Needle touches my neck.
Cold metal. One second from skin.
Lyra doesn’t ask this time.
She takes.
Not three seconds like North. Not eyes only like training room.
Full. All.
Heat explodes from my chest out. Like bomb made of sun and ice.
Healer flies back ten feet, hits stone seats, tray shatters, green needles spill and crack, liquid burning holes in stone floor.
I drop to ground, but not human ground. Four legs. Then two legs. Then something in between.
Shift rips clothes, shift-proof slip tears, silver fur bursts everywhere. I grow. Bigger than last time. Bigger than Caelan’s wolf form, bigger than any wolf in Hall. My head hits high arch of circle, stone cracks.
I am on two legs, wolf standing, silver from head to toe, claws as long as knives, teeth showing, eyes not silver but
