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The little bear trips, drops the spear, and tumbles off into the snowstorm. Denahi grabs his weapon. The bear's breath mingles with his, white fog swallowed by the storm, and Denahi knows that he is about to die.
The knowledge, sudden and certain, seeps beneath his skin, stilling his arms before he can wrench his spear forward. He’d known death was a possibility since he’d set off to avenge his brothers, but here and now, it truly hits him that he has failed, and this last failure will cost him his life. He’s no closer to killing this bear than he is to getting his brothers back, and it’s only now, as he looks death in its beady eyes, that he understands those two aims are not one and the same.
He moves.
Kenai’s totem comes off with a snap. Denahi throws the empty spearhead, and it lands in the snow, instantly engulfed, instantly lost. Denahi’s hands, white from cold and pressure combined, shiver with the rest of him. But he keeps his thumb over the wooden bear’s chest.
The bear still hasn’t done it.
Denahi shuts his eyes shut tight— the sight of a bear will not be the last thing he sees, not if he can help it. He presses his thumb against the totem’s face, its edges sharp enough that even his numb, beaten fingertips can feel them, and forces his brothers’ faces into his mind’s eye.
They come at last, frantic after weeks of captivity inside a small, wooden box that Denahi keeps in the very back of his mind. Sitka comes first, and Denahi watches from the crevasse, watches his older brother take one last breath, wind in his hair and his lungs, before he plunges into the glacius wrath, gone forever. Wisdom hadn’t saved Sitka, wisdom hadn’t done anything, and as the funeral sparks rejoined the mountain lights that night, Denahi had silently cursed the spirits for not blessing him with strength instead.
He watches Kenai, face screwed up with so many emotions but anger taking center stage, tossing him a spear, and he knows what comes next but it’s too late to stop the memory— his own voice echoes, as thunderous as the clouds that had shrouded his baby brother’s last moments on earth: I don’t blame the bear, Kenai.
There’s snow on his eyes and it melts as the last of Denahi’s warmth leaves him in thin, useless tears.
“Kenai,” he says to the totem. The words barely make it past his lips before the wind snatches them away, carries them so far off that no one but the spirits will ever hear them. Denahi doesn’t care. There’s no one left for him but spirits, and soon he will walk beside them.
“Kenai,” he says again, and the rest will not come. Even now, he can’t say it. Shame pushes the words into a waterskin, guilt fastens it shut, and sorrow throws it off the edge of the mountaintop.
Maybe it’s enough, that his last words will be his brother’s name.
But— no. If he is truly about to die here— and the small part of him that wonders why he’s still alive barely stays afloat under the tide of guilt that dwarfs it— he is not leaving without telling someone— anyone— what he has done.
“Kenai,” he says again, squeezing his brother’s totem. His numb fingers slip, and the bear’s nose pierces his thumb. He can’t even feel it. “It wasn’t your fault. We didn’t lose Sitka because of you. But—”
Wind slides beneath Denahi’s legs as something pulls him up and out of the snow. The bear’s claws scrape his skin through every layer he wears as it lifts him, and Denahi takes one last breath of mountain air, tastes the snow and pine for the last time—
And then his face lands, solidly, on a mass of brown fur.
It’s coarse against his nose, but beneath the first layer it turns soft and warm. And despite the spirits of his brothers waiting for him among the lights, despite the odd sensation of calm that had wound its way into Denahi’s chest at the thought of death coming to claim him at last after taking his family, despite everything— Denahi breathes in.
His aching, frozen body drinks down the heat. His fingers twitch around Kenai’s totem. He breathes again, and again, and then he can feel the blood on his thumb. Even though it hurts, it’s proof that he’s alive. Just as quickly as he’d accepted the want of death, the want of life comes to take its place. Like eating his first bite of salmon after days of lying ill— with Kenai by his side as Sitka fetched another waterskin— the lack of it makes its return all the more sweeter and intoxicating. He’s alive, and suddenly he wants to stay that way.
The bear doesn’t move. It’s just… holding him. It’s not attacking him yet, and at once Denahi realizes if he struck now, he might kill it. The spear point is gone, but the totem might be sharp enough.
The bear squeezes, and something inside of Denahi splinters.
Kenai’s totem still in one hand, he reaches out and around with the other— and grabs the bear’s fur, holding it tight, pressing his face fast against the bear’s chest. Its fur smears Denahi’s tears over his cheeks, wet and warm, and Denahi tells himself he’s still holding on because the wind would freeze his skin solid, not because the sensation of being held after weeks of pain, anger, and anguish turns his legs to water.
“Kenai, I’m sorry.”
Fur muffles his voice. The bear’s claws curl, but they don’t break Denahi’s skin. It’s still not hurting him, just tugging at his skin coat, like it’s trying to hold him tighter. This is the creature that killed his brother, but Denahi cannot find it within himself to hate it. Kenai’s totem is warm on his palm, and he rubs his bloody thumb over its face.
“You didn’t kill Sitka,” he murmurs, fur against his lips. “And this bear didn’t kill you.” He inhales, earth and pollen filling his nose, and with his breath he lets out the truth. “I did.”
And he drops Kenai’s totem onto the bear’s chest.
Light explodes behind his eyelids.
In an instant, everything vanishes: the wind against his neck, the fur beneath his fingers, even the darkness behind his eyes— light bursts, red and white and blinding. The only thing left is the bear’s claws on his back, which press harder still against Denahi’s skin. They’re dull, he realizes. Dull and soft and bizarrely gentle. But they stay where they are even as the wind ceases its howling and the light blazes brilliantly, beckoning him to look.
Denahi, the light says. Denahi flinches, and in that instant he loses his grip on the bear’s fur.
“No—” He grabs out blindly, reaching as far as he can, but his hands find nothing but warm air. It sighs against his face, cooling his tears, and pollen tickles his nose. The bear is gone— but something is still holding him.
“Denahi?”
His hand falls to the ground, fingertips meeting warm, moist moss.
Denahi opens his eyes.