I started my day with meditating, settling myself onto the worn fur in the corner of my room where the morning light filtered through the gaps in the stone walls. I crossed my legs and closed my eyes, trying finally to tap into the blooming blessings and, if possible, talk to the voice to get some insight on my Levy’s progression. The house was quiet for once, the cubs still sleeping, my mates already gone to train, and the silence wrapped around me like a blanket I could sink into.
I focused on my breathing first, the way I had been taught, drawing air deep into my belly and releasing it slowly through my nose. I pushed away the distractions, the worry that had become my constant companion, the fear that sat heavy in my chest whenever I thought of my daughter’s unpredictable shifting. I reached inward, searching for that blue warmth that lived somewhere in my core, the power that had awakened in me and now, apparently, in her.
After trying for what felt like hours but might have been minutes, I finally reached something.
The warm feeling enveloped me like sinking into a hot spring on a winter day, starting at my center and radiating outward until even my fingertips tingled with it. I could feel the power, the warm feeling at the tip of my finger, buzzing with potential, with life, with the raw energy of growth and healing. I imagined seeds buried in dark earth, dormant and waiting, and then I imagined them sprouting, breaking through the soil toward the sun, unfurling green leaves and reaching roots deep into the ground.
But then the white space surrounded me.
It happened gradually at first, the darkness behind my eyelids lightening to gray, then to pearl, then to pure blinding white that held no shadow, no depth, no end. I floated in it, weightless and breathless, and I knew I had found the place where the voice lived, the source of the blooming blessings that had chosen me as its vessel.
And the voice called out to me.
"My child," it said, and the sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, warm and ancient and impossibly vast. "We meet again."
I did not want to waste time. I had wasted so much time already, searching for this connection, and now that I had it, I could feel it trembling, unstable, ready to slip away like water through cupped hands. I needed to know.
"Please," I said, and my voice sounded strange in this place, small and desperate. "Help me. I want to understand this power, what is happening to my daughter. And why can’t I heal her?"
"We do not have much time," the voice replied, and there was a weight to the words, a sense of strain as if speaking to me cost it something. "Since your connection to me is not stable... do you really want to waste your time on this answer?"
The question hung in the white space, and I felt the opportunity slipping, the warmth beginning to recede, the connection fraying at the edges. But there was no hesitation in my heart, no moment of doubt.
"Please I need to know," I pleaded, and I could feel tears streaming down my physical face even though I had no body in this place. "My daughter is more important than me."
She was quiet then, the silence stretching so long I feared I had lost her, that the connection had broken and I would be cast back into the waking world with nothing, no answers, no hope. But then she started talking, and her voice held something like approval, like the warmth of a grandmother’s smile.
"You cannot heal what does not need healing," the voice said, each word dropping into my consciousness like stones into still water. "Your bloodline has awakened much faster. She was only changing because her body needed the change. No one goes through life without some pain."
The voice chuckled then, a sound like wind through autumn leaves, like the creak of ancient trees. "But to answer your question. You can heal her, but you cannot heal yourself. You can use your blessings for only those you want to bless, but as a vessel, you cannot bless yourself. However, your daughter can bless you, just as you can bless her. But you both cannot bless yourselves. Blessings are a miracle, but they are not meant to be used selfishly."
The words settled into my understanding, pieces of a puzzle I had not known I was assembling. I had been trying to heal Levy when she was not sick, had been trying to use the power on myself when that was forbidden, had been stumbling in the dark because I did not know the rules of the game I was playing.
"Will my daughter be able to control the power?" I asked, urgency making my voice sharp. "What can I do to help her hone it?"
"It will be difficult," the voice said, and now there was warning in the tone, a heaviness that made my heart clench. "Emotions run high and powers can go berserk. If you keep her meditating, she can regulate like you."
"But she is young," I protested, the reality of what she was asking crashing against the impossibility of it. "She cannot do that. She is barely a month old. She cannot sit still, cannot focus, cannot—"
"Just keep her emotions in check until she can," the voice interrupted, and I could feel it withdrawing, the white space beginning to darken at the edges, the warmth receding like a tide going out. "I must go. Our time is up."
"Wait please!" I cried out, reaching for something I could not touch, grasping at the fading presence with desperate mental fingers. There were more questions, so many more, about my own power, about the future, about what other secrets this power held. "There is more I need to know, please, just a moment longer—"
But the voice was gone.
I was jolted back to reality with a violence that made me gasp, my body jerking upright on the mat, my eyes flying open to the familiar dimness of the room. My heart hammered against my ribs, my skin was slick with sweat, and my hands were shaking where they rested on my knees. The morning light had moved, I realized, streaming now through a different gap in the walls, telling me that hours had passed in what had felt like minutes.
I sat there, breathing hard, processing what I had learned. Levy was not sick. The shifting was natural, necessary, her body doing what it needed to do. And I could not heal myself, could not use the blessings for my own benefit, but she could heal me, and I could heal her, and together we could navigate this strange inheritance we shared.
The rules were clear now, if frustrating. Keep her calm. Teach her to meditate when she was old enough. And until then, manage the chaos of her emotions so that the power did not overwhelm her.
I pushed myself to my feet, my legs stiff from sitting so long and went to check on my daughter. She slept in her nest of furs, her small lion chest rising and falling with peaceful breaths, her paws twitching as she dreamed. I knelt beside her and placed a gentle hand on her warm fur, feeling the hum of power beneath, the same blue warmth I carried, only newer, brighter, untested.
