By the time they were able to clean the village and pray for the departure with the pyre, it was dawn.
The first light of morning crept over the horizon like a thief, pale and hesitant, as if the sun itself was reluctant to witness what remained of our home. The sky turned from black to bruised purple to blood orange, casting long shadows across the destruction that stretched from one end of the village to the other.
I stood at the edge of the central clearing, my body aching with a fatigue that went deeper than muscle and bone, and watched the pyres burn. They had built them high, these funeral pyres, stacked with the bodies of our dead. The smell of burning flesh and hair filled the air, acrid and terrible, mixing with the damp morning mist until I could taste it on my tongue with every breath.
So many dead. So many tragedy here all because of one female.
I watched the flames consume a child I had seen playing only yesterday, a woman who had who lived alone with no mates by her side, a warrior who had once helped my mates with hunting for the village. The fire popped and hissed, and I imagined I could hear their voices in the crackling, imagined I could see their faces in the smoke that rose to stain the sky.
I hate her. The thought was simple, pure, consuming. I will kill her with my own hand. I will tear her throat out and watch her bleed and feel nothing but satisfaction. How dare she hurt my babies. How dare she bring this poison into my home, this death into my sanctuary.
I looked at Atlas, who was now sleeping soundly in his father’s arms.
Ravin had not let him go since the moment he found him alive. The big lion sat on a fallen log, his body covered in the blood of his enemies, his face etched with lines of exhaustion and relief so profound they seemed carved in stone. Atlas was curled in the crook of his arm, tiny and whole, his chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of deep sleep. Ravin’s other hand rested protectively over the cub’s back, fingers spread wide as if he could shield him from the world itself.
He had not spoken in hours. He simply held his son and stared into the fire, and I knew he was reliving the moment he thought he had lost him, the moment he had seen Atlas broken against the wall. The memory lived in his eyes now, a shadow that would never fully leave.
I felt only fatigue. It pressed down on me like a physical weight, making my limbs heavy, my thoughts slow. Leon stayed close to me, his hand finding mine, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. He was covered in blood too, his mane matted, his armor dented where a cheetah’s claws had found him. But he was alive. They were all alive.
My eyes kept drifting to Caelion.
He sat apart from us, his sea glass eyes distant. He had not spoken of what he had done, of the blade he had plunged into his own heart, of the gamble he had taken with his life. He simply existed now, whole and perfect, as if the sacrifice had never happened.
If it wasn’t for him, Atlas would have died. The truth of it hit me again and again, fresh each time, a wave of gratitude so overwhelming it made my chest ache. If Caelion hadn’t sacrificed himself, hadn’t trusted that I could unlock something I didn’t know I possessed, my son would be ash on that pyre. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my baby. I don’t know how I would survive it. I’m so thankful, I couldn’t even put it into words.
When we finally returned to our home, the sun fully risen. I sat them all down. My mates. My family.
I told them what happened in the sanctum.
I spoke of the darkness that had swallowed me as I held Atlas, the feeling of drowning in my own helplessness. I described how Caelion had moved, how he had pulled that stone blade, how he had smiled at me with love and resignation and hope all tangled together. I told them of the blood, the violence of his sacrifice, the way he had crumpled and the way I had screamed.
Then I told them of the white place.
"I felt like I was torn out of my body," I said, my voice trembling. "Everything was white. Pure white. And there was a voice, female, ancient. She called me daughter. She said she was glad I found my power. That I should hone my gifts and save our world."
Ravin leaned forward, his eyes sharp despite his exhaustion. "What else?"
"Nothing else," I admitted. "I asked who she was, begged her to answer, but she was gone. And then I was back, and Caelion was alive, and Atlas was breathing."
I looked at my merman, at the male who had been willing to die for my cub. "I now unlocked the Azure Sovereign’s power. From what Caelion’s father said, I would have four of the blessings. Healing, strength, prosperity, and blessings. I don’t know what they all mean yet. I don’t know how to use them. But I felt it when the blue light exploded from me. It was like... like something that had been sleeping my whole life finally woke up."
