Chapter 12
Elora
Sleep did not give her peace. It never did.
It gave her fragments.
Nightmares clawed at her mind, familiar terrors that twisted and coiled like smoke.
Shadows danced in the corners of her vision, and the weight of despair pressed down on her chest. Just as the darkness threatened to swallow her whole, she felt the jarring sensation of claws elongating from her skin, sharp and electric.
Wings beat against the silence, a chaotic rhythm that shattered her fears.
Each time she woke, her fingers were clenched into tight fists, nails digging into her palms, desperate for release, yearning to break free from the confines of her own skin.
Elora lay still. The woven branches of the ceiling blurred then sharpened with each slow blink.
The forest inhaled around her—a whisper of leaves, a distant bird call, the creak of ancient trunks.
She exhaled and her ribs expanded rather than contracted, as if something inside her took up more space than before.
She sat up. The leaf-woven garment rustled softly as she moved. Her limbs moved without the familiar resistance, unnervingly responsive.
Viliam stood near the doorway with his arms crossed, gaze angled toward the light filtering through the trees rather than directly at her.
“I rested,” she said.
“You slept,” he corrected. “Not the same.”
Her teeth ground together with an audible click. She swung her legs over the edge of the bedding, toes curling against the cool earth. “You said we would talk after I rested.”
Viliam was quiet for a beat too long.
Elora’s head snapped up. “Every second you stand there saying nothing is another lie.”
He pivoted, revealing a face smooth as still water, eyes heavy-lidded, mouth set in that particular curve that suggested he could wait centuries if necessary.
“You are not ready.”
Something clawed beneath her ribs, stretching awake. Her fingertips tingled, the nails suddenly too tight against her skin.
“That man stole my life from me,” she said. Her voice stayed level, but only because she forced it to. “Stole Tehvan from me. He tore me apart and that tree only put part of me back together. Do not tell me I’m not ready to talk.”
Viliam met her gaze fully now.
“No. Control beast. Then we talk.”
There it was.
Not a refusal. A condition.
Arguments rose to her lips, bitter and urgent, the words crowding her throat—He deserves to die. He doesn’t get more time. I don’t get more time.
Kaela appeared, as if summoned by the tension. She took in Elora’s posture, the set of her shoulders, the way her fingers flexed unconsciously.
“She’s ready to begin,” Kaela said calmly.
They led Elora deeper into the forest, to a small clearing ringed with low stones and roots worn smooth by time. Sunlight filtered down in broken patterns, dappling the earth.
Kaela faced her, feet planted, posture loose but grounded. “Shifting is not force,” she said. “It is an invitation.”
Elora’s fingers flexed at her sides. The hum under her skin answered for her. “Yes. But I don’t know how to… call it.”
Kaela nodded once, as if that confirmed something. “That is expected.”
Elora frowned. “Expected how?”
Kaela considered her for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Shifting begins with connection. Not force. You do not push the beast forward. You allow it space to respond.”
“That’s vague,” Elora said quietly. “What does that actually mean?”
Kaela exhaled through her nose, thoughtful. “Among our people, we are taught to listen inward. To still the mind. To recognize when the balance shifts and follow it.”
Elora’s brow creased. “Is it me, or is it separate?
“It is you.”
A chill slid down Elora’s spine. “Then why does it feel like something else? Like it has its own instincts. Its own wants.”
“Because it does,” Kaela said simply. “Because you do.”
“So, what,” she asked, “I just… imagine it?”
Kaela stepped back, giving her space. “Not imagine. Acknowledge.”
Elora inhaled slowly.
The full shape of it hovered just beneath her skin—vast, winged, impatient. She could sense how easily it wanted to surge forward, how thin the boundary was now. That realization alone made her pulse spike.
Not all of it, she thought.
She didn’t reach for wings. Didn’t reach for the roar.
Instead, she acknowledged only what she knew she could hold.
Teeth.
Fangs
Strength.
The response was immediate—but gentler than before. Heat flowed through her jaw, her hands, her spine. Her canines lengthened, pressing against her lip with a dull ache. Her muscles tightened, coiling with quiet power instead of tearing apart.
This… she could manage.
Once she settled there, the effort eased. The shift didn’t fight her. It stayed—present, responsive—like clasped hands that no longer strained to hold on.
The sensation startled her.
It wasn’t domination. It wasn’t surrender.
It was like being steadied by a hand at her back.
Her spine straightened without her deciding to. Her breath came easier. Her hands, for the first time in days, were still.
She hadn’t experienced this sensation since the arena.
Since Thorn had taken the ring.
From the moment she lost the ability to call the shift at all—lost the last fragment of agency she’d had. If she could do this then, if she had known how to reach it without the ring, without permission—
Her breath hitched.
Maybe I could have saved him.
The thought was poisonous and irresistible all at once. She swallowed hard, forcing it down, but it lingered like ash in her lungs.
She remembered the forest instead.
The week before. Traveling with Rell through the woods. Living half-shifted, claws always ready, senses sharpened.
She had felt capable.
Danger still existed, but it didn’t own her. She could run. Fight. Choose. She had a direction: survive. Get to Kilfaire. Reach Tehvan.
That purpose had shaped the strength. Given it weight. Meaning.
Now… she sensed the same power humming through her veins, but hollow.
Unanchored.
The strength didn’t settle into her bones the way it once had. It didn’t wrap around her like armor. It didn’t promise safety.
It just was.
A force with nowhere to go.
A war with no battlefield.
A presence inside her that had no guidance beyond instinct and rage.
Her claws trembled faintly before she forced the shift to recede.
When it faded, the emptiness it left behind felt worse than the fear ever had.
Elora opened her eyes.
She was stronger now. That much was undeniable.
But strength without direction didn’t feel like protection anymore.
Two days passed.
They blurred together in a haze of restlessness and restraint, each sunrise feeling like a promise that never quite delivered.
Viliam kept his distance—not physically, but carefully—present when she trained, gone when she asked questions.
Every time Elora tried to steer the conversation back to Thorn, he redirected her. Rest. Control. Balance.
Always later.
She shifted again and again in those two days, but never fully. Only claws. Only fangs. Only the strength she knew she could hold without losing herself.
And each time, the connection deepened.
The sensation had become easier now. A familiar warmth unfurling beneath her skin, steady and present. It quieted the worst of the panic. Drowned out the sharp edges of grief. Made the silence inside her chest less unbearable.
She caught herself craving it.
Not the power.
The company.
Without it, she felt hollow. With it, she felt… less alone.
But without direction, the shift did something dangerous.
It didn’t ground her.
It amplified her.
Her emotions sharpened into edges, grief turning brittle, anger turning hot and restless. Thorn’s name echoed louder in her head after every partial shift, not quieter. The beast didn’t soothe the rage. It fed it, pacing under her skin as if waiting for permission.
Kaela tried to teach her.
Fragments of Al’teran history. The philosophies of balance. The sacred duty of Thrask and guardian beasts. Elora sat through the lessons, nodded at the right moments, repeated the words when prompted.
But she didn’t hear them.
All she could hear was the low hum inside her bones.
All she could feel was the thing pressing against her skin, restless and awake.
It wanted out.
It wanted purpose.
Not for peace. Not for balance.
For meaning.
For something to fill the void, something sharp enough to hurt back. Something big enough to justify why it existed at all.