Sable Morrow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

The next night Sable came back to the shrine. Kael was already there, crouched by the glowing stone altar. She had meant to practice calling her light on purpose. But she had forgotten one thing. To practice near him, she had to watch him change. He pulled off his coat and set it on the cracked steps. "Breathe while I shift," he said. "That's the test. If you can hold steady through this, you can hold steady through anything." Sable nodded. She did not trust her voice. He dropped to his hands. His spine bent wrong. Black fur spread down his arms. Bone cracked and shifted under the skin. A snout pushed out where his face had been. In seconds a wolf stood where the man had crouched, silver eyes fixed on her. Fear climbed her throat. Gold flared up both her wrists, bright and fast. The old amulet in her pocket felt useless now. She knew the light would not go dark on its own. The wolf did not move. It only watched. That watching made it worse. She backed into the altar. The glow spread to her elbows. She forced one breath in. It shook. She tried to count it out, the way Kael had taught her. But her eyes kept darting to the wolf, and her chest kept slamming, and the light flared brighter each time. So she shut her eyes. In the dark she could not see the teeth or the fur. She could only feel her own breath. In. Hold. Out. She held the picture of the man in her mind, not the beast. The man who had crouched low so he would not scare her. The friend who kept coming back. The shaking slowed. The gold stopped climbing. She breathed again, slower, and felt the warmth in her arms settle to a steady hum. Then she tried the other half. She did not fight the light down. She pulled the warmth up, on purpose, the way she pulled a thread through cloth. She thought of the steady glow and reached for it. Her palms answered. A soft gold light rose in them, calm and even. Not a panic flare. A light she had called. Sable opened her eyes. The wolf still stood before her. Her hands still glowed. And she was not shaking. The fur drew back. Bone shifted again, and Kael rose, a man once more, breathing hard. He stared at her lit hands. "You held," he said. "And you called it." "I closed my eyes," Sable said. "I couldn't do it while I watched you." Kael wiped sweat from his jaw. "Then that's the next thing. You called it blind. Now you have to call it with your eyes open." He pulled his coat back on. "Same time tomorrow." Sable looked at the gold in her palms. For the first time, she had summoned it herself. But only in the dark.