Ethan caught the look on the white-haired Patriarch's face and almost laughed. It was not anger, not caution, but pure, unfiltered mockery, the kind reserved for an old enemy you have already measured and dismissed. The Patriarch stared at the Divine Sea Temple elder as though he were something unpleasant dragged in on the tide.
A thought flickered through Ethan's mind. 'Do they know each other?'
The elder in violet and gold robes slowly shifted his glare toward the grey-haired wolf. His voice rang out across the frozen vale, cold and sharp as a drawn blade. "Moonfrost Direwolf clan. You dare harbor fugitives from the Divine Sea Temple? Do you seek extinction?"
The Patriarch curled his lip. "Pah. Divine Sea Temple. Why are you not rotting in the ocean where you belong, skulking around our Sacred Southern Vale? This is no place for your kind. Harbor fugitives? Who do you think you are, the World Council? Crawl back to the depths. Or we will bury you right here."
