Chapter 147

The thirst woke me before dawn.

I lay in the furs, staring up at the ceiling of my room, my throat burning as though I’d swallowed sand. This was the third morning in a row, the third time I’d stumbled from bed to the water jug, draining it dry and still feeling parched. I pressed a hand to my forehead, expecting fever, but my skin was cool; too cool, almost, compared to the heat that seemed to radiate from somewhere deep inside me.

I pushed it aside. There was too much to do, too many things happening for me to be distracted by my own body’s strange complaints.

The river helped. I spent longer in the water than I ever had before, letting the cool current wash over my skin until my fingers wrinkled and my toes went numb. The others noticed; Aureon’s worried glances, Soryn’s quiet questions; but I waved them off. Just the heat, I said. Just the season changing.

The air felt thick lately, heavy in my lungs, as though I were breathing through wool. I found myself gasping at odd moments, pressing my hands to my chest, feeling my heart hammer against my ribs for no reason at all.

I couldn’t afford to think about it. Not tonight.

---

Dinner was a loud, chaotic affair, as it always was. The long wooden table groaned under the weight of roasted meats and gathered greens, the air thick with the smell of food and the chatter of too many voices in too small a space. I reached for my cup; water again, always water and that’s when I noticed.

The plate in front of Sikai sat untouched. Beside him, Niku was pushing his food around with a listless finger, his brow furrowed, his usual voracious appetite nowhere to be found.

My cup froze halfway to my lips.

"Niku," I said, keeping my voice light. "You haven’t touched your meat."

He looked up at me, and I saw it then; the glassiness in his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the cool evening air. "Not hungry, Mama," he mumbled, and his voice sounded wrong, strained, as though speaking took enormous effort.

Beside me, Leon went very still. I felt his hand find mine under the table, his fingers squeezing once, twice.

I knew. Oh, gods, I knew.

I’d done this four times before. Watched Atlas scream through his first shift, his small body contorting in ways that seemed impossible. Watched Chase while his bones broke and reformed, while he begged me to make it stop. Ryder and Jasper, their cries harmonizing into a symphony of agony that still echoed in my nightmares.

I knew the signs. The loss of appetite. The quiet that settled over them, as though the children I loved were already slipping away, being replaced by something wild and new and terrifying. But knowing didn’t make it easier. Didn’t stop my hands from shaking when Sikai suddenly gasped, his small body going rigid, or when Niku let out that first cry of pain.

"Krys." Leon’s voice was low, steady. "They have to do this."

"I know," I whispered, but my hands were shaking. "I know, but..."

"You’re going to want to hold them." His eyes met mine with the weight of a parent who had walked this road before. "You’re going to want to wrap them in furs and rock them and tell them it will be okay. But you can’t. They have to feel the pain, have to push through it, or they’ll be unable to learn the shift properly."

I nodded, tears pricking at my eyes. "I know. I just... I hate this part, Leon. I hate it so much."

He brought my hand to his lips, kissed my knuckles. "Trust them. They’re strong. They’re ours."

Across the table, Levy had stopped eating. She sat frozen, fork suspended, her eyes wide and fixed on her brothers. She knew. She had already walked through the fire they were about to enter, and the memory lived in the pallor of her cheeks, the tremor of her hands.

"Brothers sick?" she asked quietly.

"No, baby," I forced my voice steady. "They’re... growing."

"Growing hurts," she whispered, and a tear slid down her cheek.

Zarek, perched beside me with his newfound four-month vocabulary, tugged at my sleeve. "Mama? What’s wrong with Nik and Kai? They crying?"

I pulled him onto my lap, buried my face in his soft hair, smelled the innocence of him. "It’s just a growth spurt, little one. They’re getting bigger. Like you will, someday."

"But they sad," he insisted, pointing at Niku, who had slumped forward, forehead pressed to the table.

"I know," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I know, baby."

It started an hour later.

