Kyra stopped. “You know?”
“Of course we watch those who come from the city.” The clanswoman broke a forever spray off its stalk and rolled it between her fingers. “Your blood calls to you, does it?”
Calls to her? She hadn’t thought of it that way, but it seemed apt.
“I can’t stop thinking about what it was like to change shape,” said Kyra. “Though I’ve not been brave enough to do it.”
The wind blew snow off the trees around them, and Pashla dusted off her sleeves. “I suppose it can’t be avoided. The temptation is too great. You cannot silence something that is yours by right.”
Was Pashla just expressing sympathy? Or was she actually…Kyra was afraid to breathe for fear that her hope would be extinguished. Just the thought that she might experience her other form again…
The clanswoman tossed the wildflower to the ground. “If you must change, then better to do it with my help.”
Kyra’s breath rushed out of her.
It was late enough in the morning that the sunlight shone straight into the clearing. Pashla turned her face to its rays for a moment, eyes closed, before turning again to Kyra. “The sun is warm today. Take off your tunic, your trousers, and anything else that will tear. You can keep your cloak to block the wind. Once you are in your fur, you won’t feel the cold at all.”
“Right now?” This was exactly what she’d been hoping for, but somehow she hadn’t expected the lesson to start immediately.
“Do you have somewhere to be? I do not know when we will cross paths again.”
She was right, of course. Kyra gathered her courage. “I don’t have anywhere to be,” she said. And she reached to untie her belt.
The first few tries, she couldn’t go through with it. As she stood there, eyes closed with a cloak wrapped around her and the cold breeze whipping at her bare feet and ankles, Kyra concentrated and found the sense of her other form. She nudged it, coaxing it like a small flame, feeling it burn stronger. But when she sensed it reaching the point of overflow, Kyra drew back and opened her eyes again.
Pashla watched her. After the third time, she simply said, “Do not be afraid.”
Kyra nodded and closed her eyes again. This time she didn’t stop.
It was just as she remembered. The spreading warmth in her limbs, the sense of melting and growing, her fur forcing itself through her skin and making her arms tingle. She threw off her cloak as her limbs stretched and her muscles thickened. Her vision darkened for a moment, and when it returned, everything was clear. So very clear.
Pashla stood in front of her, still in her skin. The clanswoman held herself with her muscles relaxed and her hands down by her sides. While Kyra’s previous transformation had been in the heat of battle, this time her feral instinct was muted. She could still feel its presence, a constant readiness for a fight that hovered in the back of her mind. But she was far more interested in the world around her. The wind, so bitingly cold a few moments before, now blew ripples in her fur and raised a tickling sensation along her back. She bent down to smell the wildflowers. The scents were heady, almost too strong. And such vivid colors. Kyra sneezed, then stepped around Pashla. The snow’s coolness seeped through the tough pads of her feet.
Behind her, Pashla spoke. Kyra ignored her, but Pashla persisted, and Kyra finally took the effort to pay more attention. She found she could make sense of her words if she tried hard enough. Pashla was telling her that she’d done well.
A new scent reached her nostrils. Unlike Pashla’s words, the meaning of this new smell was immediately clear. There was a deer upwind, just a short sprint away.
“Kyra, stay here.”