Vivieaggered back, her form bug uhe strain, roiling like a storm of darkness, her vision flickering like the dying embers of a fire. The moment the lynx’s neapped with a siing crack, its body went limp in her arms, but the Dawher that had been so deeply woven into its form didn’t release its grip on her. No, it only intensified. It surged through her veins, like molten fire c through her very soul, igniting every inch of her body in a searihat left her gasping for breath.

  She screamed, but it was barely a sound—just a guttural noise as her whole body seized. She felt like she was being torn open, as if the very essence of the aether were burrowing into her, trying to overwrite her. It burned, not just on the surface, but deep within, a relentless pressure that threateo rip her apart. Her jaw ched, her mouth snapping open and shut as she struggled to hold herself together. Her monstrous teeth dug into the soft flesh of her shadowy tongue as she fought not to scream again.

  But then, through the haze of pain, there was something. A gnawing, gnashing huhat took root, deeper than anything she’d felt before. The same hunger she had for the revenant, but stronger, sharper, more primal. It was the aether, calling to her, begging to be ed. It didn’t matter that it oisonous. It didn’t matter that it hurt. It was food.

  It was food.

  Vivienne’s mind twisted, her body jerking against the pain, driven by the singur desire to eat. She reached for it, for the Dawher that swirled around her like a suffog mist, and forced herself to bite down, to e it—knowing that each bite would only make it worse, but needing it anyway.

  As the aether passed through her, it didn’t soothe. It didn’t heal. Instead, it twisted and expanded, flowing through her like a torrent of burning light, ing her insides with a ferocity that made her vision explode into blinding colour. The agony was unbearable. Every inch of her screamed in protest, her very bones felt like they were shattering, each joint locked in an unbearable vice of heat and cold, of light and darkness.

  But still, she ate.

  She ed it greedily, as if it were a part of her, as if this insidious poison was the very thing that would nourish her now. Her body burned, her iwisted into knots, but she pushed through it. The hu was ravenous.

  The burn inside her stretched, suffog her, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.

  Her vision was beginning to waver, the world spinning in and out of focus. And then, it happehe first signs of what the aether was doing tan to surface—lumps, bulging, sickly growths appeared on her skin, where the aether touched. They spread, rapidly, expanding like tumlowing with a siing radiahat pulsed in time with her frantic heartbeat. She felt her skin stretg, tearing in some pces, as the malignant growths began to form beh the surface.

  Her body was a battlefield, her mind a war zohe hunger for the aether fought against the blinding pain, while the light inside her cshed with the shadows that had always been her nature. She could feel herself breaking, the raw edges of her existence beginning to splinter uhe pressure.

  I’m losing trol.

  It was an impossible thing to hold onto. The desire to e was so overp, but the pain was being unbearable. Her body—her very self—was revolting against the very thing she was trying to make part of her.

  Her breath came in ragged gasps as she stumbled forward, her body trembling with the weight of the struggle. Her tendrils curled and spasmed involuntarily, writhing like serpents, trying to pull more of the Dawher into her, but each sed it filled her, the more it ed her. It wasn’t just a poison anymore. It was taking root in her.

  And then, suddenly, Rava was there.

  The wolf-woman’s hand gripped a tendril, her cws finding purchase and digging in as she pulled Vivienne back from the abyss. Vivienne’s mind was sone by that point, the agony cloudihoughts, that she didn’t even know if she had the strength to fight anymore.

  “Vivieop!” Rava’s voice broke through the haze, though it felt like it came from a distant dream.

  But Vivienne could barely hear her, barely uand her. All she knew was that the aether—the burning, poisonous dawher—was still inside her, and it o be fed. Her tendrils shed out, wild, desperate, as if they could find a way to feed herself from the very air around her.

  Rava’s grip tightened, and with a roar of frustration, she released a surge of Tempest aether, her fists crag with raw power. She smmed them into the grouween them, causing a shockwave that threw Vivienne backward, the shock of the impact rattling her enough to break the hold the aether had on her for a moment.

  Vivienne’s form colpsed to the flasping and writhing. Her entire form trembling as bright, sickly growths pulsed across her body, glowing with the same noxious light as the lynx’s fur.

  I’m broken.

  The pain was relentless, twisting her insides and pulling at her very core, but she had no choice. She had to fight it, or let the Dawher e her entirely. She dimly registered Rava’s shadow at the edge of her vision, but there was no helping haended, no warmth. Rava stood a few paces back, her gaze wary, almost assessing, but her face held no sympathy, just a grim caution that Vivienne uood all too well.

