Page 52

As black glittering sand encompassed her entire body, Lindi grunted a scream through grinding teeth. Eyes clenched shut and hands balled into fists near her midsection, she put all her might, all her determination, into her magic.

Heat clung to her clammy skin from the muggy atmosphere, but she didn’t dare wipe her soaked temple against her shoulder. She hated how hot and heavy these thin white robes could be, and how unbreathable they were, but she always persevered.

When she couldn’t hold onto the magic any longer, her body gave out before her will.

With a rain of black mist falling around her, Lindi collapsed into the mud and ruined her clothes within an instant.

“No!” Furir roared, her high-pitched voice somehow shifting to a baritone. An ugly baritone. “You must feel the fur. You must become the animal. Think mouth changing to snout, hands shifting to paws.”

“I can’t,” Lindi rasped through pants, shaking her head as she stared at her hands in the squelching earth. “I just don’t have the ability.”

A set of stained white robes and boot-clad feet stopped in front of her, and Lindi looked up to the towering, thin woman before her.

For someone who was six inches shorter than Lindi’s five foot seven, she shouldn’t seem so large.

But with her hands on her small hips and peering down her large nose at Lindi, Furir looked like a giant.

Her three yellow eyes, unsteady and cold as always, sneered down at Lindi. “Get up and try again.”

“What is the point in pushing this?” Lindi made it to her wobbly and lethargic legs without Furir ever offering out a hand in assistance. “We’ve been at this all day.”

“You begged to learn to animal shift, so you must train.”

“It’s been three years!” Lindi shouted, her nose bunching as she scowled down at the blonde woman.

Her three eyes glared back at her. She was young, not a single wrinkle upon her sun-kissed face, but she had the personality of a commanding elder. She also had the mind of an unhinged madperson.

She was truly a beast.

“It’s because you don’t think like an animal.

You hold onto your humanity, like it makes you superior!

” Then Furir waved her hands in the air with a screech of uncontrolled rage.

“You all do! This is why animal shifting is such a difficult skill to learn. Impossible, even, unlike the other skills.” She smacked against her large bosom, hitting her own chest right where her heart was.

“You are born with the ability to sniff the earth, to see beyond what normal eyes can’t, to touch what no one else can.

From the moment I was born, the shift felt freeing.

It felt righteous. I spent most of my youth as a creature because it’s better. ”

“I can’t change what I am!” Lindi yelled back. “I am trying. I don’t look down on your teachings or your ways, but you’re right: I’m human.”

Furir snorted a laugh while lifting her nose to snub Lindi.

“A human you are not. You reek of other , no matter how much you deny it. I can smell it on you from a distance.” Then she tapped at her own temple with two fingers hard enough to shove at her own head.

“No, your humanity is in here. Your mind. You must let it go if you wish to be free. Perhaps it’s just not possible for you, but your will is as much a barricade as your magical capabilities. ”

Lindi lifted her arms in a wide shrug, wishing the hot sun would go away and the rain would return.

She was tired of overheating outside with Furir and wanted the woman to imagine what it was like to not be her .

She didn’t seem to feel the heat or the cold – not even when the ground was blanketed in a thick layer of snow.

No. She was merciless in any temperature and every season. Rain or shine, windy or calm, it didn’t matter to her.

“Then what would you have me do?” Lindi asked beseechingly. “You make me train, yet we both know that this endeavour has long run its course.”

In retort, Furir folded her arms. “Perhaps it has. I tire of watching you fail in the mud.”

Then the short woman lost her focus when a shadow passed over them, causing her to dart her gaze up. Her yellow eyes glimmered, her third one glinting with purple, as she licked at the corner of her mouth. She muttered, not to Lindi but to herself, or to no one.

“Look at it fly.” Her gaze narrowed, perceptive and yet lost, as her neck craned to follow a golden pheasant’s movements, twitching when its large wings flapped like she could hear it when Lindi couldn’t.

