I sat cross-legged in the small room at the back of the house, the afternoon light filtering soft through the woven curtains. Three days of attempts, and still the power eluded me. I could feel it now, that reservoir of blue energy, like a pool glimpsed through thick fog. I could sense its edges, its depth, its potential. But whenever I reached for it, tried to cup it in my mental hands, it slipped away like water, like smoke, like a dream upon waking.
I focused on my breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I visualized the light spreading from my core, filling my limbs, glowing beneath my skin. Closer. I was so close. The air around me seemed to shimmer, the temperature dropping slightly as something stirred in the space between heartbeats.
A knock came at the door, sharp and sudden, shattering my concentration like glass.
The faint shimmer I had barely begun to cultivate vanished instantly. I slumped forward, my forehead hitting my palms, a groan of frustration escaping my lips. So close. I had been so close.
"Coming," I called out, my voice rough with exhaustion. I unfolded my legs, wincing as blood flow returned to numb limbs, and pushed myself up from the floor.
I crossed the room out into the living room and lifted the wooden latch, pulling the door open to find Mirena standing outside. She wore a simple linen, her sea-grass tunic packed away, a satchel slung across her shoulder. Her pale green eyes met mine, and I saw something soft there, something that hadn’t existed when she first arrived.
"Hey Krys," she said, her voice carrying the low melody of the tides. "I’m leaving back home. I wanted to come see you before leaving."
I blinked, the reality of her words settling over me like a cold wave. Leaving. Of course she was leaving. The celebration was over, the attack had passed, and she had a home to return to, a lagoon waiting for her. But somehow, in the chaos of survival and rebuilding, I had let myself forget that this moment would come.
I turned to find Caelion in the main room, sitting on the floor with our cubs tumbling around him. He had Jasper in his lap, tickling the little one’s belly while Atlas and Chase wrestled with a strip of linen nearby. The domesticity of the scene, the normalcy of it after everything we had endured, made my throat tighten.
"Do you mind watching them?" I asked him. "I would like to talk to Mirena before she leaves."
Caelion looked up, his sea-glass eyes understanding immediately. "Of course. Take your time."
I stepped out of the house and pulled the door shut behind me. Mirena fell into step beside me, and we walked out into the yard where the afternoon sun painted everything gold.
"I’m leaving," Mirena said again, as if I might not have understood the first time. She stopped near the garden fence, her hand resting on the rough wood. "My brother will be staying here. With his mate." A smile curved her lips, genuine and warm. "I believe he is trying to persuade her to come to our home eventually. He’s quite taken with her. he always had his way, but I don’t think he realize yet the female makes the decisions."
I smiled at the image of Darius, massive and imposing Darius, trying to coax Rhonda away from everything she knew. "She’s stubborn. It might take him a while."
"He has time," Mirena said. Then she turned to face me fully, and her expression shifted, the humor fading to something more vulnerable. "That’s another reason why I am seeking you out."
She looked at me, her eyes gentle in a way I had never seen when we first met. The cutthroat sea lion female, the sister of the alliance leader, the fierce warrior who had intimidated everyone in her path, stood before me with her heart exposed.
"I’ve come to love you like I would love my own kin," she said, the words simple and honest. "You are strong, and kind, and very comfortable to be around. The attack in your village..." She paused, her jaw tightening. "It made me fear for your life and the cubs. I couldn’t sleep."
I reached out and took her hand; her fingers cool against my palm.
"My home is big," Mirena continued, her voice gaining strength. "The island has room for many. I can give you an area for your family to live, a place by the lagoon where your cubs would be safe, where the sea itself would protect you. If that is your wish."
The offer hung in the air between us, rich with love and fear and hope. I could see it, the life she was offering. A home by crystal waters, surrounded by Mirena’s people, far from the cheetah threat, far from Rina’s reach. Safety. Peace. A new beginning.
I squeezed her hand, my heart aching with gratitude and regret.
"Thank you, Mirena," I said softly. "You are very kind. But this is my home. My mate, Ravin, will inherit this tribe as his own when Raon the king passes it on. My children will grow up here, among these people, in this land. I plan to stay here for the rest of my life." I paused, seeing the disappointment flicker in her eyes, and rushed to add, "But I would love to visit your home soon. When things settle. When I can come without abandoning my responsibilities here."
Mirena nodded, her expression carefully neutral, but I saw the hurt she tried to hide. "It wouldn’t be fair to ask for you to come now, would it? With everything going on."
"With everything going on," I agreed, "we have to rebuild the village. The dead must be honored, the wounded healed, the walls strengthened. Leaving now wouldn’t be right. My place is here, helping my people recover."
"Promise me," Mirena said, her voice suddenly fierce. She gripped my hand tighter, her webbed fingers pressing into my skin. "Promise me you will come visit when you can. That you won’t forget about me, about the lagoon, about the home I want to show you."
