Chapter 4
MAGNUS
Two days into our journey, and the woman is still matching my pace.
I set a brutal rhythm through the ice-rim forests, the kind of pace designed to test limits, to separate the capable from the merely confident.
Long stretches without breaks, paths that require both endurance and agility, terrain that shifts from rocky scrambles to deep snow without warning.
It’s the pace I’d set for a Mountain Cat warrior, not a healer from the integrated territories.
Lyra doesn’t complain. Doesn’t slow. Doesn’t even breathe hard enough for me to justify offering a rest.
It’s... unsettling.
My snow leopard, on the other hand, is practically purring with satisfaction.
Every time I glance back to check her progress—which is far too often—she’s there, moving with that fluid grace that makes something tighten in my chest. Her eyes take in everything: the forest, the sky, the subtle signs I’m following.
She observes like a hunter, not like prey.
The temperature dropped steadily through the morning, frost forming on the pine needles around us.
I watch from the corner of my eye as she adjusts her cloak, notes how she places her feet to avoid ice patches without me warning her.
Storm Eagle training, she’d said. Used to thin air and harsh conditions. I’m beginning to believe it.
“Here,” I say, stopping at a creek crossing where tracks mar the snow. “Tell me what you see.”
It’s a test, though I’m not entirely sure why I’m giving it.
Maybe I want proof she’s still just a healer, out of her depth, or maybe I want reassurance that my doubts about her are justified.
Or maybe, deep down, I just want an excuse to watch the way she crouches beside me, close enough that her scent fills my lungs with a mixture of storm-rain and herbs undertone.
She studies the tracks with focused intensity, head tilted slightly. A strand of auburn hair escapes her hood, that silver streak catching the filtered sunlight. I have to force myself to look at the tracks instead of her.
“Elk,” she says after a moment. “A herd, maybe twelve or thirteen. Passed through...” she examines the edges where snow has begun to fill the impressions, “eight hours ago? Maybe ten?”
“Good. What else?”
She leans closer to the tracks, and now she’s close enough that I can feel her warmth despite the cold air. My leopard wants to close the distance, wants to know if she’d feel as soft as she looks. I lock the urge down hard.
“The lead doe is injured,” she says quietly, pointing to a specific set of prints. “Left hind leg. See how the stride length is shortened here? And the weight distribution is off because she’s favoring it, pushing more onto her right side when she lands.”
I stare at her. She’s absolutely right. It took me years of training to read injuries in tracks that subtle.
“How do you know that?”
She glances up at me, and for a moment we’re close enough that I can see the silver threads in her eyes, like lightning frozen in time.
“Healer training includes recognizing injury patterns in movement. The body tells stories whether it’s standing in front of you or leaving prints in snow. Same principles, different medium.”
She stands, brushing snow from her knees. “Plus, Storm Eagles hunt from above. We learn to read movement patterns from aerial views. It’s... a different perspective.”
Different. That word doesn’t begin to cover what she is. My assumptions crack a little more, fault lines spreading through my certainty about soft civilized healers.
“They’ll stay low in the valley,” she continues, looking toward the tree line. “With her injury, the doe won’t risk the ridge crossing. Too exposed, too demanding. They’ll follow the water source, look for sheltered grazing.”
“You hunt?” I can’t keep the surprise from my voice.
“I observe,” she corrects. “Healers need to understand predator and prey patterns. Hard to treat hunting injuries if you don’t understand how they happen.”
Logical. Practical. And yet the way she said it, the way her eyes tracked the forest like she was seeing possibilities and paths, I was sure that wasn’t just academic knowledge. That was experience.
We continue through the morning, and I find myself hyperaware of her presence. The soft sound of her breathing, the way she matches my stride without effort, how she automatically adjusts for my longer legs without complaint. My leopard is fascinated by every detail, cataloging them like treasures.
The sun reaches its zenith when we encounter the hawk.
It’s lying in our path, wing bent at an unnatural angle, breathing shallow and rapid, pure animal fear in its eyes. In the mountain, injured animals either heal or feed something else. It’s the way of things.
But Lyra drops to her knees immediately, her hands already glowing with that silver-blue light.
“Easy, beautiful,” she murmurs, voice dropping to something soft and soothing. “I know it hurts. Let me help.”
The hawk should flee or attack. Instead, it stills under her voice, as if recognizing something in her that transcends species. She examines the wing with gentle fingers, her healing light pulsing brighter.
“Clean break,” she says, though I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or the bird. “Lucky, really. Could have been much worse.”
She works with swift efficiency, pulling supplies from her pack with one hand while the other maintains contact with the hawk.
I watch, transfixed, as she mixes some kind of salve, her movements precise and confident.
The light from her hands seems to sink into the bird’s body, and I can actually see the moment its pain eases, and the bird’s breathing slows, its eyes become less wild.