We put that aside and focused first on the village.
There was work to be done, grim and necessary. The dead had to be counted, named, mourned. The wounded needed care, but I didn’t use my power. I’m still afraid of what I can do and what would happen if someone finds out. So I helped the way I knew how, the skills I learned in my old life as a nursing assistant. Wrapping wounds, cleaning, and stitching.
I moved through the makeshift infirmary with practiced efficiency, the knowledge from another lifetime surfacing like muscle memory. I boiled water and sterilized bone needles in the flames. I mixed poultices from herbs I knew by scent and texture, not by the names this world gave them. I stitched torn flesh with thread made from flax, my fingers working the same patterns they once used with surgical sutures.
A young wolf beast man hissed as I cleaned a gash across his shoulder, the wound deep and jagged from cheetah claws. "Easy," I murmured, the same tone I’d used with frightened patients in another life. "You’re going to be fine. Hold still for me."
He looked at me with something like wonder. "You have gentle hands. Where did you learn this?"
I smiled, bittersweet. "A long time ago. In a place far from here."
The work was endless. A female with a crushed hand that I could only splint and hope would heal straight. A child with burns from where a torch had fallen during the chaos. An elder who had taken a blow to the head and drifted in and out of consciousness, speaking to people who weren’t there.
I treated them all with the same care, the same focus, letting the routine of it anchor me in the present. If I stopped, if I let my hands still, I would think about the power coiled inside me. I would think about the blue light and the voice and the way it had felt to heal with something beyond skill and medicine. And I wasn’t ready for those thoughts yet. I wasn’t ready for what they meant.
So I stitched and cleaned and wrapped, and I let my old self guide my hands while my new self watched from a distance, waiting for the courage to become what I was meant to be.
Homes had to be repaired, walls reinforced, stores inventoried for what we had lost. The business of survival demanded our attention, and we gave it, because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and feeling meant drowning.
The cheetahs were seriously wounded. More of them died than lived, their bodies dragged away by their fleeing companions or left for our wolves to dispose of. Only a few had escaped, limping into the forest with wounds that would scar them for life. Rina among them, her cheetah mate carrying her, her laughter silenced for now.
It will be a while until they come again. They had underestimated us, had thought betrayal and surprise would be enough. They would not make that mistake twice. When they returned, they would come in force, organized, prepared.
And when they do, I’ll be ready.
I walked through the village as the sun climbed higher, assessing the damage, marking what needed to be rebuilt, what needed to be fortified. I stopped at the wall where the jaguar had let them in, where his treachery had cost us everything. The blood had dried brown on the stone, but I could still see it, still smell it.
I’ll make sure everyone in this village is so much stronger so they can take those damn cheetahs down once and for all. I will train with my new powers. I will practice. I will aid the army of brave warriors and fierce females who will never again be caught unaware.
But first, I just need to master these powers first.
I closed my eyes and reached for the place inside me where the blue light lived. It was there, waiting, a reservoir of energy I had never known existed. I could feel it humming, eager, ready to be shaped and directed. The voice had told me to hone my gifts. I would start today.
I opened my eyes to find my mates watching me, five pairs of eyes filled with love and worry and hope. Atlas stirred in Ravin’s arms, opening his eyes and yawning, utterly unaware of how close he had come to never seeing another morning.
"We begin again," I said, and my voice was steady, strong, the voice of a woman who had faced death and chosen life. "We mourn our dead, we heal our wounded, and we prepare. Because next time, we won’t just survive. We’ll win."
The pyres burned down to embers as the morning wore on, but the fire in my chest burned brighter than ever before.
---
Three days passed in a blur of mourning and repair before I could stand the waiting any longer.
I gathered my mates in our chamber, the room at the back of the house where the afternoon light filtered soft through woven curtains. They arranged themselves around me in a semicircle, Ravin and Leon on the bed, Soryn coiled on the floor, Caelion in a chair, Veylan by the door standing guard. Five pairs of eyes watched me with varying degrees of concern and hope.
