Page 73 of Feral Gods
The request, offered without demand, seems to reach him where commands could not. After a long moment, he sighs, the sound carrying centuries of burden.
"It was not the physical intimacy," he admits reluctantly. "I had... prepared myself for that inevitability. It was the other connection I witnessed—the intellectual bond, the magical harmony. Something I cannot provide with my limited... capacities."
Understanding dawns. "You believe Zephyr offers something you cannot."
"It is not belief but fact. His knowledge, his control, his understanding of magic and history—these are valuable beyond measure in our circumstances. While I offer only brute strength and battle strategy."
I can't help the small laugh that escapes me. His expression darkens, but I quickly explain. "Ravik, each of youoffers something unique and irreplaceable. Zephyr's intellectual connection doesn't diminish your protective strength. Thane's warrior brotherhood doesn't overshadow your leadership. They're different facets of connection, not competing versions of the same thing."
He considers this, the concept clearly foreign to his experience. "Among dark elves, hierarchies are absolute. One leader. One mate. Clear lines of authority and possession."
"We're not dark elves anymore," comes Thane's deep voice from the stairway entrance.
I turn to find both Thane and Zephyr standing at the tower's threshold, having apparently followed despite my request for privacy. Before I can object, Zephyr steps forward.
"We are something new," the scholarly gargoyle says, his melodic voice thoughtful. "Our transformation was physical, yes, but perhaps more significantly psychological. We are neither fully what we were nor entirely defined by what the curse made us."
Ravik's wings shift restlessly, but he makes no move to retreat. Progress, however small.
"The curse altered more than our bodies," Zephyr continues. "It changed our fundamental nature—amplifying certain traits while diminishing others. Your protective instincts, Ravik. Thane's battle-joy. My analytical detachment. All exaggerated beyond our original personalities."
"What's your point?" Ravik demands, though without the earlier hostility.
"My point is that we've been assuming the curse's effects are immutable—that we must learn to live within its constraints." Zephyr moves to the ancient stone table that occupies one corner of the tower, brushing dust from its surface. "But what if they're not? What if our connection to Kaia offers an opportunity to reshape those constraints?"
My pulse quickens at the implication. "You think the curse can be broken completely?"
"Not broken," Zephyr corrects, tracing patterns in the dust with one talon. "Transformed. Just as we were transformed."
Thane crosses his massive arms, crimson eyes narrowed in thought. "Explain."
"The purna's magic bound us to stone, yes, but more fundamentally, it bound us to isolation. Each trapped in our own consciousness, unable to form connections even with each other." Zephyr's gaze meets mine. "Until Kaia."
Ravik shifts beside me, his interest visibly overcoming his emotional withdrawal. "The woman whose blood connects to our curse."
"Precisely." Zephyr nods. "Blood calls to blood. Magic recognizes its source. When Kaia pleaded for sanctuary, her voice carried the magical signature of the very witch who cursed us."
"Morwen," I murmur, the name still strange on my tongue despite knowing it belongs to my ancestress.
"Yes." Zephyr's expression grows animated with scholarly excitement. "And now that same bloodline magic flows through you, awakened by danger and necessity. Magic that could potentially reshape the curse that binds us."
Hope flares within me—bright, dangerous, intoxicating. "You think I could free you completely? Return you to your original forms?"
All three gargoyles go still at this question, the possibility clearly having occurred to none of them.
"Would you want that?" I ask into the silence. "To return to what you were before?"
The question hangs between us, weighted with implications. After centuries trapped between forms, would they choose torevert to their original dark elf nature, abandoning the power and primal connection of their gargoyle aspects?
"No." Ravik's answer comes first, surprisingly definitive. "What I was before holds no appeal. A courtier playing political games, valuing status above honor."
"I would not return to my former self either," Zephyr admits, looking almost surprised by his own conclusion. "The detached scholar, observing life rather than experiencing it. Knowledge without application or emotion."
Thane's crimson eyes meet mine. "The warrior I was served a corrupt king without question. The being I am now chooses his own battles, his own family." He gestures to encompass all of us. "This is preferable, despite its complications."
Their unified response fills me with unexpected relief. I've come to love them as they are—powerful, primal, complex in their duality. The thought of losing these aspects of their nature creates an ache beneath my breastbone.
"Then what transformation do you envision?" I ask Zephyr.