“There,” she says, fashioning a tiny splint from twigs and soft leather strips. “That should hold until you can heal properly.”
She produces something from her pack—dried meat, it looks like—and feeds it to the hawk with the patience of someone who has all the time in the world. The bird takes it from her fingers with surprising gentleness.
“You’ll be flying again within the week,” she tells it, standing carefully. The hawk regards her for a long moment, then hops awkwardly into the underbrush, cradling its splinted wing.
She turns to find me staring at her.
“What?” she asks, brushing dirt from her knees.
“That was...” I search for words. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“No,” she agrees. “But I could, so I did.”
Simple. Matter-of-fact. And yet the compassion in her actions, the skill in her hands, the way even wild creatures trusted her, and my leopard is practically rolling over in my mind, completely charmed.
We continue walking, but something has shifted. The silence between us feels less wary, more... companionable.
As evening approaches, I find us a campsite.
It is a small clearing protected by rock formations, with good sight lines and fresh water nearby.
Lyra sets up her own shelter without being asked, movements efficient and practical.
She builds a fire using flint and technique rather than magic, conserving energy like someone who understands survival isn’t about power but about intelligence.
I handle my own setup, trying not to watch the way firelight plays across her features as she works. Trying not to notice how at home she looks in the wilderness, how the forest seems to embrace her as one of its own.
We eat in silence at first, munching on travel rations, nothing elaborate. But the quiet becomes too heavy, too full of things unsaid.
“Do Mountain Cats ever smile?” she asks suddenly, looking at me across the flames.
The question surprises me. “When something is worth smiling about.”
“And I haven’t given you reason?” There’s something in her tone, not flirtation exactly, but challenge maybe.
“You’ve kept up,” I admit.
“Such high praise,” she says dryly. “I’m overwhelmed by your enthusiasm.”
Despite myself, I feel my mouth twitch. “You want enthusiasm? You matched a pace designed to break trained warriors. You read tracks most hunters would miss. You heal wild creatures with your bare hands.” I meet her eyes across the fire. “You’re not what I expected.”
“You said that before. What did you expect?”
“Someone soft. Someone who would need protection. Someone...” I pause, searching for words that won’t reveal too much. “Someone less.”
“Less?” Her eyebrow arches.
“Less capable. Less observant. Less...” Less magnificent, my leopard supplies unhelpfully. “Less surprising,” I finish.
She’s quiet for a moment, studying me. “You know, for someone who doesn’t smile, you almost just did.”
“Did I?”
“Mm-hmm. Right here.” She touches the corner of her own mouth, and I find myself staring at her lips. They’re soft-looking, pink from the cold, and my leopard wonders what they’d feel like against—
I jerk my gaze back to the fire.
“Three days of me matching your deliberately punishing pace,” she continues, her voice carrying a note of amusement now. “If that’s not worth a smile, your standards are unreasonably high.”
The tiniest quirk of my mouth escapes before I can stop it. Not quite a smile, but close.
“There,” she says, satisfaction clear in her voice. “Was that so hard?”
The temperature feels suddenly warmer, though the fire hasn’t grown. She’s looking at me with something that might be approval, might be interest, might be—
“We should rest,” I say abruptly. “Tomorrow will be harder.”
“Of course it will,” she murmurs, but she’s still almost-smiling as she banks the fire and settles into her bedroll.
I take first watch, ostensibly scanning the darkness for threats. But my attention keeps drifting to her sleeping form, the way moonlight catches in her hair, the soft sound of her breathing. My leopard is restless, wanting things we can’t have, shouldn’t want.
She’s not what I expected. She’s more. So much more that it terrifies me.
Mountain Cats mate for life. We choose once, with absolute certainty, and that choice defines us forever.
I’ve never found anyone who could stand beside me as an equal, who could match my strength with their own, who could make my magic sing and my leopard purr and my careful control crack just by existing.
Until now.
But she shows no signs of similar recognition.
No indication that I’m anything more than an assignment to her, a difficult Mountain Cat tracker she has to endure to complete her mission.
She matches my pace, meets my challenges, even teases me about smiling, but none of that means what my leopard wants it to mean.
Still, as the night deepens and she shifts in her sleep, murmuring something I can’t quite catch, I find myself wondering.
What would it be like if she were mine? If I could close the distance between us, discover if her lips are as soft as they look, if her scent is even more intoxicating up close?
What would it be like to have someone who could match me stride for stride, challenge for challenge, strength for strength?
The thought is dangerous. Impossible. Mountain Cats don’t indulge in fantasy.
But as I watch over her through the cold night, my almost-smile lingering despite myself, I can’t quite make myself stop wondering.
Tomorrow will be harder, I told her.
I just hadn’t realized I was talking about resisting her, not the terrain.