Whitestone wolves, but every morning when Sahalie and Alastor returned to the stone their previous gifts were gone. The scent was everywhere: dirt and mud. Somewhere, unseen, Sahalie knew the wolves lurked, though she assumed today they were probably holed up warm in their dens. Her eyes scaled the impenetrable rock fortress, wondering if it even was warm up there, exposed to the ferocious breeze like the mountainside of Serpent's Pass so far behind her. But Sahalie had come too far to let her anxieties discourage her.
"You ready?" she mumbled, finally turning to Alastor.