True chimera. Real multi-form ability. But born from love and freely given magic, not theft and torture.
Crane stares at us with something beyond madness in his eyes. “How? That’s not—you can’t—stolen power only, forced pathways, that’s the only way?—”
“You’re wrong,” Lyra says, still leaning against me, one hand buried in my fur. “Freely given is always stronger than taken by force. That’s what you never understood. What Voss never understood. Evolution doesn’t come from theft. It comes from connection.”
The frozen Broken begin to crack—not breaking but thawing, released from the overwhelming power that stopped them. We’re not going to get another moment like this.
I shift to human form, testing my new wings. They fold against my back perfectly, and I can feel them—not foreign additions but natural extensions, as much mine as my arms or legs.
“Can you walk?” I ask Lyra.
“Can you fly?” she counters, looking at my wings with wonder despite her exhaustion.
“Only one way to find out.” I gather her into my arms, feel my wings respond to my will, and leap upward.
For one heart-stopping moment, nothing happens—we’re falling, and I’ve just killed us both through arrogance.
Then the wings catch air.
It’s not graceful. Not controlled. I’m learning to fly in real-time, instinct and Lyra’s inherited knowledge guiding me through the aerodynamics. But it works. We rise above the chaos, above Crane’s screaming rage, above the Broken beginning to pursue.
“The prisoners!” Lyra shouts over the wind. “Magnus, we can’t leave them!”
She’s right. Twenty-three victims still imprisoned in this nightmare. But the laboratory is descending into chaos, alarms shrieking, Crane’s control fractured by what we did.
“We get help,” I say, adjusting our trajectory toward what I hope is an exit. “Bring back the council forces, Storm Eagle flights, Mountain Cat warriors. We can’t save them alone.”
“But—”
“Lyra.” I hold her closer, beating my new wings to gain altitude. “We barely survived this. Those people need more than two exhausted fighters. They need an army. And we need to get you somewhere safe before you collapse completely.”
I feel her struggle with it—healer’s instinct warring with tactical reality. Then she nods against my chest, accepting what she knows is true.
We find a ventilation shaft leading upward. It’s narrow, requires precise flying I don’t really have yet, but desperation makes excellent teacher. I follow the rising air, Lyra’s light weight in my arms, her magic still humming in harmony with mine.
Behind us, Crane’s voice echoes through the facility: “Find them! I need the healer alive! Bring me the Starling girl!”
But we’re already gone, spiraling up through ice and stone toward clean air and safety.
We burst from the mountain into cold sunlight. The shock of open sky makes me falter, but I adjust, catching thermals that Lyra’s inherited instincts help me identify. Below, the facility is barely visible—just another shadow on the mountain, hiding horrors in its depths.
“We need to reach Mountain Cat territory,” I gasp, still learning to breathe and fly simultaneously. “My clan. Alpha Keira will help.”
“How far?”
“Half a day’s flight. If I don’t crash us first.”
Lyra laughs—exhausted, slightly hysterical, but real. “Then don’t crash us. I didn’t save you twice just to die from flying lessons.”
I adjust our trajectory, following instinct toward home. Toward my clan. Toward safety and reinforcements and the next phase of this fight.
But even as I fly, I’m aware of what’s changed. What we’ve become. My wings beat steady now, finding the rhythm, and Lyra relaxes in my arms, trusting me to carry her.
We’re not just tracker and healer anymore. Not just two people thrown together by circumstance.
We’re mates. Bonded. Changed by what we’ve given each other.
And when we return—when we bring an army back to that facility—we’ll show Crane what real evolution looks like.
