him; he still hadn’t gotten over watching the best friend he had ever made fall to the ground and die; he still couldn’t believe he had killed someone, Hawk…if Taya ever found out, he didn’t know what she would do. The chances weren’t large, though.

A stabbing pain hit him from inside his chest, and though he couldn’t have named the feeling, he knew he wasn’t just going to miss Taya. It was more than that. Something much, much more.

Behind him he heard a voice that echoed hollowly as if it was far, far away…“Copper!” He pricked up his ears, turned his head…

A brown-gray blur slammed into him and knocked him off his feet, jarring his hurt leg and making it feel like it was being cut by a thousand fiery knives. He and the blur rolled over and over in the chilling snow, and finally the two bumped into a snowdrift and slid to a stop. Copper found himself staring into two bright yellow eyes in a wolfish face, and almost immediately he knew who it was. His emotional dam cracked.

“Kaila!” he cried, a tear sneaking down his face. He said it again, unbelieving, believing. “KAILA!”

She laughed, and as she got up she flicked her tail across his face to get rid of the tears. “I told you I’d get you someday! I rolled you over and everything! Ha! How did you like THAT?”

Copper heaved himself up to stand in front of her, still telling himself it was really Kaila come home. There was something different about her. She seemed happier, more confident…and she was still his sister. He grinned up at her. “Yeah, you did get me good…Oh man, Kaila, have I missed you!”

She smiled crazily. “Believe it or not, I missed you a little, too.”

They both stepped forward at the same time, and hugged, right in the town square where most of Nome’s dogs and people could see. Copper would have normally been embarrassed, but now he didn’t care; his sister was home, and that’s all he could think about: ‘You’re home! Kaila, you’re finally home! You’re really here! Oh, what am I thinking? Kaila, I love you!’

Kaila gasped, and Copper felt a pinching pain in his injured leg. He hurriedly stepped back to see he had bled a little on Kaila. He scrutinized it with mock concern, then grinned up at her sheepishly. “Looks like you got me a little TOO good.”

“Copper, what happened to your LEG?! I didn’t do that, did I?” Kaila sounded really worried. She came over and started to lick at the wound, but Copper pulled away.

“You didn’t make it. When you hit me so hard like that and crashed me all over the place, you just re-opened it. It’s been trying to heal for the past couple hours, but it hasn’t had much of a chance.”

“Where-” Kaila started to ask, but just then another wolf-dog trotted up to them and stood just to Copper’s left. Copper leapt back and gave a surprised but happy bark.

“Dad!”

“Copper!” Balto exclaimed, giving his son a friendly nudge in the side with his nose. “I didn’t expect you to be the first one I’d meet back here. Thought it would be your mother, armed with the polar ice caps up on the hill and the Northern Lights over the town. Guess we came a little late for the Aurora, though.” Balto gave his son a small hug, and Copper returned it, but it didn’t last long. They had never really been on hugging terms, but that didn’t change how relieved Copper was to have Balto back, in spite of everything.

“It’s good to have you back, Dad,” Copper said, “Now the town won’t seem so quiet!”

“Hardy har har har,” Kaila said sarcastically as Balto rolled his eyes and grinned. “Copper, you won’t believe what I’ve gone through out there! I joined a wolf pack, but then I left when Dad came for me, but I’m still a member, and Aniu said I can go back whenever I want! Oh yeah, Aniu’s one of the alphas in the pack, the Anvil Creek pack. You know, Aniu…Dad’s mom? Anyway, when me and Dad left to get back home Nome looked really close and I thought we were going to make it before dark, but Nome was a lot farther away that it looked! It took us part of yesterday and almost all night to get here!”

“We would’ve gotten here sooner if you hadn’t decided to take off and lead when you had no idea where you were going,” Balto said pointedly, “I had to track you down and point you in the right direction, and then I saved you from being flattened into the dirt by that charging moose, remember?”

