Frowning, Elijah left the guild headquarters behind. He could feel eyes following his every move, and he suspected that he’d not lose the tail for the rest of his time in New York. Of course, he didn’t blame the guilds for wanting to keep track of him. He would have done the same thing in their place.

Still, the meeting had gone well enough, though it felt almost like a waste of time. More of a meet-and-greet than anything else. It was the sort of thing that, before the world had changed, could have been an email. Yet, there was some value in meeting face-to-face. Otherwise, he never would have been able to gauge the guild leaders’ power, which was significant enough to give him at least a little pause.

That they’d tried to get him to do their dirty work had left a sour taste in his mouth, though. It had very nearly derailed the whole thing, which would have set back his plans by quite a lot. After all, he still envisioned a situation where his trees kept all of the Primal Realms in check.

Thankfully, the guild leaders had quickly abandoned the notion of using him as an attack dog. Otherwise, the train might have gone off the rails.

Even so, he wasn’t sure if he’d done any real good. Time would tell. Once he started planting his trees – he had two seeds in his satchel for just such an occasion – he would know a little more.

For now, though, Elijah’s mind was almost entirely on Central Park and his meeting with Rakhan. It had been too long since he’d done something productive, and he desperately wanted to change that. In fact, he was so focused on it that he very nearly missed the horrifying situation he almost stumbled into.

As it happened, he felt it like someone had driven an icepick into his mind.

So, when he turned to face the man striding across the square, Elijah was unprepared to see what appeared to be a normal person, though one with two sizable wolves following close behind. It took Elijah a couple of seconds to recognize what he felt, and it wasn’t coming from the man. Rather, it originated from the wolves.

Distress. Fear. Anger. Despair. A thousand emotions all at once, and they all screamed one simple fact – they were prisoners. Slaves. Their will had been sapped, and they’d been forced to obey.

All at once, Elijah realized what he was looking at, and it was a situation about which he’d heard plenty but never seen before in person.

A Tamer.

A person with a nature-adjacent attunement who chose to subjugate rather than integrate with the natural world. It was a disgusting travesty, a waste of an attunement, and one that left Elijah’s stomach twisting into knots. It was like seeing a dirty cop. Or a doctor who’d murdered their patients. A corrupt politician. An immoral priest. An exploitive teacher.

Having a nature attunement was a privilege, but it was also a responsibility. With it came certain expectations, and those who held such an attunement were held to a higher standard. When they thumbed their nose at those responsibilities, exploiting those they should have protected, the sin was that much more egregious.

Those wolves weren’t companions. They were captives. And Elijah had no intention of standing for it.

Before he could even realize what was happening, he’d summoned the Verdant Fang and covered the ground between himself and the man. The Tamer never had a chance to respond before the blade arced out, separating his head from his neck. The body remained upright for only a second before it collapsed. But the head hit first, colliding with the paved ground with a wet splat.

Still, it took a moment before the first scream echoed through the square. Not long after that, the crowd had scattered, leaving only Elijah, the two confused wolves, and their decapitated slavemaster alone. Elijah only had eyes for the wolves.

They were both huge. At least three-hundred pounds each, and with fluffy white fur. Their muzzles were bloodstained, and it only took Elijah a second to recognize the scars on their backs.

He wished he could kill the Tamer again, only this time, a little more slowly. Enslaving those animals was unconscionable on its own, but the slaver had also abused them. And for no reason. As far as Elijah knew, once an animal had been tamed, they were entirely enthralled and completely incapable of resisting their master’s commands. There was no reason to beat them – as if such a reason could exist. Following that logic, the Tamer had abused them simply because he could.

Because he enjoyed it.

Elijah’s jaw clenched as he dismissed the scythe back into his Arcane Loop. Then, he knelt beside the nearest wolf, who whimpered at his touch. Not just from its injuries, which were extensive. But also because it was terrified.

Normally, Elijah’s strong attunement was enough to overcome an animal’s natural caution, but this time, it worked against him. It had learned to fear the touch of the nature-attuned, and it desperately wanted to flee.

Elijah almost let the beast do just that. If he’d been in the wilderness, he would have. As it stood, if he let the animals free, they would likely kill some innocent person. He couldn’t allow that either.

So, he remained calm as he summoned a hunk of dried whale from his storage space. The wolf sniffed it tentatively, then, after only a little coaxing form Elijah, it snapped it up. The other wolf behaved similarly, but they relaxed only slightly. It would hopefully be enough, and Elijah immediately launched into an effort to heal their physical wounds.

That’s when the attack came.

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The three men were inconsequential. Their weapons were the shoddy work of a poor craftsman, and they looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks. Just like the Tamer himself, if Elijah was honest.

One of them shouted something about Elijah being a murderer, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he simply activated his Mantle of Authority, and the ethera in the area stilled. Elijah flexed his power, and by the time the man’s dagger hit his back, it had lost its grip on whatever skill the attacker had activated.

The blade shattered.

The man collapsed.

And his partners followed suit.

Elijah paid them no mind, even when they started to convulse. Indeed, the entirety of his attention remained on the wolves. “It’s okay,” he breathed, reaching out to stroke the animal’s wet fur. Rain from Blessing of the Grove continued to fall, soothing their wounds and granting them energy. “He’s gone now. You’re okay.”

The wolf let out a small whimper, then stepped forward. Another step, and it laid its great head on Elijah’s shoulder. It shivered beneath his touch. The second wolf followed suit, and before long, Elijah was buried beneath a mound of wet fur. He continued to soothe them, both with his healing spells as well as his calm demeanor.