"I need to try," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I need to understand what I am now."
Ravin nodded, his golden hair catching the light. "Whatever you need. We’re here."
I settled onto the pallet in the center of the room, cross-legged, my hands resting on my knees. I closed my eyes and breathed, trying to find the place of stillness I had touched before. The white space. The voice.
At first, there was only darkness behind my eyelids, the ordinary darkness of a room with closed shutters. I breathed deeper, counting each inhale and exhale, trying to slow my racing heart. Ten breaths. Twenty. Fifty.
Nothing.
I reached for the memory of that moment in the sanctum, the desperation that had unlocked something primal. I remembered Atlas’s shallow breathing, Caelion’s blood hot on my face, the sound of the blade entering flesh. The terror. The love. The willingness to tear the world apart to save what was mine.
Still nothing.
Frustration built in my chest, a pressure behind my sternum that made my jaw clench. I pushed harder, straining against the emptiness, trying to force the power to surface. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms.
"Easy," Leon murmured from nearby. "Don’t force it. Let it come."
I tried to soften, to open. I imagined the blue light as a river running through me, cool and electric. I traced its path in my mind, from the base of my spine upward, pooling in my chest where the bonds connected to my mates. I felt for the threads, the invisible ties that bound me to Ravin, Leon, Soryn, Caelion, Veylan. They were there, humming with life, but faint, like distant music.
"Focus on the light," Caelion suggested, his voice gentle as tide water. "Not the voice. The voice came from the light. Find the source."
I nodded, not opening my eyes, and shifted my attention. Instead of reaching outward for the white place, I turned inward, diving deep into my own body. I searched for the reservoir of power I had felt before, that explosive well of energy that had healed the wounded and brought my son back from death’s edge.
There. A flicker. So small I might have imagined it, a pinprick of azure in the darkness of my closed eyes.
I reached for it with my mind, tried to grasp it, nurture it, fan it into flame. It danced away from me, elusive as a minnow in a stream. I chased it, and it retreated further, sinking deeper into whatever hidden place it lived.
"Damn it," I hissed, my eyes snapping open. "It’s there. I can feel it. But I can’t... I can’t hold it."
Soryn shifted, his scales whispering against the stone floor. "Perhaps you try too hard. The first time, you did not seek power. You sought only to save. Maybe the power answers need, not desire."
I stared at him, his serpent eyes calm and knowing. "So I have to wait until someone is dying again? Until I’m desperate enough?"
"Or," Veylan said from his post by the door, his silver eyes thoughtful, "you learn to cultivate that desperation without the tragedy. To need without the emergency."
I didn’t know how to do that. The first time had been pure instinct, pure terror, love and grief exploding outward because there was no other choice. Now, sitting in a safe room with my healthy mates surrounding me, the urgency was gone. And without it, the power remained locked behind doors I couldn’t find.
I tried for hours. The afternoon light shifted to gold, then to amber, then to the purple of approaching evening. My legs went numb from sitting. My head ached from concentration. I managed to coax the blue light into a faint glow in my palms once, but it flickered out after seconds, leaving me drained and shaking.
"Enough," Ravin finally said, his voice brooking no argument. He rose and lifted me from the floor, carrying me to the bed as if I were the one who needed healing. "You’ve pushed too hard. You’ll make yourself sick. Don’t forget you’re pregnant too. Let’s continue tomorrow."
I wanted to argue, to insist on continuing until I broke through, but my body betrayed me. I was exhausted, more tired than I had been even in the aftermath of the attack. The attempt to access the power had taken something from me, even in failure.
"I’ll get it," I whispered against Ravin’s chest as he held me. "I have to get it. Next time, I won’t have the luxury of failing."
None of them answered. They simply closed around me, a wall of warmth and protection, and let me pretend that I was strong enough to save us all.