Liam Wolfe's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

The hunters waited near the willow's edge, but Liam did not go to them yet. He and Luna could sync in practice. They had never held that unity through a whole shift mid-fight. One slip would break them. So they walked to a small clearing first, where fairy lights hung low and glowing mushrooms ringed the grass. One clean run, under real pressure, before the iron came. "We do it here," Luna said. "No stopping. If I lose your beat, we learn it now, not out there." Liam nodded. He knelt in the wet grass. A soft pink-and-white rabbit froze at the clearing's edge, ears up, watching. Nearby, a dark cat with blue embers along its fur slid from the shadows. Both creatures went still, as if they knew what was coming. "In," Luna said. Liam breathed in. She pulled a root from the ground, slow. He let the change come on her count. His ribs swelled. Fur climbed his arms. He kept his eyes on her. Then the embered cat hissed and bolted. The rabbit shot across the grass. Something moved in the trees. Liam's chest jumped. The wolf surged early, hungry, reaching for the closest warm thing. Luna. His shoulders rushed ahead of the beat. That was the break she had found. He felt it tear loose from her rhythm. "Slower on the shoulders," Luna snapped. She did not flinch back. She stepped in. Her hands rose, then held, matching what she saw in his bones, not what she guessed. "I've got the beat. Come back to it." Liam fought the surge. He dragged his breath back onto her pull. He slowed the shoulders. One count. Two. The wolf settled into her rhythm again, bone by bone, until the change finished clean. He rose as the wolf, steady inside himself. No lurch toward her. The rabbit crept back to the grass. The cat's embers dimmed to calm. They had held the unity through the whole shift, through the false alarm that nearly cracked it, and they had not broken apart. Luna pressed her palm to his fur. Her hand was steady. "We held," she said. "You slipped and we still held." Liam shifted back and breathed. For the first time, the sync had survived a real scare, not a calm drill. He knew now they could keep it under fire. He stood. "Then we go to them." "We go," Luna said. They walked toward the willow, toward the waiting iron. But as they cleared the last trees, Liam saw it. The hunters had strung iron along the willow's roots. A ring of it, cold and heavy, wrapped the whole tree. Not aimed at him. Aimed at the source of his control. Luna's magic ran through those roots. The iron would choke it. Their sync was ready. The ground they had trained to fight on was already poisoned.