“One of its wings has only newly healed. The feathers... they’re not streamlined.

Wait for its squawk. It will tell me what it seeks. ”

She lifted her right hand and her fingers twitched near her jaw, before the other lifted to do the same. Her head jerked in an unnatural way.

Lindi sighed and rubbed her straining neck. “Furir, please. Stay with me.”

The woman’s three eyes widened, and she darted her face back to Lindi. Her cheeks pinkened in embarrassment, but Lindi looked away to pretend she hadn’t noticed her lapse of lucidity.

“Sorry. Please don’t mind me,” Furir grumbled awkwardly.

It was a curse for all animal shifters that their minds be a little chaotic. If they weren’t careful, if they spent too long as a creature and not enough time as a person, they could lose themselves completely.

The eccentric, boisterous, and flamboyant Furir, who was only six and twenty, was already at risk. So young, they feared. She’d been ordered by Seraphina to remain humanoid until the worst of her lack of lucidity faded.

Nobody had prepared Lindi for the messiness of the woman’s mind, and she truly seemed to be part beast despite her small, mostly human appearance.

Unfortunately, the curse had already progressed to the point that she changed into an animal from a stray, intense emotion.

Anger, happiness. Sometimes even extreme fatigue could slip her away.

Her dreams were pests to all, as she could be heard scampering about in her room – or, rather, destroying it.

Furir brushed back the stray blonde hairs from her dirt-smeared face. She was dirtier than Lindi, who had just kissed the mud. Those hands of hers had messed many books, an avid reader in her downtime, which once surprised Lindi that she had such focus after first meeting her.

Her peculiarities were often startling, and she had a keen eye for others.

Like now, when she peered around Lindi’s still huffing form to cock a brow. Lindi turned to see what Furir was looking at before darting her gaze away and to the ground with her shoulders lifting nervously.

“I think it’s odd that you have captured Evart’s eye,” Furir stated absentmindedly. “He is usually so reserved and pensive, but he makes this as obvious as a weed, rather than a truffle.”

Lindi’s cheeks heated at Furir once again making it known that Evart was watching her. She wouldn’t allow Lindi the ruse that she was oblivious to this annoying attention.

His black curly hair went from longer on top and gradually shortened to the skin just above his ears and at his neckline.

The Anzúli called it a low, tapered fade, not that Lindiwe had heard such a term or seen such a style before.

His hair on his head was much fuller than the dusting of curling hair on his brown face.

His jawline was prominent, chiselled even, and it matched his high cheekbones and thick brows.

He had full lips and arresting brown eyes.

His body was lean, and a little taller than Lindi’s.

He was a very handsome man, despite the oddity of his third glowing green eye. She’d found her gaze often shying away when he had the top half of his robes folded down around his waist as he worked out with the rest of the Anzúli people in the mornings or evenings.

“I’ve already told you all that I have no such aspirations here.”

Even if she wanted to, she’d made a vow to Weldir to keep herself closed off to other men.

Not in friendship, as she made many friends here, but romantically, physically.

Even Evart, among a few other attractive men here, was given a more appreciative eye for his form, rather than anything desirous.

Not even her mind could cross that barrier and be playful, but it was also entirely barren when it came to any lust pertaining to Weldir. He had not sowed that seed, and thus, there was nothing to tend to in her special garden of desire.

“Yes, yes. Something about the sanctity of marriage and remaining untouched until then. So unfair on the maidens of this world.” She placed her fists on her hips and shook her head.

“Virgins. What an annoying concept. Who cares if she bleeds her first time or not? It does not matter to one’s cock when it hits deep in hot wetness. ”

Lindi shuddered at her grossly forward speaking, fearing her ears would disintegrate with the searing heat of embarrassment. It also made her pussy clamp up and tingle, and the fact that Furir’s nose was sharper than anyone else’s was disconcerting.

