The skies were heavy and gray, pressing low over Solaria. The lake known as the God's Eye lay still beneath them, dark as obsidian. Once, it had reflected the heavens so perfectly that the priests said even the gods could see themselves in it. But that morning, no god would have dared to look down.
Thalia knelt by the water, her knees buried in damp soil, her palms resting on the edge of the lake. The cold mist curled around her as she leaned forward, staring into her reflection. The darkness made her face look older, distant — like someone she used to know but could no longer name.
Behind her, footsteps whispered through the wet grass."Thalia," came the voice — calm, deep. "You should come with me."
She didn't turn. Her eyes stayed fixed on the water. "Where?"
"To the Welch Lands," Anisda said quietly.
The ripples in the water trembled. Thalia's voice came sharp. " Why?"
He stepped closer, still keeping to the tree line where the morning light thinned to shadow. His cloak, wet from the mist, clung to him like smoke. "Because I saw what you did," he said. "The power you called upon. You awakened something, Thalia — something not of this world."
Her head turned slightly, enough for him to see the doubt in her eyes. "You saw it?"
"Yes." His tone darkened. "Because I've been watching over you… whenever I could."
She stood slowly, her gaze narrowing. "Watching? How?"
He exhaled — not weary, not defensive, just honest. "The raven remember?, The one that spoke to you. That was me."
Her breath caught. "You?" she whispered. "You were the raven? correct?"
"I was," he said. "It was the only form I could take without drawing notice. I've followed you since the borders fell, to keep you safe."
Her hand balled into a fist. "You should have told me."
"I couldn't," he said firmly.
She turned to face him fully now, the wind tugging at her hair. "Then tell me this — why now?"
"I protected you," he said, voice rising slightly. "If I had not, you'd have been hunted before you reached Solaria. You think the shadows you fought at the kingdom came by chance?"
Thalia's breath caught. "You should have told me something."
"I am telling you now," he said quietly. "And you must come back with me. My mother — my elder — she will know what you are. She can explain what's awakening in you, before it destroys you."
Thalia's hands curled into fists. "And why should I trust her or even you... my father is dead the king is...?"
"Because she's seen this before," Anisda said. "And because if the name Virvo the Man means anything to you—"
Her eyes blazing now. "How do you know that name?"
Anisda flinched. "Thalia—"
"Answer me!" she shouted, stepping forward. "You speak of him as though you've met him. Why didn't you stop him? Why didn't you warn my father? You could have saved—"
"I couldn't," he snapped. "Not then."
"Why?" she demanded. "Tell me!"
"I will," he said through gritted teeth, "but not here — not now. The answer belongs to the frost, not the sun."
Before Thalia could speak again, a sharp sizzling sound broke through the air.Anisda stiffened. Steam rose from his right hand — where a beam of sunlight had pierced the clouds and touched his skin. He groaned, clutching his wrist, his teeth grinding.
"Anisda!" Thalia cried, stepping toward him. "What's happening to you?"
He staggered back beneath the willow, where the light couldn't reach. His voice was strained, trembling. "It's nothing. The sun — it's burning through the clouds faster than I thought—"
But then his head jerked up. His eyes darted left, toward the thick brush beyond the riverbank. The pain vanished from his face, replaced by sudden alertness.
"What is it?" Thalia whispered.
He didn't answer. His nostrils flared once — and in the next heartbeat, he was gone.A blur of motion. The leaves shuddered. Silence.
"Anisda?" Her voice trembled. She stepped forward, drawing her axe with a slow, ringing scrape. "Anisda!"
Nothing. Only the whisper of the river.
Then it came — a faint sizzle, like embers meeting rain.Anisda's breath hitched. He stumbled back a step, clutching his side. Steam rose from the edges of his cloak. His teeth clenched hard, jaw trembling.
"Anisda?" Thalia asks. "What's happening to you?"
He tried to speak, but the words came through his teeth. "It's nothing—" His voice faltered, heavy and uneven. "I've pushed too far. I—"
He stopped suddenly, eyes darting past her, toward the trees. His nostrils flared, his body stiffened. "Something's here," he whispered.
