“A simple choice, Miss Starling,” Crane says over the approaching horror. “You can try to save your tracker from an unwinnable fight. Or you can come with me now, help me stabilize my condition, and I’ll call them off. His life for your cooperation.”
I see it playing out—Magnus overwhelmed, those toxin-laden claws tearing into him again and again, the bond-bridge unable to save him from sheer numbers. I see his death, finally, inevitably, exactly as the visions warned.
But I also see the other path. The transformation beyond the death moment. The choice that changes everything.
“No deals with monsters,” I say clearly.
Magnus glances at me, surprise and approval on his face.
“Then watch him die,” Crane snarls, and the Broken surge forward.
But we’re already moving.
12
MAGNUS
The Broken surge toward us like a wave of twisted flesh and rage, but we’re already moving.
I shift mid-stride, letting my snow leopard explode into being. Lyra’s hand trails across my flank as I transform—deliberate contact that sends our merged magic crackling through the air. Ice and storm, amplifying each other’s strength.
The first Broken to reach us—something that started as a wolf but now has bear arms grafted where front legs should be—meets my claws with its face. I don’t hesitate, don’t hold back. These things were people once, victims deserving mercy, but right now they’re weapons pointed at my mate.
And I protect what’s mine.
Lyra fights beside me, not behind me, exactly as she should. Her healing light lashes out in controlled bursts, targeting nerve clusters and motor centers. She’s not trying to kill—can’t bring herself to, healer that she is—but she’s disrupting, incapacitating, making my job easier.
We move as one unit, her magic covering my blind spots, my physical strength protecting her from close attacks. It’sinstinctive, natural, like we’ve been fighting together for years instead of days.
But there are too many.
For every Broken I put down, two more push forward. They’re mindless with pain and rage, feeling no fear, no hesitation. Just endless, relentless assault. My claws open throats, my ice magic freezes joints, but they keep coming.
“Magnus!” Lyra’s voice cuts through the chaos. “The doors! We need to get through!”
She’s right. Fighting here means being overwhelmed eventually. We need to break through to the laboratory proper, where Crane waits. Where the real battle begins.
I roar—not leopard sound but something deeper, ice magic amplifying the challenge into a wave of force that staggers the nearest Broken. In that moment of disruption, Lyra and I bolt for the laboratory doors.
Crane moves to block us, his malformed body positioning itself between us and our goal. But his chimera form is degrading—I can smell it, the sickness beneath the scales and fur. He’s held together by desperation and madness, nothing more.
“Through him!” I snarl at Lyra through the bond we’re building. Not words exactly, but intent. Understanding.
She doesn’t hesitate. Her hands glow bright as twin stars, and she releases a pulse of pure healing energy—directly at Crane.
He screams.
The sound is terrible—layered vocals shrieking in agony as his stolen forms try to absorb the healing and fail catastrophically. His body can’t process what Lyra’s offering because there’s nothing to heal, only wrongness to unmake.
We sprint past him while he’s convulsing, crashing through the laboratory doors into the heart of the facility.
What I see makes my leopard recoil in horror.
The laboratory is massive, carved directly into the blue ice of the mountain itself. Rows of cages line the walls, each one containing a Broken in varying stages of transformation. Some are almost functional, moving with relatively normal coordination. Others are barely alive, bodies so twisted they can’t possibly survive much longer.
But worse than the cages are the examination tables—currently occupied. Fresh victims, still mid-transformation, strapped down and screaming as toxins burn through their veins. I can smell their terror, their agony, the way their bodies are being forced into shapes that violate every natural law.
“Gods,” Lyra breathes beside me, already moving toward the nearest table. “Magnus, they’re still transforming. If I can interrupt the process now, before it’s complete?—”
