Chapter 32
Elora
Thorn led Elora through a narrow door into an adjoining lab. The air within was colder, more sterile. Rows of cages lined the walls, small animals twitched nervously: mice, rats, birds, rabbits.
Elora’s stomach twisted as her eyes shot to the frightened creatures, their tiny bodies trembling. The idea of them enduring Thorn’s cruel experiments, suffering from his insatiable ambition, filled her with an onset of nausea and anger. They were innocent and powerless. Just like she felt now, trapped in his unrelenting grasp.
Thorn approached one cage and reached inside, retrieving a white rabbit with golden speckles within its red eyes. He held it carefully, cradling the rabbit in his hand with an almost eerie gentleness. Elora was wise enough not to believe there was any kindness in his actions.
He glanced at her, a faint smile curling his lips as he slipped his other hand—the one with the enchanted ring—over the rabbit. “Watch closely.”
Elora tensed, her eyes glued to the small creature as Thorn sent a controlled shock from the ring into its tiny body. The rabbit jerked,its limbs stiffening as if frozen mid-motion. For a heartbeat, it lay still. Then, to her horror, the creature’s form began to ripple and distort, bones and fur shifting under its skin in unnatural waves.
The rabbit’s tail thickened, darkening into a sleek, furred length as its body stretched, limbs elongating and reshaping. Dark wings sprouted, thin and feathery, pressing outward from its shoulders, and its fur deepened into a smoky black. Its snout sharpened slightly, taking on a more angular, predatory shape, and its eyes glowed with an unsettling, faint golden gleam. The creature now lingered somewhere between a rabbit and a miniature nightglider. Its form twisted and wrong, a shadowy cat rabbit with bird-like wings folded against its back, like it was trying out this new, grotesque anatomy.
The disgust and fascination battled within her as she stared at the creature, unable to look away. Thorn’s gaze flickered to her, his expression smug. He was monitoring her reaction as much as he was studying his creation, savoring her revulsion, knowing this was only a taste of what he intended to do to her.
Thorn placed the ‘rabbit’ back into its cage and closed the latch. “See?” he said, brimming with smug pride. “I’ve been perfecting an in-between stage, something not quite nightglider, not quite the original creature. It isn’t a full transformation yet,” he continued, gesturing to the twisted, winged creature twitching inside the cage, “but that’s no reason not to start human trials now. This partial transformation should yield fascinating results.”
Elora’s eyes widened as she looked between the creature and Thorn. He was actually serious. “But… what about that?” she pointed to the small glowing mark on the rabbit’s back. It shimmered faintly, contrasting with an abnormal glow under its now dark fur.
“Ah, yes. The mark,” he said, stepping closer to the cage and pointing to the glowing symbol on the creature’s back. “The magic isembedded in the skin. The position of the markings is crucial,” he continued. “They have to follow certain pathways along the body to ensure a full and proper transformation.”
A cold sweat broke out on her skin. “And you… you intend to do that to me?”
Thorn’s smile never wavered. “Precisely. You’ll have the same markings as him.”
Him.The man with the golden eyes. She didn’t remember seeing any marks on him, no glowing symbols like the one on the rabbit.
Thorn led her back into the chamber where the man panted from the earlier shock. His golden eyes flickered toward them as they approached; however, the torment Thorn inflicted had drained his body, leaving him slumped.
Thorn reached up, gripping the man’s chains and pulling him forward slightly enough to reveal his back. “Take a closer look,” Thorn said, gesturing for Elora to step closer.
Along his spine, from the nape of his neck to his tailbone, were shimmering gold markings. They snaked along his skin in intricate patterns, like a strange, foreign language. They curved around his shoulder blades, down his ribs, and along the full length of his spine in a way that almost appeared they were guiding something within him.
They appeared to throb with a faint glow, as though they were alive, a part of him. Elora couldn’t look away. The symbols were strange, intricate, almost hypnotic in their design, winding across his back like rivers of light. They didn’t seem etched onto him butwoveninto his very being, like they had always been there, inseparable from the man himself. Beautiful, yes, but unsettling. Each line and curve whispered of power she couldn’t begin to understand.
“These,” Thorn traced the markings with his finger, “are the key to the transformation. They allow the magic to flow through the body, controlling the shift.”
He would carve these same marks into her flesh, force the magic into her body, and try to turn her into something else. Something she wasn’t meant to be. “I… I don’t understand,” she took a step back. “How can you…?”
“You don’t need to understand.” Thorn released the man’s shackles, letting him slump back against the wall. “All you need to know is that this will happen.”
Elora’s legs went weak, and she struggled to keep herself standing. Her entire world appeared to be collapsing in on itself. Thorn was going to destroy her, dismantle her and transform her into some… some monster.
Elora’s eyes remained locked on the man’s as he stared back at her, his fierce gaze evolving into something unexpected: concern. It was as if, in that brief exchange, he understood her fate and pitied her for it. His brow furrowed slightly, and he spoke to her in his mother tongue.
“Thrul vek dra, vrex’kar nath ruk.”
She searched his eyes for some kind of understanding, but the words were foreign to her. The way he said them, soft, almost regretful. What was he trying to tell her?
Before she asked or even registered what was happening, she felt the sudden jab of a needle plunging into her neck.
A wave of cold spread through her body, and her muscles seized up, locking her in place. She struggled to move, to fight back, but her body was not responding to her.
Thorn leaned in close, the smell of smoke and metal invading her nostrils. “It’s time to begin, and I can’t have you struggling. You understand.”
Elora’s mind shrieked in protest even as her body failed her. She had hoped she’d have more time. More time to find a way out, to think of something.Anything.