"I promise," I said, and I meant it with every fiber of my being. "I will find my way to your island, Mirena. I will see your lagoon, and you will cook me that sea lion cuisine you keep bragging about."
She laughed, the sound bright and surprised, and pulled me into a hug. Her arms were strong, built for swimming, and she held me like she was drowning and I was the only solid thing in her world.
"Be safe," she whispered against my hair. "Be strong. And when you come, bring your whole family."
"And you be safe on your journey," I whispered back. "And be happy with Finn. He’s good for you. He softens your edges."
She pulled back, her eyes suspiciously bright. "He does," she admitted. "I didn’t think I wanted softening. But he makes me want to be... gentler. For him."
That evening, as the sun bled orange and crimson across the horizon, Mirena left.
She stood in the center of the village with Finn at her side, the small rabbit beast man looking overwhelmed but determined beside his fierce mate. The sea lion alliance gathered around them, those who had fought with us and survived, those who had come for trade and stayed for bloodshed. They were ready to make the journey back to their coastal home, to leave behind the forest and the mountains for the salt spray and the tides.
Darius stood apart from the group, his massive frame somehow diminished by the impending separation. He embraced his sister, lifting her off her feet, holding her so tightly I thought he might break her.
"Be safe," he rumbled, his voice thick with emotion. "Be careful. Send word when you arrive. If I don’t hear from you in two moons, I’m coming to find you."
"You’ll be too busy with your new mate to worry about me," Mirena teased, but her voice wavered. "Take care of her, brother. And let her take care of you."
They separated, and Mirena turned to me one last time. She didn’t speak. She simply placed her hand over her heart, then extended it toward me, palm up. A sea lion gesture, I knew now. A promise. A bond that transcended distance.
I mirrored the gesture, my hand over my heart, then reaching for hers.
Then she was gone, leading her people into the forest, toward the river that would carry them to the sea. I watched until I couldn’t see her anymore, until the shadows swallowed her completely.
We continued to rebuild.
The days that followed were filled with labor, with the hard physical work of repairing what had been broken. We fixed homes, replacing thatched roofs and mending stone walls. We gathered herbs, the medicinal plants that would be needed for the wounded, and the food plants that would see us through the coming seasons. We stockpiled meat, hunting the forests and plains until our stores overflowed.
And I taught the beast men about drying the meat.
We sat in the main hall, the warriors and the hunters, the females and the elders. I stood before them with strips of venison and rabbit, with salt and smoke and the knowledge of preservation that my old world had perfected over millennia.
"You cut the meat thin," I explained, demonstrating with a sharp stone blade. "Like this. Then you salt it, layer by layer, and you hang it in the smokehouse. The smoke and the salt draw out the moisture. The meat lasts for months, even through winter. You don’t have to hunt in the snow. You don’t have to starve when the game is scarce."
They stared at me as if I had lost my mind.
Ravin’s second in command, a grizzled wolf beast named Torin, actually laughed. "Meat spoils. Everyone knows this. You cannot keep it past a few days, maybe a week in cold weather. What you speak of is impossible."
"It’s not impossible," I insisted. "It’s preservation. The salt kills the rot. The smoke adds flavor and keeps the pests away. I’ve seen it done. I’ve done it myself."
They looked at me like I was speaking another language, like I had suggested we eat rocks or breathe water.
But Ravin stepped forward. He picked up the blade I had set down and began slicing the meat himself, mimicking my technique, thin and even. "Krys knows things," he said, his voice carrying the weight of command. "Things from her homeland. She has never led us wrong."
Leon joined him, his golden mane catching the firelight as he worked. "We will try it her way. If it fails, we lose nothing but time and salt. If it succeeds, we never fear hunger again."
They worked beside me, my mates, and slowly, grudgingly, the others joined. We built racks from green wood that wouldn’t burn, hung the meat in careful rows, built smoky fires beneath them that would burn low and slow for days.
The beast men watched with skepticism, with doubt, with the certainty that I was mad.
But Ravin and Leon had my back. And together, we did it.
When the first batch emerged, dried to leather, dark and rich and smelling of smoke and salt, I knew we had changed something fundamental about this world. When Torin bit into a piece and his eyes went wide with surprise, when he chewed and swallowed and reached for more, I knew we had won.
This was how we would survive. Not just through power, through magic, through the awakening of ancient gifts. But through knowledge. Through innovation. Through the stubborn refusal to accept that things had always been done one way and therefore must always be done that way.
As winter approached, as the first frost painted the ground silver, we had stores enough to feed the village three times over. The dried meat hung in our cellars, safe and preserved, waiting for the hungry months ahead.
And I sat in my room each evening, meditating, reaching for the blue light, knowing that when the cheetahs returned, when Rina came for her revenge, we would be ready.
Not just with power. With preparation.
We would be ready.