took it all in in silence, and when Flint had finally finished the only word she could say was, “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Flint agreed, “You know, you can pass this on to Shade and Shaila and Ruska, but don’t add anything or exaggerate it. Tell it exactly how I told it. Are you sure you’re okay with everything I told you?”

“I think so,” she said slowly, obviously thinking hard. Linder and Quicksilver, who had been talking urgently off to the side, came up beside Flint.

“Well, we’re here,” Linder said, surveying the landscape. She looked at Flint. “Now what?”

“Right, right,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “Remus, why don’t you go help your brother out of that seaweed?” She grinned evilly and ran off to ‘help’ Shade. Linder gave Flint a Look. “What? I don’t want her knowing too much. If she figures out we’re using her dream to blaze a trail to Nome, she’ll think every dream she has means something, and then what? If she has a bad dream, nothing’s going to convince her that it won’t come true.”

“But what if all her dreams do mean something?” Quicksilver mused, “Some wolves have that ability.”

“I think this dream is special, a message she’s received from someone she’s related to by blood,” Flint said rigidly, “Aleu’s father Balto had dreams sent to him from Aniu. Remus shouldn’t be much different.”

“As much as I’d love to hear you two argue the whole live-long day, we still have somewhere to get to,” Linder interrupted, “What came next after Re followed the raven down the beach?”

“She said she saw gray lumps spouting water in the sea,” Flint said, “Do you think those could be whales?”

“Makes sense to me,” Linder said. The three casually ambled their way down the beach and scanned the blue horizon for spouts or bumps of gray. “Nothing,” said Linder, “No whales. What now, mastermind?”

“I don’t get it,” Flint said through gritted teeth. He kicked at a rock and looked up helplessly. “Are we too late? Too early? Are we looking for the wrong thing?”

“You know,” Quicksilver said quietly, “Are we actually supposed to be following a raven, or just the path it showed us? Maybe we’re supposed to wait for the bird to show up.”

“…Possibly,” Flint considered, dragging his paw through the sand.

Aleu watched them from her post where she was busy untangling Shade and Remus from the mess of seaweed they had made. She, too, was trying to figure out what to do next. “Okay, Aniu, this would be a good time to give us directions, help us out a little, you know…?”

A black blur swooped out of the sky and hovered in the air above Aleu’s head. Aleu looked up and smiled. “Impeccable timing. Now if you don’t mind…?”

“Patience.” A warm voice echoed through Aleu’s head, and she shivered.

The raven sailed down the wind out to sea, and suddenly pulled up and began circling a certain area, creating an invisible whirlpool.

“Mom, look!” Shaila shouted.

The small group watched as the bird continued circling, faster and faster, tighter and tighter, carving out the flowing blue space in the water where…

A white misting fountain sprayed up from the sea followed by a glistening gray head with clear, huge eyes.

“That’s from my dream, too!” Remus cried, “What is that, Mom?”

“A whale, Re!” Aleu said, wondering how a whale could be the answer to their problem. Multiple sprays shot up from the water and more gray humps of heads appeared above the surface. “A pod of whales,” Aleu corrected herself.

The raven flew up to the sky and off into the distance, disappearing.

“Wait!” Aleu yelled after it, but it was gone before the word had left her mouth. Fuming, Aleu’s thoughts slipped easily through her head to form an idea; an impossible idea, but an idea all the same. She howled desperately, scaring her pups and startling Flint.

“Aleu, what are you-”

She ignored him and kept howling, forcing helplessness into her voice, a cry for help. She thought she felt a stir among the whales, and she focused on the largest whale as she thrust the note from her chest. Underwater now, he swam over to the shore. Aleu listened, and a sudden rumble through the water reached her ears. She strained to hear the words through the underwater thunder: “What is your plight, young wolf?”

She almost jumped into the air in triumph. Her idea had worked! She was talking to a whale!

