I hung suspended in that moment of love and guilt, forgiveness and torture. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t abandon her.
I couldn’t abandon the fox, either. If I clung tight enough, fought hard enough, I could overpower the tiger’s fading will and walk her into the baetyl, but doing so would leave nothing of me to help the fox.
It’d leave nothing of me. If I saved her, it would be the last thing I’d do, and I’d promised myself I would be more than a martyr. I’d be a true guardian.
Letting go hurt far worse than holding on. I released the tiger, and in the agony of my decision, her gratitude caressed like a soothing balm across my spirit. She turned her golden tiger’s head to me, and her eyes held nothing but love.
Then her form shifted and stretched, growing less and less substantial. I waited beside her, sending her my love, until a wash of profound relief exploded from her spirit, bowling me over. When I reoriented, she’d ceased to exist.
My eyes opened on a blurry world. Tears ran down my temples into my hair, and the sounds escaping my throat and echoing in the tunnel frightened me.
“Mika?”
“She didn’t make it,” I sobbed. I couldn’t find my paw—hand—to wipe away the tears.
The baetyl’s song filtered through my tears, new mournful notes quieting my sniffles. I cocked my head, listening. I was really hearing it, the melody unfurling inside me.
“I’m so sorry, Mika.”
Power swelled behind that song, urging me back to my task. I had one more gargoyle to save, and the fox’s life guttered on the cusp of being extinguished.
“I need to help the fox,” I mumbled through numb lips.
“No. You need to rest. You can’t—”
I glanced up into his eyes, and I knew the weight of the baetyl looked out at him through mine.
“Mika . . . don’t—”
“I’m coming back,” I whispered, and I didn’t know if I was talking to Marcus or the baetyl.
“Mika!”
I dropped out of my body into the fox’s, and it felt like going home.
16
I uncurled my tail, surged to my feet with an assisting flap of my long wings, and stretched. My awareness of my body puzzled me. Of course my legs were all proportional and used for walking. Of course I had wings. Of course my body was beautiful tigereye and citrine.
Every square inch of me hurt, my body cramped from decades of paralysis and my skin gouged and chapped. The itch in my tail was new. I twisted to examine the patch of clear quartz sealing a fresh wound and caught sight of the humans. The man knelt over a sleeping woman, his face close to her ear, his lips moving. His voice buzzed against my mind, and I shook my head to dispel a wave of dizziness. I focused on my tail again, puzzling over the anomalous patch. It looked like the work of a healer, but I didn’t remember a healer. I didn’t remember being hurt. I didn’t remember . . .
My baetyl’s song whispered in my ears, chasing every other thought from my head. I stretched the stiffness from my paws again, then trotted down the tunnel. Home. I was going home after far too long.
I burst into the baetyl and leapt into flight. Magic breathed through me, and I hungrily folded it into myself. My wings beat, tenderly at first, then with greater ease. I soared through the baetyl, letting the air carry my pain away. I was whole.
My wings banked, the muscles acting as if they had a mind of their own, and I stumbled to a landing on a high grotto filled with rose quartz. Shaking my head, I turned around and prepared to leap, but my back legs refused to budge.
I growled, the sound ragged in my unused throat. I wouldn’t be frozen again. I was safe. I was home. Nothing could stop me.
I pushed from the ledge and my heart lodged in my throat when my wings didn’t open. Clawing at the air, I caught the edge of a thick amethyst crystal, nails scraping the slick surface before my wings finally flared open and I shoved into the air. I’d barely gained altitude when my body dove out of control, pulling up just before I crashed into the jagged floor.
Whining, I tried to look at my wings, now folded on my back, but I couldn’t move my head. Panic thundered in my heart. I fought the hidden bonds as the baetyl darkened until I couldn’t see.
The fox split her spirit from mine. The shock of separation sliced through me like a blade. Distressed, I rushed the fox.
Don’t do this. I need you, I thought. She could remain in the baetyl, in our home. With her, I was safe. She was alive. She wouldn’t die. I’d never have to leave.
The fox nipped me, and her spirit’s sharp teeth pinched. I didn’t care, too filled with the terror of being abandoned. I swelled, wrapping around the fox again, trying to join with her, but she wasn’t compliant this time. She fought back, and her nips became agonizing bites and unheard growls. Flinching, I gave ground and she chased me until I had nowhere left to go.
I popped free of the fox’s body and floundered in an abyss. All sense of direction and purpose drifted away from me. I hung there, suspended in nothing, lost and confused.
“Go home, Guardian,” someone growled.
Home? I spun the word in my thoughts, then released it into the void. It divided and multiplied, taking a thousand different shapes until . . .