‘Child, I must go and help rouse the warriors.’ The woman’s face was just a few centimetres from her own and Liska noticed her pupils were slitted, like a cat’s. ‘Will you be alright if I leave you?’

Liska managed a nod and a groan. Her head was still spinning, and each muscle in her body burned like lava, but she didn’t care about herself. She wanted every shapewalker in the Breach to swarm down to the valley below. Now.

‘You did well, little sister,’ said the woman, leaning Liska against the cold stone parapet and briefly clasping her forearm in the greeting of warrior comrades. ‘Selka of the pantherines is proud of you.’

Liska didn’t know what to say. A warrior like Selka . . . praising her? Her mouth opened and closed a few times, like a fish gasping for air. Selka just smiled, then stood up and drew her own cloak around her, melting into her beast shape more swiftly and elegantly than any walker Liska had seen.

In a blink, a black-furred panther stood there, almost buzzing with power and strength. Dozens of glowing blue stripes covered her two front legs. From her back, a pair of eagle wings quivered. She stretched them out, revealing a span at least three times that of Liska’s.

The pantherine threw back her head and thundered out a roar that thrummed through the stones around them. With a lash of her tail she pounced up and over Liska, swooping off the battlements and up towards the bulk of the ruined fort, sending a wash of air that blew Liska flat on to her face.

She turned her head to watch the pantherine go and saw, behind Selka, a plume of flame burst up from the tower’s summit.

The signal fire is lit, she thought. I did it. Mother might finally be proud.

*

As Liska waited for her head to stop spinning, noise erupted from the fort around her. She heard the clanging of alarm bells, roars and crows from shifted shapewalkers, the flapping of leathery wings . . .

Pulling herself up to peer over the battlements, she saw scores of flying creatures pouring from every landing platform, spilling from windows, leaping off turrets. Cockatrices, pantherines, griffins . . . even a lamassu. Each and every one tucked their wings as soon as they were airborne and dived straight down, vanishing into the layer of mist that spread out from the mountain top.

Liska strained her ears, trying to pick up the clash of battle from below. But human hearing was so weak and useless. All she could make out were war cries and the crowing of the cockatrices.

Got to get down there, she told herself. See if I can help.