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Each morning I woke with nausea, doing my best to do my duties as acolyte to a clan that now looked at me with reverence I did not deserve. And each evening, when the bone platters of roasted meat and vegetables were passed around, I’d claim tiredness and retire early, closing my eyes on swirling sickness, giving in to the monstrous vision of carnage that I would reap, growing weaker by the day.

Heat bubbled in my veins.

Light licked around my skin with pleas to remember.

The endlessness within me promised I could create anything I wanted, summon life of every facet, conjure beasts no one had ever seen.

I rubbed at my bruised heart.

I needed to speak to Darro.

To learn what it was like for him when he stepped into his gifts.

But I didn’t trust myself to be around him.

I’d break if I did.

I still hadn’t found a way free of the blood bind.

And now there was a terrible whispering in my heart that wasn’t there before.

A black whisper that said...maybe it’s the only way.

The only way to protect everyone from me.

The only blessing was Aktor kept his distance.

He didn’t try to escort me to my lessons and didn’t lurk close by while Hyath and Niya did their best to get me to eat.

I had Natim to thank for that.

The huge stag never left my side for long.

His hoof prints trailed me as I did chores around the camp and performed minor trances for clan members. Each of his steps dwarfed the imprints of Zetas’s large paws. His antlers threatened to puncture the sun, and the flowers that’d sprouted in his tangled crown and scattered down his back kept blooming. Always fresh. Always fragrant. Always attracting bees and butterflies.

He shouldn’t exist.

He’d died.

I’d felt his last breath and screamed into the stars as he hovered on the precipice of ending. Yet somehow, my power had stretched his bones and made him grow five times that of a normal stag, binding his spirit to his new form.

He was doted on by the entire camp. Baskets of grass were delivered to him where he lay. Younglings plucked the pretty flowers from his antlers, only to coo with wonder as they sprouted anew a moment later.

By the fourth day, the hunters who’d been travelling back and forth to the bison hunting grounds with overloaded travois—stacked high with furs, meat, and organs—finally announced they’d gathered all they could.

The lupic that was destined to become mine and Aktor’s was finished.

It was blessed with a fire chant as Solin threw ash onto the newly stretched fur walls.

Darro stood in the shadows with his arms crossed as Niya hugged me and Aktor gave me a genuine smile. Both of them tugged me into the lupic that stung and sliced my spirit with the remaining aura of the bison bull who had died.

Newly cured furs lay scattered on weaved grass mats. The central hearth was almost as big as Solin’s—in respect to me and my sworn duties as his acolyte.

It was homey.

Well made.

And I swallowed down heartsickness as I stumbled out, caught Darro’s pained stare, and dashed to the river for space.

I wanted Darro to follow me.

I begged him in my heart to find me.

But he never did.

He gave me the space I’d put between us.

On the fifth night, when all the hunters were back and the clan hummed with celebration, Tral organised the biggest feast I’d ever seen in Darro’s name.

He stayed only long enough for Aktor to make a speech about how Darro had saved the clan. He forced a smile as Nhil nodded thanks in his direction. And then he caught my eyes, filled my chest with agonising longing, and slipped silently into the moonglowing grasslands with his wolf.

And by the time the seventh day arrived with a blaze of pinks and bronzes, I’d reached my limit.

Without a word, I slipped into the shy sunshine and whistled softly to Syn and Natim. The stag and lynx made an odd couple, curled up tight together in the midst of mortals, but they leaped to their hooves and paws and fell silently in step with me.

Together, we slinked into the dry, brittle grass, leaving the Nhil behind.

I didn’t go searching for Darro.

I went searching for myself.

I went to decide, once and for all, which path I should follow.

What future I would chase.

And whose heart I would end up breaking.

* * * * *

I didn’t stop walking until I could no longer hear the murmurs of early risers or smell the smoke from the central fire. Natim towered over me as he lumbered with his flower-wreathed bulk while Syn leapt and pounced on dappling sunrays and snapped at a rabbit she flushed from the grass.

I wanted to find somewhere alone.

Somewhere I could sit in silence and sink inside myself.

“You won’t like what you find,” the fire hissed.

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