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I saw it crackle down, reaching for the ground right in front ofwith power, blinding white-blue-black Searing round, a thin trickle stretching high As if guiding the greater energies down They connected The bolt fro against the earth I heard the explosion begin, a roar that beat against round Saw thee of the wyrd spell Above s, one pair black and sooty, shadowed by the lightning, one pair white, reflecting it

Multiple energies encasedNot pain exactly, not yet, but sensation--heat and cold all at once S in my closed fist Inin ood idea

I didn’t hit the ground I think I was still in the air Flying Stuck in tiht if I was dead Or dying Or if I did hit the ground, maybe I was dead before I landed

A second pain followed, suggesting that I was still alive This pain was in my chest Over the place where the sliver of wood froet, pure heat as it tagged the titaniu, andbut still muted, as if stuck in balls of cotton As if, when they released, I was going to suffer, and badly If I survived at all

Beast? I thought She didn’t answer

Time had stopped for me It had done that before Each ti, time would stop automatically, ti into the Gray Between As if the tere related in causality--death and ti for the Gray Between, the space/no-space ofhappened Not for a long beat of no-tiish Cold A silver , touched with black and silver and blue motes of power that tre y they were in real time But there they couldn’t quite seem to twirl and pirouette like they nor in the air in the ht flashed at h lacial ice all s and every nerve ending in

As fast as it hit ain A moment of real ti right now Bad I was hurt bad If I’d had access to roaned

Jane?

Beast! Where were you?

Jane is hurt Jane is dying

Kinda guessed that Getting used to it

Come

Instantly I was in my soul hoasped in air Cold and damp and fresh air I was crouched, ar hard in this nonreality, as if I’d been running and needed to catch up on oxygen, though I probably wasn’t breathing in my physical body, back there, in linear time

There, in that cavern, I was safe It was the place where I first was led into my wesa form, my bobcat form as a child of five, and watched edoda, my father, shift into his tlvdatsi form, his panther, one so unlike my Beast Edoda’s panther had been a black panther, the rare melanistic coat color of the species My first shift had taken place in the cavern that was the physical manifestation of my soul hoh I had never been back to it It was a real place, perhaps lost to huain, since the nunahi-duna-dlo-hilu-i, the Trail of Tears It one It otten entirely But there in the Gray Between, the cavern was a real place again Real tothe blood diaht as the sun I tucked htness, but the glow escaped fro em There I was unwounded, hadn’t prickedmy fist hidden, I rose to , unidentified, but inorganic, the scent acrid and dry, like hotfrom my fist, but I knew the cave as well as I knew h the dark and knelt at the fire pit, one knee on the cold stone floor Found thea white man’s invention, the easy way to make fire, even with one hand unusable But they were there then, when I needed theht vision Beside the circle of stones there was a pile of wood shavings and sawdust Ss, split by an ax I lit the tinder, starting a fire Coaxed it to grow and spread Added little strips of wood, and then the larger branches, until it was crackling and putting out heat

To the side, in the widening glow of the flaht ball, her tail wrapped around and covering her front paws Her eyes were glowing, reflecting the fla atMust decide

"Decide what?"

Decide

"Not very helpful," I ad old," I added

I looked down ats I was dressed in a cotton shirt that hung over ed cloth aroundaround reen on one side and black on the other An empty knife sheath was belted at my hip I was dressed like a man of my people, a hunter A warrior A War Woman? Had we dressed as ht then? My hair was braided to either side of my head and the hair swayed with my motion

In that reality, the sliver of the Blood Cross had been run throughit in place I pulled the sliver with my left hand and hefted the teapons in listening diamond in the other