The wolves and the creatures that people the valley: those who lead, those who follow, those who scheme — and the one who, against all odds, changes the fate of them all.
The protagonist
Seventy-two kilos, a coat of the deepest, glossiest black broken by a single white patch on his chest, eyes like embers. Jan is the different one: while the pack thinks about the hunt, he loses himself in the flight of the eagle and in questions no wolf has ever asked. He does not seek command and knows nothing of ambition; yet nature made him a leader, and life, one step at a time, will come to ask it of him.
Absolute love
Almost entirely white, with faint warm glints that the light kindles into gold. Luna is the favourite daughter of the leader of the second pack, but her true beauty lies within: a gentleness that disarms and a determination no one suspects, which shows itself when it truly matters. She is the one who sees in Jan what the others cannot, and changes his life forever.
The opposite and the mirror
White as snow: in the woods she stands out like a lamp lit in the night, and for this the pack considers her defective. Layla is Jan's opposite and at the same time his mirror: another "different one", cast out for the very thing that makes her unique. To Jan, the brother who does not judge her, she is bound by a special affection.
The antagonist
Grey, marked with scars, raised without a mother in the shadow of a pack that tolerated him like a stepson. Gray Wolf has turned resentment into method: cold, calculating, hungry for power, he strikes the weak when no adult is watching and calls his own cruelty an "achievement". He is everything Jan is not: where one asks, he demands; where one protects, he devours. The perfect antagonist for a wild story.
The restless brother
Grey so dark that at night he almost disappears, Jack is the sociable, moody brother: always ready to play, yet capable of walking off without warning to avoid any conflict. The encounter with the bear on the frozen lake changes him: the joyful cub becomes silent, suspicious, ever more closed, inhabited by a restlessness no one can read.
Good as bread
Light grey with a large white patch on his chest, strangely long ears and a tail so enormous that his brothers use it as prey in their games. Roof is good as bread: nearly as big as Jan, but incapable of quarrelling, far too mild to dominate anyone. Behind that good nature, however, hides a stubborn courage that in decisive moments drives him where no one else dares to go.
The mother
A brown coat and a build that from a distance makes her look like a male, a proud and independent character she passed on to Jan alone. Sara raises the litter by herself, carrying her guilt and the hardest lesson of the woods: do not defend your children too much, let them stumble, because only one step at a time does one become able to live. Her ferocity is love in its wild form.
The rival
Brown, sixty kilos, the biggest of the second pack: a gruff but honest giant, natural successor to the old leader and the most determined of Luna's suitors. When Jan arrives — bigger, more mysterious, loved by everyone at once — Sasha feels robbed of his place, and resentment gnaws at him night and day. But he is too proud to be petty.
The wise old leader
His coat grizzled by the years, Soros leads the second pack not by force but by wisdom: he knows that to command one needs an innate morality, something that cannot be learned and that the group recognises of its own accord. Luna's father, and she his favourite, he welcomes the huge black wolf come from far away with the instinctive sympathy of one who recognises the same ethic in his eyes. A king at the sunset of a long and happy life.
Luna's brothers
Sturdy, friendly, inseparable: they are Luna's brothers, the first of the second pack to welcome the black stranger she brings with her. Mash has a generous heart and a clean spirit, and asks no questions; Oki is warier, but he can read a deep experience in Jan's eyes. With their two-against-one games they cure Jan of the nightmare of loneliness.
His brother's shadow
Gray Wolf's younger brother, Yell lives on reflected light: so submissive as to be incapable of any decision of his own, he follows his elder in every act of bullying without ever really grasping his schemes. He is not as wicked as his brother — he is worse: he is inept, and his obtuse loyalty makes possible what Gray Wolf alone would never dare. The perfect portrait of the follower who believes himself safe in the shadow of power.
The future
In the woods life does not stop: a new generation will one day take up the pack's inheritance. In them the story begins again, with all its gifts and all its dangers.
The danger of inexperience
An old giant with an ear lost in battle and a white patch on his head, met on the frozen lake when Jan and Jack are still cubs. He is the oldest lesson of the woods: everything that looks tame can kill, and in the wild inexperience is always paid for in full.
Absolute freedom
A regal head, golden as wheat, motionless and yet hurtling at seventy kilometres an hour, with a gaze at once hard, merciless and majestic. For Jan she is the revelation of absolute freedom: he watches her spellbound and imagines himself an eagle, and from that flight come the questions that will make him unlike any other wolf.
Royalty
Majestic and imposing, with branching antlers able to kill a grown wolf with a single toss of the head, he stands his ground before the pack like a solitary prince. He is the royalty of the valley made flesh: the adversary who does not flee, and who forces every hunter to measure the price of his own pride.
The first threat
Red, nearly twice the size of a cub, distracted by a stolen egg: she is the first deadly threat of Jan's life. From that encounter, in which he passes in a flash from hunter to prey, comes the lesson that will ripen over the years into a precious tool for living.
Blind fury
He can reach twice the weight of a wolf, with tusks twisted and sharp as swords, and when he defends his young he chooses an unequal fight rather than flight. He is the blind fury of nature: the strength that does not calculate, does not fear and does not retreat, before which even the whole pack must stop.
The images are author’s portraits of the characters, generated with AI under the author’s direction.
Read the excerpts