"We will figure this out," I whispered to her, though she could not hear. "Together. I promise."
And for the first time since her transformation, I felt something like hope.
---
Late afternoon light slanted through the gaps in the house windows, painting the packed earth floor in stripes of amber and gold. I had spent the hours since my meditation in quiet industry, preparing the evening meal, checking on the younger cubs, watching Levy sleep with a vigilance I knew was probably excessive but could not shake. The knowledge the voice had given me sat heavy in my chest, a mixture of relief and new worry, answers that had only led to more questions.
I heard them before I saw them, the sound of male voices raised in conversation and laughter, the thud of footsteps approaching our home. My mates had returned from their training.
The wooden door was pushed aside, and Leon entered first, his black hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his chest heaving slightly from exertion. He spotted me immediately, and his face transformed with a smile that made my heart stutter in my chest, as it always did.
"Krys," he breathed, crossing the space between us in three strides.
He caught me around the waist and pulled me against him, his mouth finding mine in a kiss that tasted of salt and effort and home. His hands were rough against my back, his body warm from the afternoon’s labor, and I melted into him for a moment, letting the solid reality of him anchor me after the strangeness of my vision.
"Welcome back," I murmured when he finally released me.
He was followed by the others, each one greeting me with the same fierce affection. Veylan pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead, his cool lips a contrast to Leon’s heat. Aureon caught my hand and brought it to his lips, his eyes crinkling with a warmth that still surprised me. Caelion lifted me clear off the ground in a bear hug that squeezed the breath from my lungs before setting me down to claim his kiss. Soryn’s greeting was silent, his emerald eyes holding mine as he brushed his lips against my cheek, his presence a steady flame beside me. Ravin was last, and he took his time, his hands framing my face as he kissed me with a thoroughness that left me flushed and breathless.
Before they went to play with the cubs, they shed their training gear, leaving weapons and leather armor in a pile near the door. The older cubs had woken from their naps and were already clamoring for attention, tumbling around the legs of their fathers with the chaotic energy of the young. Atlas and Jasper wrestled with Caelion, their laughter ringing out sharp and bright, while Ryder and Chase clambered over Aureon, demanding to be lifted, to be thrown, to be spun.
But Leon went straight to our Levy.
She had woken from her nap and was sitting in her nest of furs, her small lion body still sleep-mussed and drowsy, blinking dark eyes at the commotion around her. Leon dropped to his knees before her, his face softening. He gathered her into his arms, cradling her against his chest, and pressed a dozen kisses to her downy head, her ears, her small snout.
"Ah, my princess," he cooed, his voice dropping to a register, all rough edges sanded away by fatherly adoration. "Did you miss your daddy? Did you have good dreams?"
Levy pressed her paw against her father’s mouth, as if to push him away or to stop the barrage of affection, her small face scrunched in what looked suspiciously like annoyance.
"Levy, let daddy kiss you," Leon pouted, trying to maneuver around her blocking paw to plant another kiss on her forehead.
She batted at him again, more insistently, and made a small growling sound that was more kitten than threat but clearly communicated her displeasure.
"She does not like your ugly face," Soryn laughed from across the room, where he sat with his back against the wall, watching the scene with amusement glittering in his serpent eyes.
"She does not like yours, you stupid snake," Leon shot back, whipping his head around to glare at his brother through our bond while still trying to cuddle his resistant daughter. "She is just tired. She loves her daddy. Tell him, Levy. Tell the snake you love me best."
Levy yawned, showing tiny teeth, and turned her face away, burying it against Leon’s chest in a clear rejection of the conversation.
I sighed, feeling the familiar headache of their constant bickering beginning to pulse behind my temples. "None of you are ugly. Please stop bickering."
"Let them, Krys," Ravin said softly, coming up behind me. I felt his presence before I felt his touch, the warmth of his body radiating against my back. His hand rested against my waist, his fingers spreading possessively over the curve of my hip. His lips brushed my temple, his breath stirring the hair there, and I felt some of the tension drain from my shoulders at the contact. "Sometimes a little bickering is good for the home."
I leaned back against him, letting his solid presence support me, and watched my ridiculous, overbearing, wonderful mates compete for the attention of a cub who clearly wanted nothing more than to be left alone to nap. The fire crackled in the pit, the smell of the stew I had prepared filled the air, and outside the sun dipped lower toward the horizon, painting the world in shades of orange and violet.
The voice had told me to keep Levy’s emotions in check, to help her find calm so that her power would not overwhelm her. Looking at the chaos of my household, at the noise and the laughter and the constant, loving turmoil of so many lives intertwined, I wondered how I was supposed to create calm in the midst of this beautiful storm.
But then Levy sighed, a small, contented sound, and settled more deeply into Leon’s arms, her eyes drifting closed despite her earlier protests. And I realized that perhaps this was the calm she needed. Not silence, not solitude, but the security of knowing she was loved, fiercely and completely, by more people than she could count.
"She is asleep," Leon whispered, looking up at me with wonder in his eyes, as if his daughter taking a nap was the most miraculous thing he had ever witnessed.
"Of course she is," I whispered back, smiling despite myself. "You bored her into submission."
"She loves me," Leon insisted, but he was smiling too, cradling her with a gentleness that belied his warrior’s hands.
"She tolerates you," Soryn corrected, but there was no heat in it, only the familiar rhythm of their banter.
"That is enough for now," I said, and Ravin’s arm tightened around my waist in agreement.
It was enough. It was more than enough. It was everything.
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