Lyra releases a pulse of power so strong it staggers every Broken in the room, buying us precious seconds. Then she runs—not toward Crane, but toward the Integration Matrix itself.
“What are you doing?” Crane screams.
“Using your equipment,” Lyra shouts back. “But not for your purpose. For ours!”
She reaches the Matrix and places her hands on its central console. Her healing magic floods into the machine, and I understand: she’s adapting it, repurposing it, turning Crane’s tool for forced transformation into something that could reverse the process.
“No!” Crane lunges toward her, his degraded body moving with desperate speed.
I intercept him mid-leap, all fury and protective rage. We crash together, chimera versus true evolution, stolen power versus freely given bond. My claws tear into scales. His talons rake across my wings. We’re both screaming—him with madness, me with determination.
But I’m weakening. The toxin from multiple Broken attacks is overwhelming my system, jamming my shifting pathways. I can feel myself beginning to lock between forms, the same degradation that creates the Broken starting to claim me.
“Magnus!” Lyra’s voice cuts through the pain. “The Matrix is ready! But I need you here, need the bond connection to make it work!”
I slam Crane into the ground and run, staggering, toward Lyra and the Matrix. Crane recovers and follows, and suddenly we’re all at the machine—healer, warrior, and madman converging on the device that could change everything.
“It won’t work without a stable subject!” Crane snarls. “The pathways need an anchor, someone whose transformation is already complete and functional!”
He’s right, I realize. The Matrix needs someone with stable multi-form abilities to use as a template for reversal. Someone like...
Me.
Through the bond, Lyra and I share the same thought simultaneously: this is why we needed to evolve first. Why the freely given transformation was necessary. I’m the anchor the Matrix needs—stable dual-form achieved through love, not force.
“Get him on the platform,” Lyra orders, all business now. “Magnus, shift to your merged form. Wings out, full transformation.”
I obey, trusting her completely even as Crane realizes what she’s planning.
“No! That’s not how it works! You can’t reverse the process, only perfect it forward!” He’s screaming now, desperate and furious.
“Watch me,” Lyra says coldly.
She activates the Matrix with Magnus at its center, and the laboratory fills with blinding light.
17
LYRA
The Integration Matrix hums to life around Magnus, energy coursing through crystalline pathways that Crane designed for torture but that I’m desperately trying to reprogram for healing. My hands fly across the controls, adjusting parameters, shifting power flows, drawing on every bit of Elena’s research I’ve absorbed and my own understanding of integrated healing.
“It won’t work!” Crane screams, lunging toward the console. “The pathways are designed for grafting, not separation! You’ll kill him!”
I block his access with a barrier of healing energy turned shield. “Then I’ll redesign them. That’s what healers do—we adapt, we improvise, we find ways to mend what’s broken.”
Through the bond, I feel Magnus’s pain as the Matrix begins its work. It’s scanning his dual-form, reading the stable integration of snow leopard and storm-eagle, understanding how freely given magic created something that doesn’t degrade or fight itself.
“Lyra,” Magnus gasps from the platform. “Whatever you’re doing—hurry.”
Because the Broken are recovering from my earlier pulse, beginning to close in again. And the toxin in Magnus’s system is spreading, trying to corrupt the very template I need him to be.
I work faster, my healing sense guiding modifications to Crane’s equipment. Where he forced pathways open, I’m teaching the Matrix to find natural resonances. Where he grafted incompatible forms, I’m showing it how to separate cleanly, how to let each being return to their original shape.
“There!” I finalize the last adjustment. “Magnus, this is going to hurt, but I need you to consciously share your dual-form through our bond. Let me feel how your magic integrated, how the pathways stabilized naturally.”
He doesn’t question, just opens the bond completely. I’m flooded with sensation—his leopard’s ice magic, my storm-touched heritage now woven through him, the wings that feel as natural as his paws. I feed that information into the Matrix, teaching it the pattern of healthy integration versus forced grafting.
The machine’s hum changes pitch, and suddenly I understand what it needs. Not just a template, but active guidance through each reversal. Someone monitoring the process in real-time, adjusting for each prisoner’s unique biology.
