Chapter 105: Meeting
Ren walked back into the cave with Remu beside him, the Soul Eater hanging loose at his side, the easy energy of someone who had just done something they had not done in a long time and found they had missed it.
The others were already there waiting.
He scanned the group as he walked in, reading faces, reading postures, and then his eyes landed on the figure standing slightly forward from the rest, and he stopped.
Silas stepped forward.
He was different.
Not the grey wolf that had submitted to Ren at the clearing’s edge, not the four-legged speed that had carved through the battlefield during the settlement’s defense. What stood before him now was upright, humanoid in its proportions, and carried itself with the particular steadiness of something that had arrived at a new form and was still learning the weight of it.
The wolf ears sat at the top of his head, sharp and alert, pushing through a full head of silver-grey hair that fell loose around his face and shoulders. His tail moved slowly behind him, thick and full, the same grey as his hair. His features were sharp, angular, the kind of face that looked like it had been carved with a specific purpose in mind. Someone had found him a coat somewhere during the evolution, dark and fitted, and he wore it with the slightly uncertain posture of a person trying on clothes for the first time and not being entirely sure of the rules.
He looked at Ren.
Then he bowed his head low, one fist pressed to his chest, and when he spoke, it came out rough and careful, like someone handling something fragile.
"Master," he said. The word landed in clear, recognizable speech for the first time, and the effort behind it was visible in the slight tension around his jaw.
Ren stared at him for a full second.
Then he looked him up and down slowly, arms crossed.
"Bro," he said. "You are scrawny."
Silas blinked.
"Like, genuinely, you evolved into a human and this is what we got? I have seen hobgoblins with more meat on them." He shook his head, already moving forward, and grabbed Silas by the shoulder and pulled him upright from the bow. "I’m joking. Relax."
He held him at arm’s length and looked at him properly this time, no performance behind it.
"You look good," Ren said. "Genuinely. You did well."
Something shifted in Silas’s expression, small and brief, the particular look of someone who had not been entirely sure what to expect and had received something better.
"What did you evolve into?" Ren asked.
"Wind Wolf," Silas said, still careful with the words, feeling each one before he released it. "True Alpha."
"Wind Wolf True Alpha," Ren repeated, turning it over. "That sounds good. Your speed was already something else. I can only imagine what it is now."
Silas’s tail moved once, a small involuntary thing.
Ren was about to say something else when he felt it.
Two presences at the edge of his territory, moving toward the settlement with the unhurried pace of things that had been here before and knew the way. He recognized both of them immediately.
The two unwanted forest lords that had now placed themselves in his life and seemingly wanted something more from him, but he very much did not want to have anything to do with them. But for the sake of finding out what was really happening, he had chosen to accommodate them.
"Give me a minute," he said, and headed out.
Aris reached the settlement entrance first, as she usually did, walking with that same composed ease that she carried everywhere. Tempest followed behind her with the expression of someone who had agreed to come and was currently reconsidering the decision with every step.
Ren met them at the edge.
"Aris," he said.
"Ren," she said, a small smile at the corner of her mouth. She looked at him the way she had looked at him during their first meeting, reading him, and then her eyes settled with the particular focus of someone who had found what they were looking for. "You seem different."
"Do I?" he said.
"Stronger," she said simply. Not a guess. A reading.
Ren laughed, short and easy. "You’re imagining things."
Tempest made a sound that communicated his opinion of the exchange without requiring words.
Aris turned slightly toward him and then back to Ren.
"We came for a reason," she said. "There is a meeting of forest lords. All of us, together, in one place." She held his gaze. "There is someone who wants to meet you specifically. Someone who has been paying attention to what has been happening in this part of the forest."
Ren’s mind moved immediately.
The spider that he had killed from that young wolf, and the being that was connected to them. He wanted to know the details of what was really happening and what it had to do with him.
A meeting of forest lords was exactly the kind of place where information moved, where things that had been operating in the background stepped forward. He might get a bit more insight into what was really going on and what these two were planning that night when he saw them.
This might be the chance to find out what that creature actually was. The one that Vel had sensed. Could it be that it was the one that sent out the small spider? What was its plan, and how long did they have before the plan took shape?
He looked at Aris.
"I’ll come," he said.
She nodded.
"When is the meeting?" he asked.
She looked at him with the faint expression of someone about to say something they knew was going to land awkwardly.
"Now," she said.
Ren stared at her.
"Now," he repeated.
"Now," Tempest confirmed, with the tone of someone who found this mildly satisfying.
"Alright then, give me a few minutes to get ready and follow you along to this meeting."