The woman’s lips curled from the mischief she knew she’d caused. “Be a ripe flower and take his nectar.” She winked. “I’m sure he’d like it, and it smells like you need it.”

“Oh, do fuck off,” Lindi snapped while rolling her eyes.

Furir placed her hands on her hips, threw her head back, and barked out a grating laugh. “You amuse me, Lindiwe. Truly.”

Lindi brushed off the drying, caked mud from her hands and lifted her head nonchalantly. “I think today should be our final lesson. It’s obviously pointless and I won’t be subjugated to this mortifying torture any longer.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.” Furir’s smile went soft, reaching her eyes with fondness. “But I hope that you will continue to converse with me. Uxos knows how much the other Anzúli bother and bore me.”

Lindi smiled in return.

Just as she opened her mouth to accept, liking this mad woman’s company more than most, Weldir’s echoing voice halted her.

“I have another way to give you what you seek.”

Lindi swallowed. How much of our conversation did he hear? His tone didn’t hold any note of jealousy or concern for Evart, but she didn’t like him thinking her promise was at risk.

Her gaze slipped to Evart sitting on the stone fence separating the training areas from the vegetable garden. As if he could feel her eyes on his lithe and tall form, he lifted his nose from his notebook. His expression didn’t change, but he held her gaze with strength.

Quiet and stoic, the temple’s architect and craftsman by nature was able to see beauty in many places – even in someone human.

Lindi shied away from him.

Maybe I wish Weldir would grow a little jealous.

The idea of someone being jealous over her left Lindi with the want to moan in satisfaction. Instead, she was only given the desolation of nothingness, interspersed with a few sparing words, most of which had nothing to do with fondness.

Although she wasn’t a vindictive person, she’d considered fanning the flames of Evart’s interest. He was handsome, a great conversationalist, and she thought she would’ve been interested had she no other ties. But that wasn’t fair on Evart, nor did she truly wish to upset Weldir.

I doubt he would care anyway, so long as I keep my body to myself.

How bad would a kiss be? A simple grasp of hands? The brush of affectionate fingertips on her cheek?

Her nipples pinched under her robes at the idea; not with Evart, but anyone. I’ve never been kissed. How long had she been alive? Fifty-four years? Not once in that time had she had a taste of any kind of passion and Lindi... longed for it.

The only affection she garnered was from her children, which was why she adored them so quickly. She often yearned for one of her father’s too hard and too long hugs, or her mother’s gentle cheek pat where her thumb would run up and down the side of her nose.

Here, no one touched her beyond anything brief and platonic. No one offered her sweet words or sentiments.

Her heart and body were so touch and attention starved she feared if another person were to simply hold her hand, she’d dissolve into a puddle. How pathetically saddening.

“I was hoping you would be able to learn this ability,” Weldir continued, so uncaring or oblivious to anything that truly pertained to Lindi, her thoughts, or her needs.

“But it appears it’s out of our reach with the Anzúli.

I have scoured my memories for a solution, and I believe I have discovered one. ”

At least he was willing to help in this regard, so that was something.

“I will always converse with you, Furir,” Lindi stated with warmth, offering the woman a small smile. “I enjoy your company as well.”

Her yellow eyes lit up in return, so different to the glare she’d worn when they’d argued.

“You’ve been there many years, Lindiwe,” Weldir’s rough voice muttered in her mind. Her smile began to fall at what he was insinuating, and what she knew was coming next. “It is time you returned.”

Time she withdrew from a society once more... to be his breeding mare. Lindi shuddered at the mere thought. She knew that wasn’t what he meant, but Lindi had grown fond of these people. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to go back to her lonely and isolated life.

The resentment she’d given up on threatened to rear its ugly head once more, this time wielding fangs and claws.

“There will be a treacherous journey for you to take,” he stated plainly. “But I think this is the best course of action.”

Those fangs bit deep, while the claws rent down to the bones of her spirit.