The news spread through the village like wildfire, carried on whispers and awed gasps until it reached every corner of the settlement. By dawn, they were lined up outside my new home; beast men and females, young and old, the sick and the merely hopeful, all pressing forward with desperation in their eyes.
The stories had grown in the telling, as stories do. I had performed a miracle, they said, when the Elder had lost all hope for Layla. They spoke of how I had plunged my hands into her womb and turned the cubs with my bare fingers, how I had pulled three living, breathing cubs from a mother who had been moments from death. Some said I had summoned the spirits, or perhaps bargained with death itself, trading pieces of my own soul for their lives.
The truth was messier, more desperate, more human. I had felt the wrong position of the first cub through Layla’s straining muscles, had recognized the danger signs of a transverse lie that would have killed them all. While the Elder stood helpless, wringing his hands and murmuring prayers to the beast gods, I had done what my training taught me; reached inside, found the cub’s head, and manually rotated it into the birth canal. The screams had been terrible, the blood copious, the fear suffocating. But the cubs had lived. Layla had lived. That was the miracle; not magic, but knowledge applied in the face of hopelessness.
And the tale of Leon’s arm had transformed into something equally fantastical. Now it was said to have been dangling by a single thread of tendons, barely attached to his shoulder, when in truth it had been a deep laceration from his fight with Rina’s tiger mate. The muscle had been torn, yes, and the blood had flowed alarmingly, but the bone had remained intact beneath, and the tendons had not been severed completely.
I had cleaned the wound with boiled water and antiseptic herbs, stitched the muscle layers with bone needle and gut thread, and bound it tight with clean cloth bandages I had made. I had monitored it for infection, changed the dressings, made him rest despite his protests. The arm had healed straight, and strong, full function restored within weeks. But in the telling, it had become something else; a limb reattached by sheer will, a death-defying feat of healing that no ordinary beast could achieve.
"Please, my lady Krys!" A wolf female pushed to the front of the crowd, her voice cracking with desperation. "My cub has been sick for days. The Elder says he cannot help. Please, will you cure him?"
"Please, I am almost due!" Another voice rose from the throng, a heavily pregnant fox clutching her belly. "Will there be complications? Can you see? Can you tell me if I will survive?"
"Heal us, blessed one!" The cries merged into a cacophony, pressing against my door like a physical weight.
I stepped out onto the threshold, my heart hammering against my ribs, my hands already shaking. Soryn was there before me, his serpentine lower body coiled in a defensive barrier, his human torso held erect above the crowd. His face harden, his tongue flickering with warning, hissing at anyone who dared step too close. He played the role of bodyguard with deadly seriousness, his emerald eyes scanning the crowd for threats, his pale hands resting on the hilts of the bone knives at his hips.
"This village already has an Elder who heals," I called out, my voice barely carrying over the noise. "I am no healer. I am just... I am just Krys. Please, go to him."
"No, my lady," a voice boomed from the back of the crowd. The people parted like water, and the Elder himself emerged; ancient, stooped, his fur white with age. He looked at me, and in his eyes I saw something that made my stomach sink. Recognition. Understanding. He knew about my blue binding, knew what it meant. He had promised me once that he would keep my secret, and I saw in his gaze that he intended to honor that promise.
"You are a blessing in this village," he said, his voice carrying the weight of authority, carefully vague. "The spirits have marked you for healing. I have seen your power at work." He let the crowd believe what they would, infer what they chose. "My knowledge ends where true healing begins. Your skills, your knowledge... they far surpass my own."
He bowed his head to me, deeply, the gesture of a student to a master. The crowd gasped at the sight, murmuring among themselves. If the Elder acknowledged me, if the Elder bowed to me, then surely the stories were true. Surely I was everything they believed me to be.
I wanted to scream that I was not. That I was just a nursing assistant who had read textbooks and watched surgeries and learned by doing. That I had no magic, no spirit-given power, only knowledge and desperation and the willingness to try when others stood aside.
"Please," I begged the crowd, my voice breaking. "I am no healer. I am just... I just want to live my life. Please."
"We beg you," the voices rose again, a chorus of need that seemed to shake the ground beneath my feet.
Then she pushed through; a wolf female, ragged and desperate, clutching something small and limp in her arms. She fell to her knees before me, tears streaming down her face, holding out the bundle toward me with trembling hands.
I looked down.
I rushed forward, dropping to my knees beside the mother, gently taking the cub from her trembling hands. He was so light, so fragile, his body heat elevated but his extremities cold. I examined him with practiced efficiency right there in the dirt, my nursing training taking over despite my panic.
Wolf cub. Similar physiology to my dog I had treated when he was sick in my old life. I checked his gums; pale, almost white, indicating anemia or dehydration. His nose was dry and cracked, not the moist black it should be. His mother mentioned he had not eaten in two days, had been vomiting, his stool watery and foul-smelling.
