Weeks passed, and while I was absent from the village. Whispers filled the silence I left behind.
A few members of the Bird Clan claimed they had seen something unnatural cutting across the high passes they flew over. Tracks, they said, wide enough for a man to sit inside. Paw prints that spoke of a beast far larger than any tiger should be.
The stories spread fast, growing in the telling. By the time the scouts convinced others to join them in investigating, half the village was murmuring about a monster roaming the peaks.
But when the group finally reached the place, the trail told a different story. The prints were there, yes—broad, heavy, impressive—but not the impossible marks that had been described. Still large, still unsettling, but within the limits of reason. Far from the beast the Bird Clan had painted with their words.
And yet, doubt lingered. For some, the ordinary explanation wasn't enough. The Fox clan members were abnormally quiet, as was the Tribal leader.
I had found the perfect training environment. I had gotten so lost in my Tiger shift that I had only made one phone call to Edythe and Bella, respectively. Edythe was counting the days of our separation. She said the school in Ithica was even more boring than ever before. With only her and Alice going, it was a challenge to stay under the radar.
With the whole family in school, there was a buffer that only numbers can provide. Edward still refused to do anything more than lock himself away unless he heard a new rumor concerning Victoria. So that left Alice and Edythe to fend off the hormonal teens without drawing more attention than normal. We were both looking forward to reuniting once I was done here.
Bella sounded better, more animated than I had heard since Edward left. Like she finally found something to work towards. She even started hanging out with Jacob, but she wouldn't tell me what they were doing. I didn't push too hard, just happy she was back to a semblance of the stubborn girl I knew.
My stomach rumbled as I sat patiently overlooking a recently used trail. I was hoping to take a sheep, but hunting was no easy thing, ending in failure more often than not. The first couple of weeks, I starved more than I ate. My sheer size spooked off any herds long before I got close.
Patience became survival. Hours of stillness, breath held, muscles trembling. But the waiting gave me time to work on the real challenge, my shifting.
I had thought of it as a dial: twist it to transform, twist the opposite way to return. But when I tested twisting the dial back from full shift, something unexpected happened. At about three-quarters, my body collapsed into a normal-sized tiger. Not the giant beast, not the half-shifted form I had been chasing, but a fourth shape entirely.
That was why I kept overshooting the half-shift. My forms weren't like the Tribe's three. Mine were four: strengthened human, half-shift, normal tiger… and the Dire Tiger.
The discovery answered one question but raised more. I could hold the half-shift for a minute at best, teeth gritted, concentration razor thin. Any slip, and I'd tumble straight past it into the next form — or snap back to human strength.
It was progress. But it was also a reminder of how much further I still had to go.
My stomach rumbled again as I crouched above the trail, the scent of sheep still lingering faintly on the wind. I'd been waiting for hours, every muscle coiled, the perfect ambush set.
Then came the wrong sound.
Not hooves. Not bleating. But voices.
I flicked an ear, nostrils flaring. A moment later, I caught them on the wind, familiar scents. Clan members.
A patrol rounded a bend below me, three figures making their way up the pass. Two from the Horse Clan by their gait, one from the Bird Clan with feathers braided into his hair. Their talk carried easily over the snow, calm, unhurried, the kind of tone that told me this was a routine check, nothing more.
I let out a silent sigh, shoulders sagging. The herd would be gone now. Sheep didn't linger when voices carried across the ridges. My stomach voiced its complaint with another growl.
The patrol paused briefly where I'd passed earlier, one of them crouching to brush snow away from a half-melted paw print.
"Tiger," the Bird Clansman said, his tone flat.
"Big one," one of the Horse men agreed, glancing around out of habit. But there was no edge of alarm in his voice, just acknowledgment. A note for the day's report.
After a short exchange, they moved on, their conversation fading into the distance.
Only then did I stand, snow sliding from my fur in sheets. My tail lashed once in frustration. Not at them, they were just doing their job, but at the lost meal. Hours of waiting, gone in a heartbeat.
I padded down the ridge, nose low, testing the air. No sheep. No chance today.
Training, patience, control — that was what I had come out here for. But training on an empty stomach was its own kind of lesson.
It had been about a month of training on my own, and I felt it was time to return to the village. This training built the foundation that I could build on, it would just take some time and practice.
I made my way back to the spot I had found at the beginning of this training and pulled out my pack, carrying it in my mouth, I made my way toward the village, deciding to stay in my tiger shift until I was closer so the trip would be easier.
About a mile out from the village, I shifted back and, taking the clothes from my pack, got dressed. The clothes felt a little weird, hell even walking on two feet felt weird. But I got used to it by the time I entered the gate.
I wasn't really surprised that Rohan was waiting for me, more curious than anything.
"How did you know I was coming?"
Rohan just pointed up, and I saw what had to be a vulture of some kind, judging from the size of it. "Nothing gets close without us knowing."
I just shrugged my shoulders, "Well, I am back and rather hungry. Let me get some food, and we can talk at the hut."
Rohan just fell in step beside me, "How did the training go? You get to your half-Transformed state yet?"
"I did, but holding it is another matter. Just standing still requires all my effort to keep it for a minute. No way I can fight with it yet. But I am happy with where I am in my training for now."
We reached the village square, the familiar scents of cooking fires and stone mixing in the cold late February air. For the first time in weeks, the buzz of people pressed around me, voices, footsteps, the low rhythm of daily life. After the silence of the mountains, it felt almost overwhelming.
I collected food from one of the cooking fires and made my way towards the hut. Once we were out of the crowd, Rohan spoke again.
"There were some interesting rumors just after you left, which had the village in quite a stir. Some Bird Clan members came back from a patrol with stories about huge tracks that resembled tiger paw prints if you discounted the size of them. But then they stopped appearing, no one found more than regular tracks."
Knowing what he was asking, I had no problem telling him. Honestly, I didn't think it mattered much.
"Yeah, I found a new shift for myself. Same tiger as always, just normal size. It was the reason I have been having so much trouble gauging how much fire to pull in to get my half shift form."
Rohan's brows lifted ever so slightly. "Four shapes instead of three."
I nodded. "Human, half-shift, normal tiger, and the big one. The Dire Tiger. Makes things more complicated… but maybe also more useful. I think I am about done with my training, with the politics here trying to tie me down, it may be best for me to start thinking about heading home."
Rohan fell silent until we got to the hut of my grandmother. "I will see you in the morning, Thomas. I guarantee that Dorje will be looking for you, and I doubt Hu Mei will be far behind. Sleep well and think deeply about what leaving here could mean for you."
I entered the hut and ate my food before crashing out on the bed. Tomorrow would bring tomorrow's problems. Tonight I just wanted a good night's sleep.