"These marks represent the pack," he explained, drawing a circle with seven points. "Even though we're separated from them, the blood connection remains. I'm calling on that bond, asking my ancestors to watch over you both."
Next came the snake skin, which he burned in a small fire he'd built. As it curled and blackened, releasing a sweet, acrid smoke, he wafted it over Jasmine's body while speaking in a language she'd never heard him use before. It was guttural, primal, the words seeming to resonate from deep in his chest rather than his throat.
"What are you saying?" she whispered.
"The old tongue. Wolf speech. I'm telling them—my ancestors, the spirits that protect shifter bloodlines—that this child is mine. That she belongs to our line. That anyone who seeks to harm her must go through every wolf who came before me." His eyes flashed gold as he spoke, his wolf fully present in the words.
The feathers came last. He placed them at four points around where Jasmine sat: north, south, east, west.
"Birds see from above. They know what approaches before it reaches us. These will give us warning."
He paused, then reached for the small knife at his belt. Before Jasmine could ask what he was doing, he drew it across his palm, blood welling immediately. He did the same to her hand—she barely felt the sting—and pressed their bleeding palms together over her belly.
"My blood. Your blood. Her blood. Three made one. Bound by oath and ancestry." His voice grew stronger, more commanding. "I, Althander of the Silver Ridge Clan, son of Garrett, grandson of Moira the Wise, claim this child as my own. I bind my protection to her. My life for hers. My strength for hers. Any who would take her must first take me."
The blood between their palms grew hot—impossibly hot—and Jasmine cried out. But Althander held firm, his eyes closed, sweat beading on his forehead from the effort of maintaining the ritual.
Then, suddenly, it was done. He released her hand and staggered backward, breathing hard.
The paste on Jasmine's belly had hardened into something that looked like clay but felt smooth as glass. The symbols glowed faintly silver for a moment before fading to match her skin tone, still visible but subtle.
"It won't stop them," Althander said, his voice exhausted. "But it will make her harder to track. Harder to detect. The marks will confuse scrying magic, make her energy signature blend with yours and mine." He looked at her with desperate hope. "It might buy us time."
Jasmine touched the marks gently. They hummed under her fingers with a warmth that felt like safety, like being wrapped in protective arms.
"Thank you," she whispered.
That night, when the lights appeared on the horizon again, they flickered—uncertain, searching. As if they'd lost the clear signal they'd been following.
The ritual had worked.
But Sophia, watching from her vantage point outside time, could see what her parents couldn't: the lights were adjusting, adapting, spreading wider across the sea. Whatever was coming had lost the trail temporarily.
It was only a matter of time before they picked it up again.
Sophia was so absorbed in watching her parents' desperate preparations that she almost missed it—the sharp intake of breath behind her. The goddess. The being who had shown nothing but serene omniscience since bringing her here had just... gasped.
She whirled around, or whatever passed for whirling in her incorporeal state. "What? What is it?"
But the goddess wasn't looking at her. Those vast, unknowable eyes were fixed on the ritual Althander had just completed, specifically on Jasmine's belly where the symbols glowed silver.
"Those marks..." The goddess's voice, usually so steady and multi-layered, wavered. Just slightly. Just enough that Sophia noticed.
"What about them? He said they'd hide her—hide me—from whoever's coming."
The goddess's form flickered, like a candle flame disturbed by wind. It was the first sign of instability Sophia had witnessed from this being. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost... personal.
"I know those marks."
Sophia's heart—if she still had one in this state—stuttered. "You... what?"
"The Warding of Blood and Breath. It's older than you know. Older than shifters themselves." The goddess moved closer to the scene, her massive presence somehow contracting, becoming more focused. "That ritual... it was first performed by my—"
She stopped abruptly. Sophia waited, but the goddess didn't continue.
"By your what?" Sophia pressed. "Who taught the shifters that ritual?"
Silence. But Sophia noticed the way the goddess's eyes tracked Althander's movements with something that looked almost like... recognition. No, not recognition. Familiarity. The way you might watch a beloved grandchild unknowingly repeat a gesture you'd taught their parent decades ago.