My five guardians

Chapter 4. A deer in the ¿tree?

She couldn't react; once again, her body refused to respond in any way. Just as her body braced for a fatal blow, her eyes caught sight of a grayish blur that emerged from the trees and collided with the bear; all she could think of was Conall.

Not in its human form. The wolf that emerged from among the trees was large—considerably larger than anyone would expect—with fur that appeared gray in the darkness of the forest but, in the light of the blue flashes on the ground, revealed a deeper, bluish hue, like storm clouds before the rain arrives. It stepped between Indira and the bear with a speed that didn’t seem possible for something of that size and rammed the animal in the side with the full weight of its body.

The impact made the ground shake.

The bear took two steps back, more out of surprise than pain, and turned back on the wolf with renewed fury. He lunged again. Conall stepped aside with an agility that belied his size, the bear’s claws tearing through the air merely centimeters from his flank. The wolf responded with a bite to the bear’s shoulder that connected, causing the beast to roar with something that was more rage than pain, and the two animals collided again in the center of the clearing with such violence that it knocked down the undergrowth around them.

Indira stepped back, but she couldn’t look away.

Conall was faster. That much was clear. But the bear was bigger, and the tainted energy gave it a resilience that defied logic; it took blows that would have stopped any normal animal, yet it kept advancing as if pain were a concept it no longer cared about. A paw struck the wolf’s flank and Conall stumbled, barely regaining his balance, and Indira felt something tighten in her chest with a violence she hadn’t expected.

No.

The thought was simple and absolute. The wolf charged again, but this time the bear was waiting for him; he spun with brutal speed and struck him squarely, sending him crashing into a tree trunk with a sound that echoed throughout the clearing. Conall fell. He got back up, more slowly this time, and in that split second of slowness—that split second when the bluish-coated wolf took a moment longer than usual to get to his feet—Indira’s chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with her own fear.

The bear charged at him again.

Indira didn't make a decision. There was no thought. Just the tightness in her chest that became unbearable, something that rose from her core toward her hands like boiling water seeking an outlet, and the blue lights appeared. They came like a whirlwind, all at once, leaving her no time to react, bright and urgent, swirling around her palms with an intensity that was hard to control, yet at the same time her body seemed to know. The entire forest seemed to respond; the flashes in the roots, in the cracks of the trees, in the puddles, all pulsed in unison, and the wave surged out of her before she could understand what she was doing.

She made no sound. But the bear sensed her.

The beast came to an abrupt halt a few paces from Conall, as if it had collided with something invisible. Its broken eyes blinked. It took a step back, then another, its head swaying from side to side with a confusion that resembled pain, and then it turned and vanished into the trees with a haste that bore no resemblance to the creature that had been ready to uproot trees just a few minutes earlier.

Silence returned.

Indira looked at her hands. The lights had gone out. Her left palm was trembling, and her eyes filled with tears—she wasn’t sure if they were from the accumulated pain or from knowing that Conall was alive, wounded, but alive.

Conall had regained his human form. He was standing, with one hand resting on the tree he had crashed into, and for the first time since Indira could remember seeing him, the controlled distance he always maintained between himself and the rest of the world wasn’t enough to hide everything.

He was tall, nearly six feet, with the build of someone who had built his body not out of vanity but out of necessity—defined muscles visible beneath his torn clothing on the right side, where the claw had struck a wound that was still bleeding, though he gave no sign of it. His hair, short and the same bluish-gray as his wolf’s fur, fell across his forehead in the specific disarray of someone who has never cared much about that detail. He had a sharp face, with thin, precise lines, a well-defined nose that matched the overall severity of his features, and his eyes—deep blue and round in that unexpected contrast with the rest—looked at her with that usual controlled expression, that of someone who processes pain without showing it.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

Indira wanted to point out that he was the one with the torn side, but before she could, a voice came from above.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

They both looked up.

Perched on a thick branch of a nearby tree, his legs dangling and a notebook open on his knees as if he’d been taking notes throughout the whole episode, was a young man who didn’t quite fit in with his surroundings. He was about Conall’s height, but where the wolf was broad and stocky, this one was all long lines and slender proportions, the kind of build that makes people underestimate the reach of his arms. His hair, short and curly, and it framed a face of clean features where hazel eyes moved with the speed of someone whose mind is always several steps ahead of where his body is. He lacked Conall’s imposing physical presence or the forced authority of the village guards. He had something different—the specific stillness of people who don’t need to take up more space than they have because they are completely confident that what they are about to say will be enough.

He looked at both of them. Then he looked at Indira’s hands with a focus that was anything but casual. Then he looked back at her, and the expression that crossed his face was that of someone who had just found the answer to a question he’d been asking himself for a long time.

He climbed down from the tree with a calm grace, unhurried, as if the situation required no urgency that he hadn’t already decided upon.

“I’ve been looking for this.” His voice was soft, the kind that doesn’t need volume for people to hear. “Well, not this exactly. I was looking for evidence. Records. Some sign that what my master wrote was real and not just the theory of an old man with too much time on his hands.” He stopped a few feet from Indira and looked directly at her, with that total attention that was more intense than any shout. “But you are considerably better than evidence.”

Conall gave her the kind of look one reserves for people who talk too much at the wrong moment.

Thaeren noticed it clearly and ignored it with the ease of someone who has received that look many times and has come to the conclusion that it doesn’t change anything significant.

“My name is Thaeren,” he said to Indira, as if they were the only two people in the clearing. “And I think you’ve spent your whole life not knowing who you are.” A brief, almost theatrical pause—the kind that wasn’t accidental. “Am I wrong?”