"Yes, that is apparent. I have never seen a stronger bond."

    The wolf tensed again and let out a low snarl as Raziel approached, his hunting animal obediently following. My best friend crouched down beside me, smiling shyly as my wolf, mine, sniffed his hand as well and licked it once. It let out a huff of cold air as Raziel released a quiet laugh.

  "Does he have a name?"

   I stared at it, golden eyes meeting my forest green ones. I was smiling as it stared back unblinking, "Eiros." It nudged its head closer to me at that.

   "Eiros? What does that mean?"

   "In tevene, it means loved."

   "Loved?" He tried to hide his sarcasm.

   "Yes."

    "Vesna, love is a weakness."

    "Not always."

    "I don't think my superiors will accept love as payment for the wolf." It was Zymor who said it. He walked up to our kneeling forms and studied my chosen animal, "But, as the keeper of it I will accept that payment."

   "You will?" Two pairs of incredulous eyes stared up at him.

   "You lost your first hunting animal three years ago, yes?"

   "Vasara," I whispered. She had taught me so many lessons.

   He nodded, ever the man of few words, and turned around, hands clasped behind him. He paused once on the way back to the shelter of warm fires. Peering over a shoulder, he looked at Eiros and I and smiled slightly, "Vesna, I want you to train him. I want you to love him with all your heart and to use your bond to become the most successful of my prodigies."

   "I will."

   "Don't stop loving it, that wolf has been with me through many hardships, don't abandon it like I did."

   "You..." Eiros was Zymor's hunting animal during his training?

   "Vesna?"

   "I won't." Because now I had something to fight for.

   "I know."

   I later came to learn those were his two favourite words. Perhaps not everyone here had lost hope. I would speak to Zymor later about that.

Because now, right now, I had a reason to live again.

   Raziel clasped my shoulder lightly and rose, stalking towards the closest entrance back into the training grounds. When he was gone, the door closing with a snick, I faced Eiros again. "What have you done to me, you little pup?"

   If he could have answered, he would have. But he didn't need to, his eyes told me everything, as if he knew I had planned to leave this place since the moment I had arrived. I ruffled his fur, "Don't worry, I'm not leaving you. I'm never leaving you."

   The second I said those words, it was as if a heavy burden had been lifted from my back—one I hadn't known I was carrying.

   Vasara has been my first wolf, my first trusted companion. And it was okay to grieve over her loss. But it was as if a chapter of my life had ended, and a new one was just beginning. I would run from this no longer. The soldiers may have taken away my past, but I also had a future.

   Eiros let out a howl, and I realized that this broken, healing wolf...was the beginning of my future.