Thumps awoke him. He propped up from bed, scanning the room, though nothing seemed out of place. A groan beside him caught his attention, and Mouse pulled the blanket over Taiga’s shoulders before slipping out of bed.

  The chill passed over him without much notice and he stood still, listening. More light thumps passed through the hall. He recognized the pittering steps, and knew they shouldn’t be moving about. He slid another layer of clothes on, fitted into his boots, and carefully opened the door as the thumps passed in front of their room.

  The cream of thin fabric fluttered past the door. The end of an orange headscarf wisped by, the gentle cloth lit to the color of a sweet potato in the candlelight flicking from its post in the hall.

  “Azhar?” He called quietly.

  But her glazed eyes didn’t search for him. Her feet thumped forward without hesitation. She stayed on the floor below theirs and yet she’d made it there without a speck of her mind about her. He supposed, then, this was a part of her ‘break’ Taiga told him about.

  He knew why this couldn’t be known to the two humans. A shifter in their group would risk all their lives. But he also understood why Taiga couldn’t refuse her, being a Ganakri. Her state didn’t seem well, and it was safer to have someone watch over her through her darker times.

  But Mouse didn’t know how to help her or what she needed. He turned back into the room, shutting the door gently. He flipped his boots off in the entryway and quietly walked to where Taiga slept. He slid a hand beneath the covers and onto Taiga’s back.

  “Hey, wake up.” He spoke just above a whisper; more than enough for Taiga to stir.

  “What’s wrong?” Taiga mumbled, burying his face into the pillow.

  “Azhar.” The word made Taiga bolt up, and he pulled himself up, sitting in bed. “She’s sleepwalking.”

  “Where?” Taiga grabbed his layers and pulled them on. Mouse reached for his cloak and handed it to him.

  “She’s in the hall, our floor.”

  Taiga paused after fastening the buttons. “Is she going for the veranda?”

  Mouse hadn’t considered it, but the only thing at the end of their hall was, indeed, the veranda. He nodded. Taiga pressed his palms to his head, massaging up and down. He groaned before forcing himself to his feet.

  “My head is killing me,” he whined, and Mouse caught him when he stumbled.

  Taiga pulled off him once steady, slipped his boots on, and braced against the chill when he opened the door. Mouse followed him out, glancing down both sides of the hall to make sure no others came near. Then, he stepped out after Taiga and trailed him down the hall. From the far end, where the hallway split beneath an arch, the end of Azhar’s dress waffed out of view towards the left.

  They followed down, and he noted Taiga’s light footsteps and mimicked them. The hallway emptied to the veranda, which wrapped around the outside of the guildhall. Floors three through five poured into wrap-around walkways, barred in with carved wooden pillars and lattice supports.

  Cloth draped from the top of the overhang, spilling down each section of the veranda. It billowed inward with the wind, strained only from where the cloth was fastened to the bottom of each post. It meant to keep the worst of the cold wind out, and unhooked in the summer to flow freely in the breeze while still keeping the sun’s heat at bay.

  Azhar’s fingertips brushed over the cloth when it pulled inward, her eyes and body unresponsive to the touch. Taiga paused, letting her wander forward a little. He shivered in the cold, jerking back as frost escaped the cloth’s confines.

  “Do you want my cloak?” Mouse could easily go back for it, but Taiga shook his head.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I’ll be fine as long as it’s only for a few minutes.”

  Mouse bit back what he wanted to say, his eyes lingering on the back of Taiga’s neck. Only moments in the cold and red already stained it. His ears and cheeks were the same color. It would only take a minute to return with the cloak.

  Despite Taiga’s words, Mouse turned back, quietly running to the room, grabbed the wool, and returned to Taiga. He leaned against the pillar, turning with half a scowl on his face when Mouse held up the cloak.

  “I said I didn’t need it.” Taiga accepted it easily, and Mouse placed it over his shoulders.

  “I know.”