Parasites, I realized. Intestinal worms, most likely, common in young animals in the wild. Combined with severe dehydration from the diarrhea. The cub was literally being emptied from the inside out, his body too weak to fight.
"I need clean water," I commanded, my voice sharp with authority I did not feel. "Boiled, then cooled. And honey, if anyone has it. Quickly!"
Someone scrambled to obey. I stood, cradling the cub carefully against my chest, and carried him inside with the mother following. Soryn guarded the door with hissed warnings to give us space. I laid the cub on a clean fur, my mind racing through my limited supplies.
The anti-parasitic herbs; I had seen them growing near the stream, their leaves jagged and bitter. I had dried some last week, thinking they might be useful. And the hydration salts I had learned to make from my mother’s old remedy, mixing dried fruit juices with crushed minerals.
I grabbed my medical kit, my hands steady now that I had purpose. The dried anti-parasitic herbs went into a mortar, ground to powder. I mixed them with the hydration solution, creating a thick paste that would be absorbed through the mucous membranes if he could not keep food down.
"Listen carefully," I told the mother, pressing the small pouch of herbs into her hands along with a jar of the salt solution. "This is what you must do. Give him this paste, mixed with a finger of water, twice a day; morning and evening. Do not give him solid food until he keeps this down for a full day. Then start with bone broth, thin and warm. He should begin to regain strength and appetite by the fourth day. If he does not, or if the vomiting worsens, bring him back to me immediately."
"Bone broth? Healer... I don’t know what that is." The mother sniffled, clutching her cub tighter.
I paused, remembering that I was speaking to someone from a different world entirely, with different customs and foods. "It is simple," I explained gently. "Take the bones from your last hunt; any meat bones will do and boil them in water for many hours. The water will turn cloudy and rich. That liquid is the broth. Give it to him warm, a few sips or laps at a time. It will give him strength without taxing his belly."
She nodded slowly, understanding dawning in her eyes. "Like... the water left after cooking meat for the elders?"
"Yes," I said, relieved she grasped the concept. "Exactly like that. But thinner. And only after he keeps the paste down."
"Thank you," she whispered, gathering her cub carefully and clutching the herbs with her free hand. Fresh tears streamed down her face. "Thank you, healer. Blessed healer. You have saved him. You have saved my son."
"I am not—" I started, but the words died in my throat.
She was already gone, rushing home with her precious burden, hope radiating from her like heat from a fire.
I stood in my doorway, looking out at the crowd still waiting, still hoping, still needing. Soryn coiled beside me, his presence solid and protective.
I was not a healer. I was just a nursing assistant who had fallen between worlds, who remembered fragments of medical knowledge, who was trying her best to help.
But to them, I was something more. Something I had never asked to be.
And I did not know how to carry that weight.
---
By the time the last of them left; the hopeful, the desperate, the merely curious; the sun had dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and fading gold. I stood in my doorway, swaying slightly on my feet, my body aching as though I had run a marathon rather than simply examined a few sick villagers and distributed herbs.
"Are you okay, Krys?" Soryn asked, his voice soft behind me.
I turned, and the movement made me dizzy. "Yes," I sighed, the word heavy with exhaustion. "I will be fine. Just... tired."
He moved closer, his serpentine lower body whispering against the stone floor, his human torso blocking the fading light. "You should have told them to leave you alone," he said, and I heard the anger in his voice; not at me, but on my behalf. "They should not have forced you to heal them, to check them, to exhaust yourself for their sake."
"I wanted to," I admitted, rubbing my temples where a headache throbbed. "I wanted to tell them all to go away, to leave me in peace. But I could not be heartless and send them away when they were suffering."
Soryn went very still. "Do you think what I suggested is heartless?" he asked, his voice dropping. "I am sorry. I just did not like that they made you so exhausted." He looked crestfallen, his shoulders hunching, and I realized with a jolt that my words had wounded him. I had not been thinking when I spoke, had not considered how he would hear my dismissal.
"No," I said quickly, reaching out to touch his arm. "Soryn, no, you did not say anything wrong. You are not heartless." I met his emerald eyes, willing him to understand. "You are worried about me. You care about me. That does not make you heartless. That makes you... you."
He searched my face, looking for deception, and finding none.
"I just feel so bad," I whispered, the truth spilling out of me like water from a cracked vessel. "I am not any healer. I am just... me. Just Krys. I do not have magic, or spirit blessings, or any of the things they think I have. I have knowledge. I have training. But that is not the same."
Soryn was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached out and took my hand in his; cool, smooth, inhuman, and yet so gentle.
"But you are," he said, his voice firm with conviction. "You may not have some mystical power, Krys, but I have seen the things you have made, the ideas you have brought to this world. I saw the light scar on Leon’s shoulder." His thumb traced over my palm, his gaze never leaving mine. "He told me what happened. How his arm was torn, how the blood flowed, how you stitched him together with needle and thread and would not let him die." He leaned closer, his breath warm against my face. "That is something no one else can do. Not the Elder, and not anyone I ever seen."
