I repeat the words,committing them to memory one last time. The elixir begins to change. Black-red at first—thick, sluggish, like old blood. But as the bone-fire grows hotter, it shifts. The surface ripples, catching the moonlight and turning into a beautiful rainbow. It’s like watching a dying star.
It’s ready.
I lift the vessel,cradling the copper in both hands. The heat sears my palms, the smell of my own blistering skin rises to meet me, but I don’t let go.
This is it—thisis everything.
I bringthe rim to my lips and pause. The scent isa nightmare—burnt earth, iron, a cloying floral sweetness from the belladonna, and something under it all that smells of rot and old graves. My stomach rolls, my body urging me to drop it.
For her,I think, my eyes fixed on the red moon.
I tipthe vessel back and drink.
The first sipis liquid fire pouring down my throat. It scorches everything it touches. My mouth blisters instantly—skin peeling, bubbling, splitting away from the bone. I taste copper and ash... then nothing at all.
I choke,gasping for air that tastes like smoke, but I can’t stop. The grimoire was clear: You must consume it all. Every drop. Or the transformation will fail. I drink again.
And again.
The pain is unbearable.My throat is raw, seared from the inside out. My tongue feels like a piece of charred meat. Tears stream down my face, leaving paths through the door on my cheeks, but I keep drinking.
The elixir burnsits way into my chest until the vessel is empty.
It spreadslike poison through my veins. My heart slams against my chest, like a panicked bird trapped in a cage of bone.
The world falls silent.In the next heartbeat, I’m on my knees, gasping, hands clawing at my throat as if I could reach inside and pull the fire out. The blisters are a swarm—burgeoning inside my mouth, racing down my esophagus, bubbling across my lips like a disease.
My breath comes in wet,shallow hitches until each one feels like it’ll be my last.
And then the pain shifts.It’s no longer burning; it’s metamorphosing.
I feel it—mysoul, the core of who I am, starts to peel away, layer by layer. It’s like being flayed from the inside out, my identity stripped from my bones like it was never there.
I scream.The sound rips from my throat, a raw, animal noise that echoes off the ancient trees. My body convulses, my back arching into a bow, my hands dig into the dirt, nails snapping against frozen roots.
My bones shift.I hear the sickening grinding pops of vertebrae realigning, my spine stretching to accommodate a height that isn’t mine. My jaw unhinges, a slick popping sound as my teeth shift in their sockets to form the predatory alignment of a beast. Blood floods my mouth as my skull reshapes itself.
The world blacksout as my face drops to the frost.
I’m not myself anymore.I’m hollow. Empty.
A vessel waitingto be filled.
Andrik’s essencefloods into me like water filling a dam: his form, his scent, his shape. Agonizing pressure spreads through my temples as his jagged crown of antlers erupts from my own skull.
My skin prickleswith a thousand needles as white fur pushes through the pores covering my body.
I stagger to my feet,my center of gravity entirely new. I stumble toward the edge of the clearing, where I propped up a mirror.
I don’t recognizethe monster staring back.
It’s him.The chiseled cheekbones. The broad, powerful shoulders. The ice-blue eyes that look like frozen lakes.
“Lumi,”I rasp.
My voice—hisvoice—vibrates in my chest.
The blisters are already knittingshut. The grimoire’s dark promise holds true; as the transformation finishes, the trauma heals, leaving the skin smooth and whole. I flex my hands, watching the way moonlight catches on the white fur. The bond between us—the one I’ve been trying to sever—feels so much more powerful than I ever could have imagined. I can feel her heart beating against mine.
