The storm did not return.
Snow fell gently now, straight down, as if the frozen wastes themselves had decided to watch rather than interfere. The ice beneath Fenrik's feet had settled into stillness—no groaning, no shifting plates—only the quiet, terrible calm that followed violence too large to ignore.
Two places in the ice remained broken.
Fenrik walked to the first.
He knelt, pressing one claw into the fracture where the ice had swallowed his packmate whole. The cold bit hard enough to sting even through flame-hardened skin. He welcomed it.
He did not know prayers.
So he made something else.
Fenrik carved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Each line cut deep into the ice, fire guided carefully so the grooves would freeze solid instead of melting shut. Symbols formed—not letters, not words, but marks of meaning. Placement. Weight. Memory.
The pack gathered behind him in silence.
No howls.
No cries.
Only breath and falling snow.
Fenrik finished the first marker and moved to the second—where the other had fallen, crushed beneath ice and claw. He repeated the process exactly, carving the same number of lines, the same depth.
Equality in death.
When he was done, he rested his forehead against the ice and closed his eyes.
The pack bond did not answer.
That absence was the point.
Ulric Snowfang stood apart, massive frame still, steam rolling from his breath in thick clouds. Ice clung to his fur in shifting plates, but fire pulsed beneath it now—slow, controlled, obedient.
He watched Fenrik carve.
He understood.
The bond between them felt different than with the wolves—not tighter, not looser, but broader. Where the pack bond flowed like shared blood, this one felt like shared ground.
Ulric took a step forward.
Then stopped.
Waiting.
Fenrik rose and turned to face him.
"You stay," Fenrik said, the words careful, deliberate. "Watch."
Ulric lowered his head in acknowledgment.
Not submission.
Alignment.
Night came again, but this time it brought no attack.
The pack formed a ring around the markers, fire kept low, bodies close enough to share warmth without crowding. Fenrik took the outer edge, standing watch with Ulric beside him.
The frozen wastes stretched endlessly beyond them, pale and scarred, no longer unchallenged.
Fenrik stared into the distance.
"They ruled," he said quietly. "Now… shared."
Ulric's breath rumbled, deep and approving.
In the hours before dawn, Fenrik dreamed.
Not of the lab.
Not of fire.
He dreamed of ice—endless, singing ice—and shapes moving beneath it, vast and patient. He felt Helios-77 not as land, but as presence.
When he woke, frost clung to his fur and the markers gleamed faintly in the growing light.
The dead sun rose.
And with it, resolve.
Fenrik gathered the pack.
He stood before them, Ulric Snowfang at his side, the carved ice behind them bearing silent witness.
"Names," Fenrik said.
The word carried weight now.
He pointed to each wolf in turn, speaking sounds he had shaped carefully over many nights. Each name was short. Heavy. Earned.
When he finished, he turned back to the ice.
"These," he said, gesturing to the markers. "Remembered."
The pack bowed their heads.
Ulric placed one massive claw beside the carvings, ice answering him willingly.
Fenrik looked out across the frozen wastes one last time before turning back toward the interior of Helios-77.
The land was not empty.
It was alive with challenge.
Other predators would come.
Other losses would follow.
But now, the pack was no longer alone in the cold.
Fire and ice stood together.
And the world had learned a new name to fear.
The frozen wastes did not bow.
They listened.
Fenrik felt the difference as the pack moved away from the carved markers, paws and feet pressing into ice that no longer shifted beneath them without warning. The land still sang—low, distant—but the note had changed. Where once it had been challenge, now it was assessment.
Helios-77 was deciding what these wolves were worth.
Ulric Snowfang walked at Fenrik's right shoulder.
Every step the giant took carried weight enough to fracture lesser ground, yet here his stride was measured, deliberate. Ice rippled outward from his paws in soft waves instead of violent upheaval, responding to him the way flame responded to Fenrik—present, restrained, waiting.
Fenrik watched him from the corner of his eye.
Power was not the test.
Control was.
They encountered tracks before the storm returned.
Deep impressions gouged into the snowfields, larger even than Ulric's, crossing and recrossing the plain in looping patterns. Fenrik slowed the pack immediately, lowering his posture, signaling caution without sound.
"These," he said quietly, crouching to examine the marks, "not hunt."
The wolves understood.
The tracks were not pursuing prey.
They were patrolling.
Other ice beasts still ruled parts of this land, watching borders, testing strength, waiting to see if the challenge that had erupted from flame would fade or press further.
Fenrik straightened.
"We not chase," he said. "We learn."
Ulric's head turned slightly toward him, pale eyes reflecting the dead sun. The were-beast rumbled low in his chest—not disagreement, but recognition.
Dominion was not taken in a single night.
It was maintained.
The storm arrived at midday.
Snow rose again, driven sideways in sheets that scoured exposed skin and froze breath in the air. The pack tightened instinctively, bodies forming a moving shelter as they advanced. Fenrik moved at the center now, no longer the sole point of strength but the axis around which others adjusted.
Ulric brought up the rear.
Fenrik felt the land shift behind them—not attack, but attention. Ice rose slightly at Ulric's passing, hardening into ridges that broke the wind and funneled it away from the pack. The were-beast did not look back.
He simply walked.
This was not domination.
This was accord.
They did not hunt that day.
They did not need to.
Fenrik led them instead to high ground overlooking a convergence of ice plains, where frozen rivers met and pressure fractures formed natural barriers. He stopped there and turned slowly, studying the terrain.
Here, the wolves could retreat if needed.
Here, ice beasts could not charge without warning.
Here, flame and ice could both breathe.
Fenrik nodded once.
"Here," he said.
The pack settled.
That night, Fenrik watched Ulric closely.
The were-beast did not pace. Did not test his strength against the ice. He stood still at the edge of camp, massive form silhouetted against the pale horizon, breath slow and steady.
Fenrik approached him.
"You feel land," Fenrik said, choosing words carefully. "Before… it feel you."
Ulric turned his head slightly.
"Yes," he rumbled, the word shaped with effort but clear enough.
Fenrik felt a small, sharp satisfaction.
"You hold," Fenrik said. "Not push."
Ulric bowed his head.
"I hold."
Sleep came fitfully.
Fenrik dreamed again of ice—of vast shapes moving beneath it, of pressure and patience and time measured not in years but in epochs. He dreamed of flame carving paths that did not scar, of wolves running without being chased.
When he woke, the storm had passed.
The sky was clear.
And something had changed.
The pack moved again at dawn, but the land no longer pressed against them.
No sudden ridges rose to block their path. No hidden fractures opened beneath careless steps. The ice still tested weight and balance—but it no longer sought to punish.
Fenrik felt it settle in his bones.
The frozen wastes had accepted a new truth:
They were not prey.
They were not invaders.
They were neighbors.
Fenrik stopped at the edge of the plains and looked back one last time.
The markers stood far behind now, barely visible—two dark scars in an endless white expanse. He felt the absence of the fallen still, but it no longer threatened to hollow him out.
Loss had shaped him.
And shape was not weakness.
"We remember," Fenrik said softly.
The pack answered—not with words, but with presence.
Ulric Snowfang lifted his head and let out a low, resonant sound—not a roar, not a howl, but a declaration that rolled across the ice like distant thunder.
The frozen wastes answered in kind.
Not with challenge.
With acknowledgment.