Her mother had healed by the time that Breach had found her, but not woken up.

Her body had pieced itself back together, tissue regenerating after the poison and the vines had done its best to tear her apart, but she lay quiet, the tigress’ eyes closed—the heartbeat slow.

Breach, for the first time, had felt panic.

Had felt horror.

It had been one thing when her own body had torn apart. When she had felt her leg severed and removed from her body, but it was somehow worse to see the same thing happen to her mother. To see her mother have to fight so hard to stay alive, to have her mind trapped beneath the curtain of the effort of it all.

She had shifted then, the elephant body heavy and difficult to control, but large enough to scoop up the deadweight of Sochi’s comatose body. She had carried her back to the Cove, to a corner where no one could find her, and where she could rest. Rest, she reminded herself. All she needed was rest.

It had not taken her long to find her father, her brother, to let them know.

And then, the frenzied need to do something had set in.

She had heard whispers of the panther-shifter in the Hyaline mountains. She knew that without her mother, the pack would fall apart—the dream of it shattering before it was even realized.

And she knew that she was right where Sochi was wrong.

They needed to dream bigger.

So she shifted into a hawk, taking to the skies and ignoring the agony of fear and misery within her. Ignoring how close Hyaline was to Ghaul and the place of her first death. She flew until she found the panther—until she could tell him of her plan, her goals. Until he could agree to them, on the condition that the white mare was to be left alone. To be given amnesty in this new birthplace of her plan.

Breach did not like waffling on her morals on the very first day, but she needed the land.

So she agreed.

When she walked away from him, the full weight of what she was doing settled across her shoulders—the fear, the apprehension, the sorrow, the guilt—and she stared out into the lake spreading before her.

The only thing she knew to avoid it all was get to work.

And so she would.

I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in

Breach is not quite as feral as her mother, although she is not perfect.

When her murderer approaches, she immediately shifts into a grizzly bear, her lips peeling back to reveal the large teeth, her small brown eyes sharpening. She doesn’t attack immediately, but she does shift her weight to be more ready, the giant coat sagging and shifting with the movement as he gets closer.

“Why would I kill my mother?” she growls, voice deeper in this form. “There’s only one murderer here that I see.” Her claws dig into the earth as she tells that semi-lie, because she knows the truth of the matter is that she would not hesitate to tear her throat out if she did not want to hear what he had to say.

She would sleep just fine if she laid him to rest.

But, she is not her mother, and she restrains herself, the air between them thick with tension. “But someone did try to kill her,” she finally admits, wondering how this monster knew of her mother at all. “They almost succeeded too.” Would have, were it not for her mother’s supernatural resilience.

What he says next though makes her head swim.

She wants to tear his throat out for thinking he could kill her and then quell her anger with land.

But the pragmatic part of her holds back.

“You are a fool for not seeing Yadigar for what he is,” she spits. “He is twice the man you will ever be.” Even in her most evolved state, she could not hold back from telling him the truth. “I do not plan on keeping the borders of Hyaline open to all. It will be only shifters,” she hesitates as she thinks, “but I will allow any others to rest in Pangea should they so desire. I will keep the kingdom seat here.”

She is making a deal with the devil, she knows, but some things were worth it.

Her mother’s legacy was one of them.

I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in

Perhaps later she will think back on this moment as being pivotal in her life.

Perhaps she will realize she as given the choice of a virtuous life and one where she waffled on her morals, where she chose the grey in a world of black and white. Perhaps she will realize that she does not have a clean conscience and that she will have to learn to live with the blood on her hands.

Or perhaps she will simply move forward, unfettered by such worldly things.

All she knows is that she doesn’t hesitate to take the deal he offers her, even though his is the hand that ripped her clean apart, that threatened one of her closest friends.

“I won’t let that happen,” she growls between her grizzly teeth, still not comfortable enough to shift into her equine form. But he doesn’t focus on Yadigar and neither does she. Instead she just nods, accepting that his approval of whatever she was to do would be acceptable to him and focuses on his next words.

North.

She thinks back to what Ghaul had said at the beginning—what she had glazed over. They were marching on the north. She frowns a little, sets back, but ultimately knows that there’s only one answer.

“I wouldn’t let him go alone.”

I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in