The first scream tore through the house like a blade. I was on my feet before I knew I was moving, but Leon was there, his arms around me, holding me back as Sikai curled into a ball on the floor, his body convulsing.

"Don’t," Leon said firmly, cutting through my panic. "Krys, look at me. Don’t touch him. You can’t touch him."

"He’s hurting," I sobbed, struggling against his grip. "Leon, he’s hurting, I have to—"

"You have to let him." His eyes were fierce but gentle. "Look at him. He’s strong. He’s fighting."

And he was. Even through the pain, even as his spine arched and his jaw clenched, Sikai was fighting. Beside him, Niku had begun his own battle, whimpers escalating into cries, into screams that scraped my soul raw.

I sank to my knees, Leon’s arms still around me, holding me together as I watched my babies break. Two hours of the most brutal agony I’d ever witnessed. I watched their fur recede, their limbs lengthen, their faces contort and reform. Watched them become something new, something more, and wept through every second of it.

When it was finally over, when the last shudder passed and silence fell over the room, I crawled forward on shaking hands and knees.

Two boys lay on the furs, panting, sweating, transformed. Black hair, dark as midnight, plastered to heads now shaped like human children of two or three years. Pink skin, tender as a newborn’s. They looked at me with eyes that held the same love, the same recognition, but from faces suddenly cherubic, suddenly speaking of the men they would become.

"Mama?" Sikai whispered.

"Oh, my babies," I sobbed, gathering them into my arms, feeling their new bodies against me, too big to cradle like infants but still small enough to hold. "My beautiful, brave babies. You did it. You did it."

They clung to me, trembling, their tears wetting my shoulder. I rocked them, whispering nonsense and love and pride until my voice gave out.

Leon knelt beside us, his hand stroking Niku’s new hair, his own eyes suspiciously bright. "Welcome," he said softly, "to the rest of your life."

Later, when they had been fed and washed and tucked into larger furs, when the house had settled into exhausted sleep, Leon found me sitting by the fire, staring into the flames.

"They’re beautiful," he said, settling beside me.

"They’re always beautiful," I whispered. "Every time. But it never gets easier, does it? Watching them suffer?"

"No," he admitted, his arm around my shoulders. "It doesn’t. But that’s how we know we’re doing it right, Krys. Because we let them hurt so they can grow. Because we trust them to be strong enough."

I leaned into him, my head on his shoulder, eyes drifting closed. "I just want to keep them small forever. Is that wrong?"

"It’s love," he said. "It’s only love."

---

The morning after the shift, the house erupted into chaos.

Sikai and Niku woke with the dawn, their new bodies still foreign, still fascinating. I was stirring the porridge when I heard the first giggle, then the gasp, then the unmistakable sound of shifting bones. I rushed into the sleeping chamber to find both boys in their lion forms, then human, then lion again, shifting back and forth with the careless ease of children who had not yet learned to fear the pain.

"Look, Mama!" Sikai crowed, his voice coming from a muzzle full of teeth one moment, then from a cherubic human mouth the next. "Look what I can do!"

Niku was already racing around the room on human legs, then dropping to all fours as a cub, then up again, laughing hysterically at his own transformation. They treated it like a game, like a new toy they couldn’t stop playing with, and I stood in the doorway, heart in my throat, watching my sons flicker between forms like candle flames in a breeze.

"Show offs," a voice huffed behind me.

I turned to find Levy with her arms crossed her small nose wrinkled in disdain. She watched her brothers with a look of supreme annoyance, the kind only a six-month-old cub could muster when her thunder was being stolen.

"I can do that too," she announced, loud enough to make both boys pause mid-shift. "I can do it better."

"Can you?" The voice came from the doorway, and I turned to see Atlas leaning against the frame, a smirk playing at his lips. Behind him, Chase, Ryder, and Jasper filed in, the four older boys suddenly making the small chamber feel crowded.