  Vivienne’s eyes fluttered open and closed, her vision fading in and out as darkness and light fought for dominance. Everything hurt, every pulse of the Dawher like a serrated bde cutting through her essence. She was barely aware of Rava anymore, her thoughts clouded by the agony, yet she knew no help was ing. She was on her own.

  It took every ounce of will she had, but she forced her disjointed jaw shut, trying to pull herself together, to cw her way back from the brink. The Dawher oison within her, and she could feel it writhing, resisting her every attempt to tain it. It wao e her, to fill her until there was nothi but that burning light.

  She ched her teeth and focused, f her mind through the fog of pain. She couldn’t let this be her end—not here, not like this. The Dawher fought back, g at her from within, but she held on, tightening her grip on herself, f the light to subside.

  It would e her.

  Her body was at war with itself, the Dawher g at her insides, f her shadowy form to shift untrolbly. She o resist it, but the sheer iy of the aether was overwhelming, seeping through every er of her being. The will to survive began slipping, feeling almost pointless against the strength of the aether that wao devour her whole.

  Rava’s voice broke through the haze, but it felt hollow, detached. “You have to fight it, Viviehe words felt perfunctory, g urgency, as if Rava herself was torween helping or watg from a distance.

  Die.

  The word drifted through her mind, and Vivienne almost ughed bitterly. Could she even die like this? She didn’t feel like herself anymore—she was a mass of shifting shadows, eyes, ah, barely holding any solid form. Rava’s face flickered into view, but it seemed distant, like a spectre belonging to someone else. She didn’t need Rava, not really. She needed her own strength.

  Fight it

  She told herself, her resolve wavering. It would be so easy to surreo let the Dawher e her entirely, to dissolve into the light. But no. She wasn’t helpless prey, wasn’t meant to be devoured by aether like some mindless creature.

  Vivienne forced her jagged teeth shut, the sound a jarring, siing snap. She locked down on the urge to surrender, each tendril of her body vulsing as she tried to pull her form back together. The Dawher thrashed within her, burning, writhing, a living poison she couldn’t expel. Her form trembled violently as she forced herself to focus, grounding herself inch by inch, piece by piece.

  Her tendrils cwed at the ground, their movement frantid jagged—not in defe in sheer agony. The Dawher twisted beh her shadowed skin, a relentless force eating away at her from within. She roared, a primal, guttural sound that echoed through the halls, shaking her entire being as she dragged herself back from the edge of dissolution. Bit by bit, the sickly growths began to recede, their toxic glow dimming slowly, painfully, as she wrestled them into submission.

  But it wasn’t over. The aether still ed within her, its poison coiling deep in her core. She was holding it at bay, but just barely. Her entire form trembled, each shadowy tendril quivering as she fought to maintain trol.

  Rava’s voice drifted through the fog again, distant and indifferent, as if she were merely . There was no warmth, no encement—just a reminder, perhaps, of the danger Vivienne had narrowly escaped. But Vivienne barely heard it. She didn’t need words. She needed survival, pure and simple.

  Gradually, agonisingly, the light within her dimmed to a faint flicker, until the sickly growths withered away. Vivieendrils curled tightly around herself, shadow pulling inward as she rose unsteadily from the ground. Her form was still flickering, barely cohesive, but she was alive.

  For now, she’d held her own. She’d survived, and that was enough.

  Her gaze slid to Rava, her expression dark and unreadable, shadows rippling across her flickering form as if she were barely holding herself together. There was no thanks in her look, only a grim aowledgment of survival, a mutual uanding that whatever ordeal they’d just gohrough had nearly broken her.

  Rava’s eyes narrowed, watg her with a wary caution. She didn’t speak, didn’t step forward; instead, she seemed to measure the shifting, restless darkhat still g to Vivie was hard to tell what was running through her mind, but her stance, her silence, suggested she was keeping her dista from fear, but from an instinct to observe, to uand this creature who seemed capable of tearing herself apart only to cw her way back.

  Vivieook a shallow, shuddering breath, feeling the ragged edges of her form settle just enough to let her stand without colpsing again. Every inch of her felt raw, still pulsing with effects the Dawher did to her.

  Somehow she had incorporated the radiaher into herself, despite the desperate struggle from moments before. Behind Rava was the body of the other sunwake lynx, lying motionlessly while egregious amounts of aether radiated from it like the smoke of a dying fme. She was sure she could eat that ooo, but after the first one, she didn’t want to try her luck.

