He would kill her. Rip her puny, weak body apart. Break the bones in her body and drain out her blood. It was all he could think of. It was all he wanted. His heart thundered in his ears, drowning out all other thoughts with bloodthirsty desire.

His body was wracked with pain; his shoulder had almost popped out of its socket when he rammed the wall. He could hardly see, his eyes filled with blood that streamed down his face. But he could feel her. He could sense her spirit—weak and vulnerable, barely tethered to her body. He could feel it throbbing with her pulse, erratic and frantic. There was fear there, a fear and weakness that would break her.

He would break her. He could see it now, could feel her heart in his claws. It was a puny, frail thing, so easy to burst. He could feel her bones snapping with sticks with a mere flick of his wrist. He could feel her muscles torn from the limbs and stripped apart fiber by fiber. He could feel the blood gushing out of her mouth in hacking coughs, her tongue lolling uselessly in her mouth as her eyes rolled from the pain. He could see it now. His breath came hard as the red haze over his mind sent his heartbeat racing.

She was but a cub, and he wanted nothing more than to mutilate her until she became nothing more than a pile of meat and bone to hang in his cave alongside all the rest. He would enjoy it. It would be slow and brutal. Breathing heavily, he shuddered in expectant ecstasy as he closed his flickering eyes.

She had already passed out on the ground, blood and bile trickling from the corners of her mouth. She had fallen sometime after he had broken through the wall. Her arms were sprawled on the stone, her flaming hair blending into the puddle of scarlet that pooled around her head. Her eyes were fluttered shut, her chest heaving as she gave short gasps. She was dying. He would help her on her way. The excitement filled his body as a smoldering fire that spread from his stomach. The heat made his blood boil as it spread through his body until it burst into a scorching blaze. The incessant pounding of his blood rage had never faded; rather, it built to a crescendo, like tumultuous waves that crashed against his skull in painful mania. As his heartbeat quickened and his muscles clenched, he could feel the frenzy coming on again.

He could hardly think, the potent cocktail of rampant pain and anger flowing through his body making him into a mindless beast. It was intoxicating—blinding—the heat and pressure filled his head and pushed him into a frenzy. He lashed out at everything in his madness, even himself, as he fell to his knees with a dull thud. He wanted to rip, to tear, and he did so to himself with inhuman zeal.

Dark claws tore at his own skin, clawing deep furrows into his scales and drawing lines of red down his chest. Fur was ripped and matted with blood, his dark claws mutilating anything that gave them purchase. He howled and beat the ground, scraping yellowed sparks that flew into the air. He gouged the walls of the cave and gave out a broken howl until finally the bout of madness passed and he lay on the ground, panting for breath.

It was her that caused this. The haze of red had yet to lift from his mind, but this one thought cut through it like a slashing talon. The hideous pain, the mind-wrenching fury, it was all her fault. She had attacked him in his territory. She deserved to die. Gasping, he stood up, back hunched as he flexed and popped his joints. With a low grunt, he charged forward, right arm open, claws extended, and preparing to swing down to cut open her body.

He felt the blood getting hot inside his body, his heart pumping faster. He would tear her apart. Yes, that was right. Of course he would. He was crouching now, propping himself up on one leg. He could see it, the blood splurting out of her mouth. Her eyes bulging as he crushed her skull. It would be simple. He was standing, back hunched, hands flexing. He imagined it, her bones breaking under his fingers. Her weak heart popping in his palm. He could see it. He would kill her. One step, two steps, and suddenly he was standing over her.

His head spun with as the blood crashed against his skull again and again. A deep pain throbbed throughout his body, but he did not care. He looked at her broken form, at her dying body that she owed him for. He had saved her, and she had tried to kill him. The very thought filled him with wroth indignation, a deep-seated humiliation that he could only pay back through blood.

“Wake.” he growled, the single word incomparably hard to muster through his rage. It was more guttural than anything else, a bestial noise that echoed through the cavern.