I stared at him, tears pricking my eyes.
"You also helped deliver a litter for your friend," he continued, his voice dropping to a reverent whisper. "When the Elder told her there was nothing he could do. When death stood waiting. You made the impossible happen, Krys. You turned death away with your own two hands." He squeezed my hand. "You have to believe in yourself. Even if no one else does. Even if you do not think you deserve it."
The tears spilled over, hot and humiliating, tracking down my cheeks. I could not speak, could not find words to answer his faith in me. So I did the only thing I could; I stepped forward and buried my face into his shoulder, my body shaking with silent sobs.
He stiffened slightly, surprised by the contact, by the trust I was showing him. For a moment, he did not move, frozen by uncertainty. Then, slowly, tentatively, his arms wrapped around me, cool and strong and safe. He exhaled a long, shuddering breath that seemed to release something tight and fearful in his chest.
"It is only the truth," he murmured against my hair, his cheek resting atop my head. "Only the truth."
And standing there, in the doorway of the home we had built together, held by a serpent who had become my unlikely champion, I almost believed it.
---
"They are being ridiculous," Leon growled, his voice vibrating with barely suppressed fury. Leon paced our new kitchen like a caged predator, his dark hair disheveled from running his hands through it, his bare feet heavy against the stone floor with each agitated step. "They are being ridiculous," he growled, his voice vibrating with barely suppressed fury. "Demanding healing from a female heavy with child. Crowding our home. Exhausting you. They have no shame."
Ravin and Leon had returned from a meeting with their father that had consumed most of the day; a council of elders, their father the king, their mother the queen, and the two of them the princes, discussing the strengthening of village defenses. The cheetah attack had shaken the entire settlement, exposing vulnerabilities that could no longer be ignored. Other beast tribes who sought to take over their territory had started to attack in secret, testing their weaknesses. They had spoken of doubling patrols, of forging alliances with neighboring tribes for mutual protection, of trade agreements that would bring iron for weapons and medicine for the wounded.
I had listened to them describe it earlier, grateful for the distraction from my own thoughts. The Bear Tribe to the north had agreed to exchange metal tools for dried fish. The River Clan sought marriage alliances to strengthen bloodlines. And my mates; my beautiful, fierce mates; had sat at that table as equals, their voices carrying weight, their opinions respected.
When they had finally returned home, the sun long set and the stars wheeling overhead, they had known instantly that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the way Soryn coiled protectively near me, his face still harden with agitation. Perhaps it was my red-rimmed eyes, or the way I sat hunched at our table, my herbal supplies scattered and depleted. Whatever the sign, they had both frozen in the doorway, their postures shifting from tired satisfaction to alert concern in a heartbeat.
"Krys?" Ravin had asked, crossing to me in three long strides, his golden eyes scanning my face for injury. "Are you okay? Has something happened?"
Before I could answer; before I could find the words to explain the chaos of the day, the crowd, the desperation, the cub I had saved and the mother who had wept; Soryn had stepped forward. He took the opportunity with both hands, his voice clipped and precise as he recounted exactly what had transpired. The villagers crowding our door. The Elder bowing to me. The sick cub. The demands that would not end.
Leon had gone still as Soryn spoke, his expression darkening with every word. By the time Soryn finished, describing how I had collapsed against him in tears, Leon was vibrating with rage.
"Like vultures," he snarled now, still pacing. "They see you help once, and suddenly you owe them forever. Suddenly you are theirs to command."
"They are afraid," Ravin said quietly. He stood near me, his hand resting heavy and warm on my shoulder, anchoring me. "The attack wounded more than bodies. It wounded confidence. The Elder has served for decades, but even he could not save Layla’s mate. And when her cubs were in danger, when death stood at the door, he could not save them either." His thumb traced gentle circles against my shoulder. "Then you came. You did what no one else could do. You delivered hope, Krys. You delivered life. That is why they flock to you. That is why they see you as their savior. You gave them something they had lost."
I stared at him, understanding dawning. It was not just about healing. It was about hope. About believing that someone could stand between them and the darkness. And somehow, impossibly, I had become that someone.
"That does not excuse them," Leon snapped.
"No," Ravin agreed. "It does not." He turned to me, his thumb tracing circles against my shoulder blade, his gaze soft with understanding. "But Krys, you must know... sometimes it is okay to say no. You are heavy with our litter. Your body is working hard to grow our cubs. They should understand this. It is not long now until you give birth to them. You cannot pour from an empty cup."
I looked up at him, at the concern etched into every line of his handsome face, and felt tears prick my eyes again. "Yes," I whispered. "I know."
But knowing and doing were different things. How could I turn away the sick, the frightened, the desperate? How could I hoard knowledge that might save lives, simply because I was tired?
"Tomorrow," Ravin said firmly, reading my thoughts in my silence. "Tomorrow we will set boundaries. Together. You are not alone in this."
With my mates by my side, I truly believed I wasn’t.