"Can you shift while running?" Atlas asked, pushing off the doorframe. He didn’t wait for an answer; he simply started moving, loping across the room on two legs, then dropping to four, then up again, the transition so seamless it looked like water flowing from one shape to another.

"Can you shift without thinking about it?" Chase added, and suddenly there were a lion where he had been, then a boy again, his shift happening simultaneously without a moment’s hesitation.

"Can you shift when you’re swimming?" Ryder challenged, though there was no water in the room. He mimed the motion, his body rippling from human to lion and back in the space of a breath.

The three older boys preened, showing off with the casual arrogance of veterans who had forgotten how recently they’d walked through their own fire. Atlas, Chase, and Ryder tossed their shifts back and forth like jugglers tossing balls, effortless, instinctive, utterly maddening to the two newcomers who had only just learned to hold their forms. Jasper, meanwhile, sat on the bed watching the spectacle, obviously too lazy to add to the silliness of it all, his tail flicking with mild amusement as his brothers made fools of themselves.

Sikai and Niku stared, mouths open, their own attempts at shifting suddenly clumsy by comparison. Niku’s ears went back; lion ears, then human, then back again as his frustration made him lose control.

"That’s not fair," he whined, his voice cracking between registers. "You had more time!"

"Yeah!" Sikai agreed, his tail; human, lion, human again; lashing with indignation. "You’re just showing off!"

Levy stepped forward, her chin lifted, her eyes blazing. "I can do it," she declared. "I can do all of it."

"Levy—" I started, but it was too late.

She shifted. One moment she was a little girl with black hair and stubborn eyes, the next she was a lion cub, small and perfect. She didn’t stop there. She ran; four steps as a cub, then up on two legs, shifting mid-stride, her form flowing like water, like silk, like something that had been practicing for years rather than weeks.

She shifted without thinking, her body responding to her will before she even seemed to decide what shape to take. Human. Lion. Human again. She didn’t grimace. She didn’t cry. She didn’t show a single flicker of the pain that had ravaged her brothers just hours before.

I stood frozen, my hand pressed to my mouth, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I had never seen this.

Ever since she’d first shifted, I had never seen her do this. I have only scene her shift twice. And both time was because she was sick and couldn’t control it. But I had never seen her shift like this, never witnessed how effortless it was for her, how natural.

Levy came to a stop before me, human again, her chest barely heaving, her smile triumphant. "See, Mama? I told you I could."

"Levy," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "How long... how many times..."

She shrugged, the gesture so casual it broke my heart. "Lots," she said. "Mama always look so scared when I do it, so I do it in secret. In the forest. When no one is watching. Or when everyone is asleep."

I closed my eyes, sending a prayer to whatever gods might be listening. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you that no one had seen her, that she had been careful, that we had not been betrayed by a child’s innocent display of power.

I knelt before her, taking her small shoulders in my hands, my eyes searching hers. "Listen to me, my love. You don’t have to hide it anymore. But if anyone asks... if anyone sees you and asks when you learned... you tell them you just started shifting last night. Do you understand? You tell them you started last night, just like your brothers."

Levy tilted her head, her brow furrowing. "But why, Mama? Why can’t I tell them I could do it before?"

I cupped her face, my thumbs stroking her cheeks, my heart aching with the weight of the lie I was asking her to tell. "Because there are bad people, my love. People who would hurt us if they knew. If they find out you could shift before last night... we could be in danger. All of us."

She looked at me, her dark eyes so like her father’s; searching my face for truth. I saw the moment she found it, the moment she accepted my words not with fear, but with the simple trust of a child who believes her mother knows best.

"Okay, Mama," she said, her voice light, unconcerned. She turned back to her brothers, already forgetting the weight of the secret she’d carried, ready to show off her skills to anyone who would watch.

I watched her go, my precious girl with her impossible power, and I prayed that the lie would be enough. That the world would believe she was just another cub, just another shifter, just another ordinary child.

Because if they knew what she really was; what she could do before she should be able to do it; they would come for her. And I would burn the world down before I let them take her.