Her eyes fluttered open, her breath light and fast as she looked around disorientedly at her surroundings, awakening for a final moment of lucidity before her flame of life petered out. Eyes settling on his looming figure, she stared at him with an expression that was full of mingled wonder and fear. He merely smiled in response, giving her a grotesque flash of sharp, bloodied teeth, as if welcoming her back to the world of the living.

In a flash, he grabbed her throat and lifted her up by her neck, hot rage making his breath ragged as it surged forth once more. Fighting for breath, she tried with frail arms to pry apart those black claws of his that dug deep into her pale skin and drew thin trails of blood down her throat. She was far, far too weak to even have any hope at that. With a guttural snarl, he slammed her against the wall, knife-sharp teeth grinding in agitation.

He could kill her right now. He could kill her in an instant. It would be so easy. He squeezed harder with the hand on her neck, the other starting to crush her temple. She was struggling, but her flailing grew weaker, her breath more erratic. Her power left her, her body growing limp. He could feel her body’s bones beginning to break.

Suddenly, she grabbed his right arm with a newfound strength, finger splayed, palm flat against the muscle. She stared straight at him, and he felt the fluttering pulse of her spirit as it shone in her eyes. It shone through her eyes. He felt her moving into him—her power flowing into him. Her spirit joining his. She stared straight at him, those vivid green eyes wide open. They glowed bright with a luminous light, wisps of purple and white flowing out of the edges. The black markings on her face shone, her veins visible just beneath her papery white skin.

That white brilliance shone out of her eyes coalescing into a single mote. It pulsed faintly, feebly, before floating onto the tips of his claws. A single strand connected it back to her mouth, ran down her throat. With the last of her breath, she whispered, “Brother.” A single word. A faint flutter in the silence of the cave. And then she collapsed. The strand of light tore, leaving only the softly pulsing fleck hovering above his claws. She did not say, but he could feel it.

It was her soul.

Ever slowly, it sank into his chest. He could not move, was afraid to move. His body trembled with nervous fear and uncertainty as that warmth filled his chest. And and could feel her inside him, her life, her soul.

She had only spoken a single word, but it shook through his system far harder than any strike. Shock rippled down his back, making muscles fall slack in their surprise. His grip loosened and fell slack; she collapsed onto the ground, body crumpling as she coughed up blood. The haze of his blood rage that had been fueling his tired body finally gave way, the pillar of support crumbling into dust. All of his anger and hatred drained away in an instant, leaving behind only a dull throbbing in his head. The cloudiness that had filled him seemed to part, one word breaking through the fog of his bloodlust. Strength left his body, leaving only a piercing weariness that sunk all the way to his bones.

It was then that he heard a familiar voice.

Spare her, my child. She is your sister.

The earth spoke to him once more, silent since his birth, yet twice now in the past days. Its words were like a light, piercing through the haze of what was left of his blood rage. As he shook his head to clear his thoughts, a remorse settled inside of him.

Yet there was dissent from within him. He could hear the dead in his ears, each voice soft as a silken stream and yet together an unyielding torrent that crashed in his skull and drowned his own thoughts.

You dare deny us of our rightful vengeance?

They hissed at him, their words spitting venom in his ears.

Foolish. Weak. Unworthy.

Their clamoring grew to a crescendo until his head pounded with pain and fire burned hot in his lungs. Indignant shrieks scraped his bones and rattled his jaw until the pressure broke loose in a tide of fury. And yet, right when his sanity wire thin to the brink of disaster, the voice came again.

Spare her, my child.

This time, the dead fell silent. There was a pause before there was any further noise in his mind, and when there was it was the reluctant voices of the dead once more.

He speaks. Andahiel speaks. Brothers, we listen.

Like so many restless serpents, the dead retracted into their hissing coils. The pressure was still there, ever present and ever reminding, merely lessened. They felt restrained, fettered, although by choice or by force it could not be seen.