“My pack and I wish to get to the other side of the bay to seek safety,” she explained, copying his fancy speech, “But we have no idea how to accomplish this task. Could we ask for your assistance?” She aimed her voice toward the water so the whale could hear her.

“Come nightfall, I will send out some whales to find a sheet of ice, which are more plentiful in the night’s colder temperatures. Once they have beaten one off an iceberg or bashed one off the land, you and your pack will climb upon it. My pod will all swim around you and create a current that will carry you with us to the other side of the bay. There you will climb onto the land and be on your way,” answered the great whale in his deep voice.

“Thank you,” Aleu said gratefully, dipping her head to him.

“In exchange, your pack will do something for us,” the whale said.

“What?” Aleu squeaked.

“When my pod has a problem, we can call on you for advice or whatever,” the whale said, “What is your name and pack?”

Aleu sighed in relief. This not-too-bright whale must think she was going to live where Nava had led the Ravens Wing pack. In actuality she’d be so far from the sea she would never be able to help the whales with anything. “Aleu, alpha female of…the Northern Lights pack,” she said quickly, thinking of Jenna. The whale nodded and lugged his fat body through the water back to his pod.

Aleu realized her mate, pups, and friends had surrounded her and heard everything that had been said. The silence was broken by Ruska’s shrill shout: “Mom talked to a WHALE!”

Then it was Shaila who said in her thoughtful way, “You dreamed this, Remus?”

The plan went off smoothly, and the next couple days were spent keeping the pups from falling off the ice sheet and explaining about Remus’s dream. Remus reported she had had absolutely no dreams since they had left the island, which set Aleu’s mind at rest.

They reached the beach and transferred themselves from riding ice to walking over the rough terrain. That also took only a couple days, and by sunset they crested the last hill to look down on tiny, brightened Nome.

“This was my home when I was a pup,” she explained to her children.

“It’s pretty,” Shaila breathed, her eyes wide.

“It’s cool!” Shade cried, bouncing around, “What are all those pink, two-legged bald things that are walking around?” He stopped to yawn.

“Those are people,” Aleu said, lifting Shade onto her back where he curled up around her shoulder blades, “Humans. But you can see all that tomorrow. Now we’ve got to find a place to rest.” Flint found a hidden hollow buried beneath the snow on the hill, and they settled there.

Before closing her eyes, Aleu was struck by a sudden notion. She sat up abruptly in the dark.

“What is it, Aleu?” Quicksilver asked.

“Now that you don’t have to protect me and the pups, do you still want to stay and be a part of this pack?” she asked.

“I’m with you till the end, remember?” he said, “Besides, I couldn’t leave Shaila. She’s such a sweet little thing…like the daughter I never had.”

Aleu smiled. “Linder, what about you?”

“I’m staying, okay?” Linder grumbled, “Now shut up and let me sleep!”

Aleu curled up with her tail over her nose and fell asleep breathing calmly, but sleep brought her worries out from the dark to spin around her.

Aniu appeared to her as a ghostly white wolf, smoky wisps blowing softly around her. “Well done, Aleu. You have become the great leader Nava predicted you would be.”

“Me? A great leader?” Aleu protested, “Look what happened with the Ravens Wing pack! I wasn’t respected from the start, and then it ended up they wanted to kill me and I had to run! Some great leader I was!”

“But you have succeeded with this pack, the Northern Lights pack,” Aniu said. A dim image of Flint’s sleeping form appeared next to the old wolf. “You have found love in your life, a mate. Flint loves you, and you love him with everything you have. How many dogs, or wolves, or even humans can say that about their mate?” Aleu’s four sleeping pups appeared next to Flint. Ruska had fallen asleep with Shade’s tail in her mouth, and half-asleep Shade was trying to kick her jaws open, without success. “You have pups that love you as a mother, a guide, and a teacher. They run to you when there is trouble, and if someone asked them who they loved most, the first thing that would come to their minds would be you.” A last image of Linder and Quicksilver