Kaila turned slightly pink under her fur. “Oh…be quiet, Dad,” she said hastily, “In any case, we’re back home now, and in one piece…Speaking of pieces, Dad, would you come look at Copper’s leg? It looks horrible!”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Balto said quietly, and bent down to examine it. Copper hated that leg now. It was the only major evidence he had of ever being in the Borealis Fights. Man, was he hating that leg.

“It’s nothing, Dad, really,” he burbled, trying to hide it behind his other front leg. It hurt uncontrollably when he tried to move it, and he gritted his teeth. “Ow.”

Balto finished studying it and lifted his head, shaking it. “You’ve definitely got one deep cut there, Copper. And the bone’s pretty much broken, from what I can see. What did you do to get it so banged up?”

Copper wished he could lie to his father, but that was impossible. “Fighting,” he mumbled. Balto stared at him with his searing golden eyes.

“What?”

Copper took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It was either now or never. He would never be able to work up the nerve to tell Balto his secret again. He felt his heart beating solidly, fearfully, inside of him, and another verse from his puppy-hood lullaby came to him.

‘There’s no turning back now,

Your destiny is calling,

Listen to the thunder roll,

And let your heart break free…’

“I hate racing.”

There was a stunned silence between the three wolf-dogs.

“What?” Balto said again. Copper exhaled and opened his eyes to stare into his father’s bewildered face.

“You know how Johnson had me and a few other dogs on a sled team? He finally saw that we didn’t care about racing-especially me-and two days ago he broke up the team. His writing hasn’t been going too well, either, and without the team he didn’t have any way to get money. So he entered me in these ‘contests’ called the Borealis Fights, or the Northern Fights. They’re dog fights, Dad. We snuck out of town last night, and the night before…” Copper spilled out the whole story, briefing some bits and leaving a lot of things out, like Hawk and Taya, but he did include Storm, and Copper also confessed he had killed a dog, though he didn’t say that that dog was Hawk. He didn’t even mention Hawk was Steele’s son. He wasn’t ready for Balto to know that. But the time would come soon enough. The entire time Copper talked he watched his father’s face go from bewildered to angry to shocked to still. Near the end of Copper’s babbling, Balto drew on a tight expression that Copper couldn’t read. He tried his best to apologize and explain himself, but it was hard. “…and I’m sorry, Dad, but I just don’t care about racing. I don’t see any real point to it. It’s not my thing. In the fighting ring, at the Northern Fights, I guess I found out what racing feels like for you and Kodi and every other sled dog in Alaska. I got this huge adrenaline rush while I was fighting, and I found out one thing about myself…I love to fight…No way am I going to go back to those Fights if they ever come up again, but now I know what it feels like for other sled dogs. I hate to race, and I love to fight. I’m sorry, Dad, I don’t know who I got the gene from, but…I hate to race. I’m sorry.”

Copper thought he sounded like a young pup, being so honest with one of his parents, and he disliked it a lot, but he had to tell the truth.

Balto’s face was still tight and hard, and his eyes were pained as if he couldn’t quite register what he was hearing. No one spoke for awhile, and the only sound was the murmur of the crowd around them. Copper brought his right front paw to his mouth and bit hard, chewing on the fur and pulling at the skin underneath it with aggrivation. He didn’t know what to do or what else to say. The silence between the family group gnawed at his raw nerves, and he wished like crazy he could hear Balto’s thoughts.

Copper finally dropped his paw and tried one last time to reach out to his father. His throat felt dry and his whole chest ached. His voice sounded a little cracked and throaty when he tried to plead for forgiveness. “Dad-”

“It’s okay, Copper.” Copper looked up into Balto’s golden eyes to see understanding and acceptance. There was pain, too, but the greatest emotions there were the ones Copper needed the most: forgiveness and understanding. Copper grinned through sudden tears and swallowed his sadness and dread until there was none left. “It’s okay.” Balto’s voice was purposely quiet and comforting, and Copper immediately knew everything WAS going to be alright. How could he ever have thought Balto would get angry with him? Copper felt stupid now, thinking about it. He thanked Balto with his eyes, then said it aloud to make it concrete. “Thanks, Dad.”

Balto nodded with a