  Finally, she looked up to Rava, her expression plicated and unreadable. Something was strahough, Rava seemed shorter than before. Where Vivienne had only been as tall as the warriors mid-thigh, she now came up to her waist. She wasn’t paying too much attention to her surroundings when she’d eat the revenant, but perhaps iher made her grow?

  Vivienne’s gaze flickered down, taking in the subtle shift in perspective as she sat taller than before. The ge felt fn, disorienting. She barely reized the shape she was taking, her form stretched and flickering like smoke caught between solidifying and dispersing. Every moveme unsteady, her limbs alien in their newfouh.

  Rava, standing a cautious distance away, watched Vivieh an unreadable expression. Without any clothing ear, she looked bare and raw, but she held herself with an ued fidence, as if nothing about her state fazed her in the slightest. Her gaze was intense, assessing, and Vivienne could feel it trag each minute shift of her form.

  “You’re… different,” Rava finally said, the words carrying a weight of curiosity ced with caution.

  Vivie out a slow, unsteady breath, feeling the edges of herself pulse and ripple. “Different,” she echoed, her voice still rough from the pain, “that’s one word for it.” Her gaze shifted over Rava again, her eyes narrowing slightly. She hadn’t noticed before how exposed Rava was; her lean, powerful frame seemed even more vulnerable in the dim light of the ruins, though Rava’s stance remained unfaltering, a silent defiahat dared the world to try her.

  The sileretched, charged with unspoken tension. Vivienated, her mind torween the impulse to pull herself inward and the strange huhat still lingered in the back of her mind, gnawing, temptio reach out toward the radiating body of the lynx nearby. But she resisted, fog instead on the here and now.

  “How… are you feeling?” Rava asked, her tone surprisingly measured. There was no pity in her voice, just a pragmatic sort of curiosity.

  Vivienne’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Like I’ve been dragged through gss,” she chuckled mirthlessly, her tone dry but ced with raw truth. She let out a bitter ugh, though the sound was jagged and hollow. “That lynx… it almost tore me apart.”

  Rava’s gaze flicked to the falle, then back to Vivienne. “But it didn’t.”

  Vivienne could only nod, her expression darkening. “No… it didn’t.” She didn’t add that it might have, had Rava not intervehe warrior’s ued arrival had steadied her, if only briefly, enough to let her pull herself back from the brink. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to aowledge that openly.

  Rava watched her, her gaze pierg, as if searg for something unspoken. “So… you’re able to take iher like that?” Her tone was ral, her staeady, but there was a flicker of warihere, one Vivienne didn’t miss.

  Vivienne’s form shifted uneasily, her edges blurring. “I don’t know if ‘able’ is the right word. It’s more like… surviving it, enduring it.” Her voice softeinged with a frustration she hadn’t realised she was holding. “But yes, somehow, I’ve taken it in.”

  “You did it to the revenant too.” Rava seemed to hesitate, as if deliberating on the words. She ched her jaw shut a out a tense sigh. “e ohe sooner we get out of here the better.”

  Rava turned without another word, her movements effit and unbothered, already seeming to brush off their strange enter. She didn’t spare Vivienne a sed gnce, her focus set forward as she stepped through the fractured shadows and faint glimmers of aether that still lingered in the air.

  Vivienated, the unease of the iioling heavy in her body. Something had shifted between them, subtle yet undeniable—a new warihat hung, unspoken, like mist around them both. Rava’s silence was uling, the way her gaze had assessed Vivienne, weighing something she hadn’t voiced.

  A, Vivien an odd pulsion to follow, as though some part of her tethered to Rava’s presence, if only to keep herself grounded in this new, uain form. She swallowed the disfort, her steps cautious, eaeive as she followed Rava’s lead into the depths of the ruin. The further they walked, the more the shadows seemed to deepen, swallowing the remnants of the aether’s glow until they were left in near darkness.

  The sileweeretched, tense and unresolved, but Vivienne couldn’t bring herself to break it, unsure of what words could ease the strange rift that had begun to open. She curled her tendrils, feeling the unfamiliar texture of her own shifting form, still adjusting, still wary of what might e .

  And for now, that was enough.

  With a final gnce back at the glowing remains of the lynx, she turned fully to follow Rava into the unknown, knowing that whatever y ahead would test her in ways she hadn’t yet begun to imagine.