Yet with the dead now silent, his path was clear. She was his sister; the earth had said it to be true. His pack, his blood. He would have to save her. He gritted his teeth, forcefully clearing his mind of lingering poisons in an attempt to focus.

He could feel her spirit dying next to him, the frail thing pulsing ever slower and slower. With a battered arm, he reached over and grasped her weak hand gently with searching claws. Closing his eyes, he could feel her next to him, her spirit slowly slipping from a dying body. Remorse filled his heart with frost, the weight of his regret heavy upon his shoulders.

He had done this. He had nearly killed her.

He breathed in slowly, a deep breath bringing cool air in to fill tired lungs. His heart was hammering wildly against his ribs, his muscles sore and aflame, but he forced himself to calm. His swirling mind struggled to sift through the storm of thoughts and confusion, trying to resist to ignore the heat in his blood and the pounding in his head, until finally he could take no more and relented in frustration. He was too weary, too aggravated, and too tired, so he stopped.

He stopped thinking, and starting feeling instead.

He could feel the night air against ragged skin and broken scales, cool with the sun’s slumbering. He could feel the stinging of his wounds, the wet trickle of warm blood that ran down his limbs. He could feel the roaring thunder of his heartbeat, each pulse sending waves of lifeblood crashing through thick veins.

He could feel the gem of black burning with a searing heat in his wrist, its glossy form wrapped within a shadowed veil. He could feel the unyielding earth in his flesh, the sharp stone in his claws, the fervor of his birthright raging through his body. He could feel his own spirit’s beating, brilliant and strong in his chest. He could feel the tethered dead inside of him, their lost spirits twisting with barely restrained wroth and inflamed with the need for revenge.

And he could feel her. He could feel the spirit that she had given him, weak and delicate against the storm that he held within the vessel of his flesh. He did not know why—it was her soul and her being; it belonged with her. It felt foreign to him, its presence alien as it nestled in his chest. It was hers to give, but not his to hold. For he who had nearly killed his kin, here was the first of his recompense. Paying her life back would be the start of his penance.

Calling out to the bond that linked soul to body, he felt her spirit slowly uncoil from his chest down his arm. It left a trail of heat and strength where it traveled as it left his body, a lingering warmth that slowly faded from his skin. It left a trail of life behind it. It was that same life that it breathed back into her, snaking around her breast before sinking into the flesh. A violent convulsion nearly snapped her spine as the spirit fully entered her body, mirrored by a burst of pain for him as the tether that bound her spirit to him snapped. Her muscles stretched, eyes rolled, fingers clenched, back arched, and skin vented steam from her pores as life entered her corpse and sent her shuddering heart to work once more. There was a fluttering in her chest, a sudden spasm that lifted her clear off the ground before she collapsed. Then her breathing evened, her pulse slowly growing steady.

Yet it was not enough. Even before leaving her body, her spirit had been damaged in their fight, had been worn and shattered and ruined beyond repair. Like this, she would die.

Helplessness sank into his bones, making him weary and worn. He kneeled, his arms hanging limp at his sides. Sparks flew from where his claws struck the stone, but he did not care. She would die.

“Sister.” he whimpered one last time, his throat ragged and raw.

A sudden surge of warmth filled him, a feeling of vitality and life that he remembered feeling only once before: in his birth. It was the strength of the earth that filled him then, that welled up from his legs to his belly and filled him with fire. It flowed through his chest, lingering around his heart before finally gathering in the tips of his claws. In instinct, he touched them ever gently to her forehead, and a brilliance shone like a white sun, illuminating the entirety of the cave. Steam hissed and rose from the corners of her eyes, her joints rolling and cracking, her skin a deep, flushed red. When the cracking stopped, she settled down as if in sleep, her breathing deep and even, and he sighed in relief.

Faith, my child.

She would live. He did not kill her.

It was his last thought, before his muscles gave out from under him and he saw the stone rising up to meet him. His body cracked on the rock, but he did not feel any pain. Ever slowly, his eyes closed and his mind drifted into slumber.