Atsylei had grown since the last time Arna had laid eyes on the city. Watchful guards kept vigil on the top of the great fortified walls, eyes pointed in all directions. It stuck out against the empty plains, a metal construct harnessed to the ground, claws dug deep in the cliff with a steel stare over miles around.

They had managed to avoid any patrols in their approach to the city, but now they stood in the cliff’s shadow, just out of sight of the road and the guards above. Neri brushed down her sword with a stained rag, perched on a stone and relishing in the shade the cliff provided.

Arna stood beside her, glaring up accusingly at the city, her hearing keened on the travellers climbing the cliff road and the shuffle of people barely a foot away from where they hid. It was a blind spot, but it wouldn’t be long before someone happened upon them or the sun shifted to reveal them.

The warrior polished her blade, her eyes flicking up to the saber every now and again. Her entire body was shimmering, her breathing laboured, but Arna had yet to transform despite all her attempts.

“We can turn back,” suggested Neri, rummaging in her bag for something. “Or we can disguise you. Big fancy cat companion?” She held up a dark brown hooded cloak, tattered at the sleeves and hems, peppered with ash from her fallen village.

Arna considered the cloak for a moment, ignoring Neri’s half-humoured comment. “It wouldn’t work.” There was only one way she had even a chance of entering the city and that was in the form of a human.

Neri sheathed her sword in one swift motion and laid the cloak across her lap. She trailed her fingers around the edges of the dirty polishing rag, turning it over and over in her hands. “Then we head back.”

Arna huffed. “To where – the inn? You need to go into the city, not hide in the shadows.”

Her hands stopped moving. “What about you then?”

Glowing amber eyes closed, her body stabilising yet still the lines of her silhouette moved in a strange haze. “Go in first,” Arna finally said, resigning herself to the truth. “I’ll follow you when I can.”

It would never be as easy as just willing it to happen – not when she was so out of practice. She had to find that feeling she had so many decades ago, that feeling of being human, the feeling of changing, the feeling of being both things at once. She had grown so accustomed to being a cast-aside, feared creature of the darkness that she had forgotten how it felt to be anything or anyone else. Standing on ceremony, watched by Neri with the danger of soon being found, there was little hope of actually succeeding.

“Are you sure?” The warrior was doubtful. “How will you find me?”

That bit was easy. “I’ll find you.”

Their eyes met. A faint look of loneliness flickered across the woman’s face and it tugged at Arna’s heart. The saber closed the distance between them with sure strides, gently touching the flat forehead of the skull to Neri’s knee. A still moment, then the brush of warm fingers on her neck.

“I’ll find you,” she repeated, softer.

Neri hummed, low and only half-assured. “Okay,” was what she said, gathering her bag and pulling herself up. “I’ll leave the cloak here.”

She folded and placed it on top of the stone, turning away to slip through the dust-coated shrubs that shielded them from the road in a broken line of burning reds and browns against the green grass of the plains. She glanced over her shoulder one last time, eyes lingering on Arna, before her jaw stiffened and she disappeared onto the other side of the bush.

Arna listened as the warrior began the last trek to the city, walking the grassy dirt road up to the gates alongside the other travellers, patrolling guards, and traders. While the number of people was few, it was still more than Arna was comfortable with – more than she had ever willingly approached and stayed so close to.

She picked the cloak up between her fangs and slunk deeper into the shadows, treading along the foot of the cliff, pivoting herself upwards and away. Her claws sunk into the dirt, the soil crumbling and stones ricocheting off the cliff wall as they fell beneath her. She climbed, finding footholds to heave herself higher and higher, yet moving further away from the road as she did to escape any human eyes. If someone was watching the city from a distance, they would easily spot her dark fur against the dull yellow and grey cliff, and the guards above only needed to lean over their metal ramparts and look straight down to catch sight of her.

Soon enough she found what she searched for – a little pocket inside the rock, more a mild sunken crevice than a cave for her to duck into. She pressed her back against the furthest point of the hollow, seeing the open plains as the guards did; a huge vastness with nowhere to hide. She closed her eyes, taking the time to steady her heart and breathing, her muscles aching from the climb.

Arna exhaled slow and deep, trying to listen to the noises above. It was a cacophony of humans, machinery, and animals, the movement of carts and feet, the yells of traders and the tap of patrols against cold steel. She couldn’t focus on a single sound, not from this distance, and she had no clue where Neri was. Had the warrior even entered the city yet?

Arna waited for nightfall to make her next move. The plains were haunting in the starlight, so open and empty beneath the life of the sky. The city above was quieter, but she still couldn’t pinpoint the warrior’s location. She had said she would enter Atsylei with Neri, but she still could turn back. She could leave and never meet the woman again, but just the mere thought filled her with guilt and the adamant feeling of loneliness. She wanted to stay with Neri, and to do that she had to retrieve the ability to shapeshift.

Damn it.

Arna resumed the climb, cloak hanging from her mouth, and pulled her body over the edge. Her chest heaved with the effort and her eyes trailed upwards. The city gates were in view and so was she. It was now or never.

The cloak dropped, ash-marked and burnt, frayed cloth flowing in the night air, and she let Neri’s distinct scent carried on the heaviness of charred wood and stone overwhelm her.

“Please, I have a pass!” a woman cried.

“Ma’am, step away,” a guard warned.

“Please,” the woman begged, her voice shrill and high with desperation. “Please, my son is inside! J-just speak to him!”

“Ma’am, we cannot allow the sick into the city,” the guard said, his tone solemn yet firm. “Please leave.”

The other guard sighed and the barrel of a rifle glinted in a lantern’s flame, head turning and stopping on Arna’s figure. “Hey, you there!”

Now or never.