“Ric, come back. We’re not allowed to go beyond the border,” the tiny voice of a little girl called out.
“I’m not afraid of rogue wolves,” a male child called back. He was bigger, taller than most boys his age, already broad shouldered, already carrying himself like the world owed him nothing and feared him anyway. He didn’t turn around as he spoke, just pushed past a curtain of hanging moss, into a patch of thinner trees. “They’re just stories meant to scare pups.”
She struggled to keep up, her boots slipping against loose dirt and roots. “They’re not stories. They’re real. My—” She stopped herself, then tried again. “The elders said—”
“The elders also said I shouldn’t climb the watchtower last winter,” Enrique cut in. “And yet I did. And I didn’t die.”
“That’s not the same,” she argu
