THAT SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE

Elaris's POV

The healer didn't bother asking what happened

She went straight up to Averic and began checking him over, almost as if it was the exact same procedure that she used when she had first diagnosed my failing essence.

She examined his wrist, his throat and his chest, taking note of the patterns in his breathing, the changes in detail of his expressions;

Then she asked him to close his eyes.

Averic obeyed without question and waited for her to move onto the next part of the examination.

'Something beneath the surface.'

'And how often has it been doing that?'

'Constantly now.'

The healer tested his essence.

She stopped, momentarily shaken, and tested him again.

It shouldn't have been possible.

Averic wasn't meant to have an increasing reserve of essence - only enough to stop his body from shutting down completely.

The pathways that had been damaged by the severing of his wolf essence shouldn't be repairing themselves.

She tested Averic a second time before stepping away.

'It isn't residual energy,' The healer said at last, looking slightly unsettled by what she had found. 'Your wolf is rebuilding itself.'

She turned her attention back to the injury on my neck, watching and observing without breaking the skin.

'Since the marking?'

'Yes.'

The healer turned her gaze between us.

'I don't know what the bond changed, but I know that what the readings are showing.'

She explained that Averic should not have been able to generate the right kind of essence for him to be able to attempt a shift, but somehow, his body had found a pathway to connect and renew the damaged part of his essence.

'Whatever happened when you were marked changed the result,' She finished, finally looking away from the mark on my neck. 'Will the council accept what happened?'

The healer gave me an almost humourless look. 'They will accept what they can see.'

It would be enough; a medical reading could be disputed but a living example could not be denied.

'How long before he gets strong enough to make an attempt at a full shift?' Averic asked.

The healer's eyes swept over the markings once more. 'If the renewal stays at this rate you might be ready to make an attempt at a full shift tomorrow night.'

'Perhaps?' I pressed.

'There's the chance you could be stronger - there's a chance that you won't be able to go any further.'

The healer wasn't going to sugar-coat it. 'Nothing's ever occurred that any healer can be certain of.'

'We haven't tested how early an attempt could damage what's returning,' Averic said, shifting uneasily in the chair. 'What if I try too soon and wound it instead?'

The healer's expression didn't change, 'You won't attempt it unless you're sure. Don't force it because you're impetuous.'

'I won't,'

Averic said gravely. I calculated in my head.

Tomorrow night.

The succession had been so close, but it could all depend on how soon Averic could prove his worth before they named Caedmon their interim alpha.

If they named him before Averic could make an attempt, it was going to be even more dangerous, because, he would have his authority to base his soldiers upon, to base his control upon. It would be a lot harder to dispute the return of his wolf.

Neryss put it the way we were all thinking.

'If they name him before we can prove that he can't be successful, I don't think they'll just roll back what they did.'

Averic looked towards the window.

'I know.'

That was all we were going to get from the healer. When she had finished examining him she left us with warnings about straining his regeneration process and promises that she would return if it changed.

When she was gone, the three of us spoke privately to decide what we needed to do about the council.

'Do we tell them before you make your attempt?' Neryss asked.

'If they know, they may well stall the succession,' I said.

'They may do the other thing entirely,' Averic shook his head.

I understood what he meant.

Any incomplete recovery would give them the leeway they needed to argue the case of any medical examination as false if that suited the politics of the time.

Worse still, it could allow Caedmon to stand as the viable option.

It wasn't that waiting was a bad move, but announcing an incomplete shift would have given our enemies a chance to throw down their challenges before we could have proof either way.

'I think we wait,' I said at last.

Averic turned to face me.

'Until when?'

'Until you can shift again.'

Neryss was regarding me with more than a little apprehension about my decision.

'You think they'll believe us if we walk in as theoretical possibilities?'

They may argue the reading, they might question the healer; they might even accuse Averic of claiming it back out of his natural Alpha nature.

'But if you do stand then they can't say your readings were outlandish.' I reached over and tapped lightly against the edge of the marking. 'They may argue that it's only a theory until you can prove yourself again.'

'You're gambling with the timing of the council,' Averic said thoughtfully.

I thought about it, considering just how much risk there was in what I was planning before I answered him, 'We've been gambling from the start.'

Averic gave a small smile. 'You're right about that.'

Now all we could do was wait for Averic's body to finish doing what it had started.

The time was much harder to sit through than the waiting had been before.

Averic didn't walk around. He didn't try, again and again, to find himself.

He just sat near the window, ate when Neryss reminded him, drank the concoction prepared by the healer, and concentrated on something beneath his skin.

Every few hours, something in him changed.

The line of his shoulders became less rigid, the curve of his breathing deepened, the tightness in his muscles eased away. Once, he had tightened his hands on the edge of the table.

'Something happened.'