"What?" Thalia turned, scanning the mist. "What do you see?"
He didn't answer. In a blur, he was gone — vanishing into the brush. Leaves burst, then settled in his wake.
"Anisda!" she called, her voice echoing off the water. Nothing.
The only reply was the sound of the river breathing.
Thalia drew her axe. The steel whispered free, catching the faint gray light. She followed the direction he'd gone, stepping slowly through the bushes. Branches brushed her shoulders, dripping cold water onto her cloak. Her heartbeat felt too loud in her chest.
"Anisda?" she tried again, softer this time.
A crack. Then another. Something large was moving. She crouched, body tense, eyes flicking left. "Anisda?"
The sound stopped. The silence felt thick, watching her.
Then a roar ripped through the mist.
A blur struck it side-on, black against brown. The impact spun both bodies into a thicket; the cat screeched, a sound that hung and tore, and then Thalia saw the second shape resolve from motion: Anisda, crouched low, a stillness inside him so complete it made the lion's rage look clumsy.
They began to circle. The cat's tail scythed. It spat, stepped, stepped, tested. Anisda did not blink. Steam still braided itself up from his shoulders in thin strands, but where his skin showed it was no longer raw. Only hot. He bared his teeth in answer—not fully, not yet—and the canines were wrong. Longer. Cleaner. The human mouth wearing an older design.
"Anisda!" Thalia snapped, because she could not bear the idea of him tearing himself apart on top of tearing the beast. "Don't—"
The lion committed. It leapt in a low line, all its power thrown forward. Anisda stepped into it—not away—just a fraction, just enough to steal its angle. His left hand came up under its jaw, fingers wedging the hinge; his right hand caught at the shoulder blade and dragged his body up and over. In a heartbeat he was on its back as if he'd grown there.
He bent and bit.
The first bite took high, where muscle knots beneath the spine; the second took the corded place where neck becomes shoulder. The sound was wet and violent. The lion became a thrown thing, slamming saplings, ripping shrubs out by the roots. Anisda held as if the cat's body had been made to fit his arms. Blood came in a dark rush, shocked by cold air, steaming where it touched his cheek. He drank.
Thalia froze. It wasn't fear that rooted her; it was a strange certainty that this was not the worst thing the world contained. That there were worse hungers than the one in front of her. Her lips pressed into a hard line. She did not look away.
The lion's rage burned itself white, then thin, then to a thread. Its legs wobbled in a way that said the message had failed to get out to them from the brain. It sagged. Its vast lungs worked and worked and then did not. Anisda kept his hold one moment more, another, as if listening for an echo only he could hear. Then he eased off, letting the cat's head fold to earth. The body looked wrong already—sunken in spots, a subtraction showing under the skin.
Anisda stood. Breath in, breath out. The steam lifting off him thinned, then stopped altogether. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. It left a smear.
Thalia stared. "What… did you just do?"
He looked at her — eyes dark, sharp, still glowing faintly. "I fed," he said simply.
She blinked, stepping back slightly. "Fed? You—" her voice faltered, "you drank its blood."
"I had to," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'd burned through too much power. It was that, or die where I stood."
Her brow furrowed, a mix of anger and disbelief. "You could've told me—"
"Would you have let me?" he asked quietly.
She didn't answer. Her fingers tightened around her axe instead.
Anisda exhaled, stepping away from the lion's body. "It's not something I'm proud of. But shape-shifting, fighting what I fought — it costs me. It drains what keeps me whole."
"And this?" she asked, gesturing to the lifeless lion. "This restores you?"
He nodded once. "Enough to keep moving."
For a long moment, neither spoke. The rain whispered against the leaves. The God's Eye lay behind them, silent and black.
Finally, Thalia lowered her axe. "Then let's move," she said softly.
Anisda met her gaze, searching it for judgment. "Up the river," he murmured. There's a bridge.
She nodded, though her thoughts were far from still.
As they walked away from the lake, Thalia glanced back one last time. The God's Eye reflected nothing now — not the sky, not her face, not the gods.Only darkness.
And beneath it, something faint and crimson rippled, then vanished.