  Taiga sighed, fastening the button before diving his fingers back beneath the cloak’s flap. Mouse’s eyes flitted up to Azhar, who slowed in the walkway, head turned towards the nothingness of blue fabric. Her lips mumbled though she said nothing.

  “What’s she doing?”

  Taiga’s head turned back towards her. “I don’t know. Her mind probably trapped her in some memory she’s long forgotten.”

  As Taiga watched on, Mouse checked the hallway once more. He’d hear anyone coming but the chance of getting caught with a shifter made him more cautious. When he looked back to Azhar, a lock of dark hair pulled free of her headscarf, the thick gentleness of it brushing over her shoulder and drowning the wind against it.

  He didn’t know if he should pity her. What was there to pity? Taiga did, but he so easily empathized with anyone they came across. A shifter, however… Mouse knew very little about. In eastern and southern Lanria, shifters were the one thing hated more than demons.

  When Taiga and Mouse were knights, they campaigned to the south for a training exercise. Taiga woke him during the night, angry, and the two of them abandoned their camp and returned to Pall. It was the only time Taiga defied a direct order from their superior.

  Mouse only learned much later that the training was a mask for a shifter hunt. Campaigns of the sort likely drew too close in similarity to the Ganakri massacre. For Taiga, whose identity was known only to a few, one being their superior, it was more than a slap in the face.

  “Azhar.” Taiga’s voice cracked in the cold. He pulled himself off the pillar when the wind broke.

  “Should I pull her back?” Mouse could do that much at least.

  Taiga shook his head. “No. Startling her may fracture her more. I can do it.”

  He pressed on, pulling himself straight and carefully stepping forward. “Azhar.”

  She didn’t acknowledge his calling. The creams and light blues of her dress and skirts rippled against her legs. The bottoms of her socks soaked in wet, and surely, they were cold enough to snap most people out of a daze. Whatever held her, however, did not let go.

  Taiga reached out, hooking gently around a few of her fingers and pulling them to him. He called her name again, “Azhar.”

  The touch seemed to work. Her head turned slowly towards him, though her eyes never focused. Then, something changed. He didn’t know what, or when, but something did. He missed it, overlooked, something so subtle his eyes never caught it.

  And then she was no longer human.

  Shifted. Changed. A ripple in her dress that spilled over her before consuming what she was. The unnaturalness of it sent shivers across his arms and back.

  In her place was nothing, slithered towards Taiga in a glimmer of colors and shadows. Taiga held the thing to him, pulling it against the cloak and turning to Mouse. “Make sure no one saw.”

  Taiga’s words snapped him from a stupor. She’d dazed him as she herself had been. Mouse blinked, whipping his head around and checking the hall and further around the veranda for anyone. No sounds, no steps, no breath bated from fear. The cloth drapes should protect them from outside eyes, but Mouse stepped to the edge, peeking past a wooden post.

  A single boy walked a horse down the street, eyes on his companion alone. “We’re fine.”

  “Good.” Taiga spoke in a gentle tone, quieted as he turned towards Mouse. He lulled a small animal in his arms, brown along the slender length of it with a white belly. A weasel burying its face between its paws in the crook of his arm.

  “What should we do with her?” Mouse asked after watching the small thing breathe slowly, asleep.

  “She’ll sleep in our room. We can’t risk the others seeing her before she wakes.”

  Wakes and returns to her human form.

  Mouse swallowed, nodding. An uneasiness bit at him as he watched the small creature. And yet, a part of him desperately wanted to give it a pet, as he did with all small animals. Was it an ability of shifters to lure people to them? Surely not, for they wouldn’t be hunted so relentlessly.

  They returned to their room and Mouse shut the door with a silent click. He locked it, something they rarely did, before helping the cloak off Taiga. Then, Mouse slid his boots off and folded the cloak loosely. He sat it on the table.

  Once Taiga removed his boots and unbuttoned his coat, he slid Azhar in between the layers of the cloak’s fabric. They paused and the fabric rustled a moment. When it silenced, Taiga and Mouse returned to bed and slept the remainder of the night in peace.