'It moved.'

'Your wolf?'

'Yes.'

Averic closed his eyes again. It wasn't until evening that it ceased to feel like something was missing inside him.

'...I remember what it feels like to be complete.'

I didn't have an answer for that,

but I could feel the change in him through the mark as if it was mine to feel in the first place.

Night settled over the outer house.

I lay down on the cot while my cousin remained on watch near the window Averic sat nearby as well, but there was tension enough between them that I wondered if another hour would bring a new change, or not enough change at all.

I kept one hand over the child and the other near the mark on my skin, feeling something stronger from the presence in my mind.

The child stirred; I turned my head away from Neryss and gave them a smile. Averic seemed almost distracted, not unfocused but as if he wasn't entirely certain he could rely upon what was happening to him.

'...You're strong,'

'You're a parent,'

I said, reaching over to brush loose strands away from the baby's eyes where she had turned away from me in sleep.

'That's different.' Averic muttered, but I still saw the relaxation creeping into whatever resolve he had felt about the subject.

Averic didn't sleep.

Neither did Neryss or I and the house seemed to lean itself closer against my shoulders as the minutes ticked steadily forward towards the test we were about to put him to.

Just after midnight Averic stood.

He didn't speak, but I could guess what it was he planned do and, when Neryss turned to follow me, outside, the clearing beyond the house was bathed in the silver of the full moon.

Averic walked away from us far enough that if this failed, we'd have to come to him; far enough that if this succeeded, no one else mattered in the world besides him. He looked over his shoulder.

'If it doesn't happen, I stop.'

I nodded. 'If it hurts you, you stop,'

Again, the same reply. 'I will.'

Neryss stayed near the house while I took up a loose position a fair distance from either of them. Averic turned to face us and, all at once, released the restraint he'd held through the day.

The transformation was almost achingly slow as his shouldered pulled back and his breathing steadied. The essence returned, no longer broken and scattered, no longer weak and fraying. This was a steady return of something steady and whole.

The change spread down his arms in flexing motions, thick muscles pulling together, spine arching, fur spreading across his skin until finally, I had to clutch the edge of my dress tight enough that my knuckles whitened. It wasn't that there was anything frightening about the sight. It was only a matter of moments before his body found its centre, its balance, and then it would be over.

Averic stood tall and solid in the shape of a large dark wolf. The fur was still a deep black, but there was a weight to it, more like a thick coat of fur than anything that could blow away with the wind. A heavy tail curved over his rump. The whole thing was more solid than any animal I would have guessed him capable of becoming.

A strange weight hung on the link between us.

Something like a promise was hanging between us, but Averic's response was already reaching out across the bond.

I knew him.

Not that I recognized features on a face I hadn't seen before. Something deeper than recognition ran through the contact between us, something like understanding on both sides of the link.

The wolf turned his head to look at me and, I knew him still then.

It was the realisation that was strange.

I would have expected Averic to feel like he always had, but now there was more to him. Perhaps, more importantly than that, was the fact that I could not deny the link between us either. The wolf took another step closer.

I didn't move.

Neither did he.

It was almost disconcerting the way I could feel the link running between us when he was still standing several paces across from where I stood.

Averic might have thought he'd had that part of him removed from him, but it didn't seem to be the case at all.

The weight of sacrifice was as strong as anything else I would expect to feel, but this -

This was his complete return.

The wolf lowered his head still further before holding my eyes. Something surged through the bond and I couldn't help but gasp.

The strength in him was almost violent against my will, but there was also understanding that I didn't think he had felt before the return of his wolf.

The wolf walked forward just enough to take up a position nearly level with the child before he halted. I watched him closely and the only response that Averic sent through the bond told me as much as I needed to know.

'It's happening.'

Something about the way the words were being sent to me made me feel unsteady and Averic took the opportunity to turn away from us.

It didn't last for long enough that we could say without hesitation that it hadn't just been an illusion. Averic returned to his body almost before he had been able to fully return in this other form. Muscles flexed and fur withdrew, revealing the skin beneath and he knelt for a moment before he straightened.

He was breathing heavily, but his expression was clear.

He looked down at his hands.

'I shifted.'

Neryss took a single, stunned step forward before I could answer. Footsteps sounded not in the forest, but from the outer road leading away from the house. There were more than just one set of horses and the rhythmic sound suggested soldiers rather than civilians.

Neryss turned and peered over the tree line.

'Council colours,' She said.

Averic straightened, but already Neryss had turned away from the view to look towards our house.

'Caedmon is with them,'

Averic turned back to regard her. The riders grew steadily closer to the house and, Neryss's hand brushing lightly over the hilt of the knife at her hip.

'They're not waiting for our permission,'

The wolf stood still and the shift he completed was over in as many moments as it had begun.