Relaxing, feeling the air tickle through her pin feathers, Liska looked up from the spread of flowing leaves below, staring out towards the ring of granite mountains that surrounded Arborven.

They were crowned by a halo of thick white mist, but she knew there was a world out there. Beyond.

A scary one though.

The Blasted Waste to the north, packed with fire-breathing wyverns who liked to snack on flame-grilled humans for breakfast. The Poxpunk tribes to the east, with their smoke-choked cities of metal and junk. And to the west . . .

. . . she didn’t want to think about that.

Instead, her eye caught the silhouettes of more shapewalkers out flying patrols along the mountain ranges. Warriors wearing the form of long-dead beasts. Her people.

She could just about make out the shape of the Noon Fort, nestled on the northern wall. That was where she and her family lived, along with the other griffyxes and the manticores. There was a squad of these doing manoeuvres in the distance: lion manes flowing and eagle wings soaring, with those brutal scorpion tails trailing behind.

Root-chewing manticores, Liska cursed. Always thinking they’re better than us griffyxes. Just because they’re five times our size.

She turned her head away, looking off to the right where some other shapewalkers – these ones from the Stormfort to the east – circled way up above. She could see the curved beaks of griffins, with their clawed paws and cats’ tails. And was that a peryton amongst them – a winged deer with a grand spread of antlers?

All these creatures must once have been as common here as the foxes and squirrels. Liska tried to imagine the valley as it was then, packed with roaring beasts. Wild ones that weren’t just humans wearing their forgotten shapes.

At least the Undrentree remembers them, she thought. The sacred tree had changed the furs and skins that the first shapewalkers brought to it, so the legend went, turning them into copies of the mythical beasts that once filled the skies. And then the skins were handed down through the families, given to the youngest when they were ready for their bonding ceremony.

Seems such a long time ago now. Liska cast her mind back to when she had received her skin, after her ceremonial bath in oil from the tree. How the magic had sung through every pore in her body. How the cloak she wore became a part of her. A second skin, another piece of—

‘Watch it, Liska!’ her mother shouted back to her. Daydreaming once more, she had drifted off course, heading out over the west of the city instead of around towards the towering bulk of the Undrentree.