“You really shouldn’t get any closer. These are wild animals, and I’m pretty sure they’re strong enough to rip you to pieces,” he said without turning his attention from the wolves.

Ten police officers had come within fifteen feet, stopping only when they felt the fringe of his Mantle of Authority. That sent them stepping backward in a hurry.

“Are they dead?” asked the one in charge. A tall, slender woman with a blue streak in her blonde hair.

“The one without a head is. The other three are just…incapacitated. For now.”

“What happened?” she asked. Clearly, murdering someone in broad daylight was treated differently now than in the past.

“He was a slaver. I don’t tolerate that. In fact, go get the guild leaders and tell them I’m adding another demand to my list. No Tamers. If I see one, I’m killing them. No questions asked. No hesitation.”

“I don’t –”

“This is guild business, Officer Morgan. You may go,” came a familiar voice. Elijah didn’t need to look up or focus on Soul of the Wild to know that it was Chester, the man who’d led him into the guild headquarters.

The cops clearly didn’t like taking orders from him, but they dispersed nonetheless. Soon, only Chester was there.

“You heard me, didn’t you?”

“I did, Mr. Hart,” Chester replied, adjusting his glasses.

“Then you’ll tell them, won’t you? I don’t want to go in there myself. I need to take care of my new friends.”

“I will inform them. You must know that you can’t keep making demands,” Chester stated. “They will bend, but be careful not to weigh them down so much that they must choose between throwing aside their burden or breaking.”

“Fair enough. This is the last one. No Tamers.”

“Very well.”

With that, Chester left. For his part, Elijah let his Mantle of Authority lapse. Even without the stillness he’d imposed upon the area – and inside their bodies – the attackers wouldn’t soon recover. Just out of range, the cops waited at a respectful distance. Assuredly, they would take the men into custody as soon as Elijah left.

Or not.

Elijah didn’t really care one way or another. At the moment, he truly only cared about one thing – getting the animals to safety. So, as he had only once before, he chose to use Roots of the World Tree in a slightly different way. Clutching the animals to him, he activated the spell. Though when the ethera reached out, he forced it to wrap around the two wolves.

And when he reappeared in the grove, he did so with a couple of passengers.

Elijah nearly collapsed as he felt his organs rupture. Resummoning Blessing of the Grove and piling his other heals on, he grunted, “Better than last time.”

In that instance, it had been Saraalinisa who’d been his unwitting traveling companion. That had been the only way he could get her back to the grove, and he’d done it without even thinking. The result had been dire injuries that had very nearly killed him. This time wasn’t so different. He could feel the wild energy racing through his body, leaving carnage in its wake.

The difference was that he was far more durable.

Still, it took almost ten minutes to heal the damage enough that he could stand without wobbling. By that point, Nerthus had come.

“What is this?” the spryggent demanded.

Elijah shook his head as he clutched his stomach. “They were under the control of a Tamer. I couldn’t…I couldn’t leave them. And I was afraid that if I waited too long, they’d run away and hurt someone,” he explained. “So, I brought them here.”

“Tamers. Nasty creatures.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Elijah mumbled.

Just then, Oscar appeared at the edge of the grove, followed by the dogs. One of the wolves bared its teeth, but they were in no condition to fight. For their part, the dogs approached cautiously but with confidence. Soon enough, they were sniffing the newcomers.

Oscar asked what was going on, and Elijah answered. The other man said, “I have found a few such people in my travels. The pack will not tolerate them.”

“Me neither,” Elijah stated as Freddy abandoned the new and interesting dogs to shoulder his leg. Sighing, he reached down to scratch her behind the ears. “Good girl.”

That’s when Sadie and the children approached. They were all sweaty, and many of them were bruised. Given that they each held practice weapons, it was clear that Sadie had followed through with her promise to train them. And the kids were just as obviously taking it seriously.

“Keep them back. These are not guardians. They’re wild animals who’ve been abused,” Elijah said. It was only then that he realized that he couldn’t keep them in the grove. They were too dangerous. So, he asked Oscar, “Do you know where there are wolves around here?”

“There are three packs in the surrounding area. One in the mountains. One to the north. And another further to the south,” Oscar answered. Clearly, he’d been busy.

“Do you mind escorting the wolves there? I would do it myself, but I’m not sure that they’ll follow me.”

“I will do it.”

With that, Oscar wasted no time before mentally signaling the dogs, who nipped and barked at the wolves until the much larger animals rose to their feet and followed them away from the grove. Elijah kept an eye on them until they had left his locus behind.

Only then did he let out a deep breath.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Sadie.

Elijah shook his head. “Not really. Not right now. I’m still not done in New York.”

Briefly, he explained everything that had happened, then added that he still needed to help Rakhan in Central Park before he could turn his attention to the trees he needed to plant. Or the long list of other issues clambering for his attention.

“What about you? You said you were going to visit Hong Kong. How did that go?”

“Not great,” she admitted. “We’ll talk about it later. I need to finish the training session with the kids.”

“Oh. We’ll talk when you’re done, I guess. It’s going to take a bit for this to heal.”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” she chided. “One day, you’ll take it too far.”

“I know,” was Elijah’s only response.

With that, she gave him a quick and fairly chaste kiss, which brought out a couple of giggles from the surrounding children, then retreated across the island to where they’d been training.

For his part, Elijah settled in to finish healing so that he could return to New York sooner rather than later. But as he sat there, he couldn’t help but say, “She’s not wrong. I really need to stop doing this.”

“You would not be you if you ignored your instincts,” Nerthus stated.

“Yeah. I guess. But one day they’re going to get me into trouble.”