Chapter 1: The Flower and The Flame
The world tilted.
One moment Hel was falling through a cold that wasn't cold, a dark that wasn't dark, a silence that roared with the voices of everyone she'd ever failed. The next, the ground rose up to meet her—not hard, not punishing, but soft. impossibly soft.
She landed on her back in a bed of moss so thick it cradled her like cupped hands. The air rushed out of her lungs in a single startled breath, and then she just lay there, staring up at a canopy of green so far above her that it might have been another sky entirely.
Her fingers twitched against the ground. Something brushed her knuckles. Something small and insistent and alive.
Hel turned her head slowly, her dark hair fanning out across the moss like spilled ink. A flower was unfurling beneath her hand. Not just any flower—a tiny thing with petals the color of pale butter, edged in a whisper of violet. It hadn't been there a moment ago. She was almost certain of that.
She watched, breath held, as another petal curled open. Then another.
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, quiet and surprised. She pressed her palm flat against the moss, and more flowers pushed through the soil—tiny white star-shaped blooms, a cluster of blue bells that chimed silently in some invisible breeze, a single red poppy that unfurled its papery petals with a soft, almost imperceptible pop.
This was impossible.
This was wonderful.
She forgot about the cold. She forgot about the dark. She forgot about the voices, the wand that had snapped in her hand, the faces of people she'd once called friends as they'd pushed her toward that stone arch and the whispering veil.
She forgot about the four men who'd tumbled through after her.
Her fingers traced the delicate veins of a leaf that spiraled up from the moss, following its pattern with her eyes until the world narrowed to just this—the way the light filtered through the canopy and turned the green translucent, the way tiny hairs on the stem caught the sun and glowed like spun glass, the way a beetle with a shell like polished obsidian was making its slow, determined way up the leaf's edge.
She watched the beetle. The beetle watched her. Or it didn't. It didn't have eyes that worked that way, but she liked to imagine it did.
The moss was cool against her back. The flowers were warm beneath her fingers. She was alive. She was alive, and she was growing things, and nothing else in the entire world mattered except this exact moment and the beetle and the way the light was shifting through the leaves, turning gold at the edges, and—
Something massive shifted in the underbrush.
Hel didn't notice.
The beetle had reached the top of the leaf and was contemplating its next move with what she could only describe as profound insect dignity.
A shadow moved between the trees. Low to the ground. Long. Powerfully built. The kind of shadow that made the smaller shadows scatter.
Hel traced the spiral of another leaf. This one had a tiny hole in it, perfectly round, the edges browned and curled. Had something eaten through it? What kind of insect made holes like that? She'd read about leafcutter bees in third year, but those cuts were usually more oval. This was too round. Too deliberate.
She tilted her head, peering closer.
The tiger emerged from the underbrush without a sound.
It was enormous. Its coat was the color of autumn—deep orange and gold and cream, slashed through with black stripes that seemed to drink the light. Its paws were the size of dinner plates. Its shoulders were broad, its head large and heavy, its golden eyes fixed on the small figure lying in the moss like she was the most fascinating thing in the forest.
It padded closer. Slow. Deliberate. Each step placed with the precision of a predator who knew exactly how much noise it wasn't making.
Hel noticed nothing.
The beetle had turned around. It was going back down the leaf now, moving with the same careful deliberation. She wondered if it had forgotten something. Did beetles forget things? Could they? What would it be like to live in a world so small that a single leaf was a mountain, a single drop of dew an ocean—
The tiger's nose touched her shoulder.
Hel startled so hard she yelped, a high, sharp sound that was half scream and half surprised squeak. She scrambled backward, hands slipping on the moss, flowers crushing beneath her palms—and then the tiger was nudging her again, its massive head butting against her side with a force that sent her tumbling onto her back.
She landed in the flowers again. Staring up at the tiger.
It loomed over her, blocking the sky. Its breath was warm and smelled faintly of meat. Its eyes were golden, intelligent, curious. It cocked its huge head to one side and made a sound—not a growl, not quite. Something softer. Almost like a question.
Hel's heart was trying to climb out of her throat. Her entire body had gone rigid, every muscle locked, every instinct screaming at her to run, to fight, to do something—but there was nowhere to run. There was nothing to fight with. And the tiger wasn't attacking her. It was just... looking at her.
She couldn't look away. Couldn't make herself look away.
The tiger's eyes were beautiful. Terrible and beautiful, gold as sunlight, with pupils that dilated slightly as it watched her. There was something familiar in that gaze. Something that itched at the back of her mind, like a word on the tip of her tongue, like a dream half-remembered.
"You're not going to eat me," she whispered.
It wasn't a question. She didn't know why she said it. She didn't know why she believed it.
The tiger's ears flicked forward. It huffed, a low sound that vibrated through the air between them, and then it sat back on its massive haunches, tail curling around its paws.
It was enormous. Absolutely enormous. Even sitting, it was taller than her. Its head was level with her chest. If it wanted to, it could probably swallow her whole without bothering to chew.
She should be terrified. She was terrified. But somewhere beneath the terror was something else—a strange, quiet certainty that settled over her like a blanket. He wouldn't hurt her.
He.
Yes. He. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. This tiger was a he.
Hel pushed herself slowly back onto her elbows, then her hands, then her knees. The tiger watched her every movement with those golden eyes. She stopped when she was sitting, her legs folded beneath her, her hands resting on her thighs, and met his gaze.
His eyes. Hmm.
She should probably be running. She should definitely be running. Instead, she reached out one trembling hand.
The tiger went very still.
Her fingers brushed the fur of his cheek. It was coarser than she'd expected, thick and warm, and she could feel the rumble of something deep in his chest. A purr? Was he purring?
"You're very big," she said.
His eyes crinkled. It wasn't a smile—tigers couldn't smile—but it was something close. Something almost amused.
"Rabastan!"
The shout came from somewhere behind them, sharp and commanding. The tiger's ears flattened against his head.
The rustle of underbrush. Footsteps. Heavy, hurried.
"Rabastan, where the bloody hell—"
The voice stopped. The footsteps stopped.
Hel turned, her hand still resting on the tiger's cheek, and found herself staring at a man.
He was tall. Taller than anyone she'd ever seen. His shoulders were impossibly broad, his chest impossibly wide, his arms the size of tree trunks. His hair was pale blond, almost white, and his face was rugged and hard-jawed. His eyes were pale blue, almost gray, and they were fixed on her with an expression she couldn't quite read.
"Bloody hell," Thorfinn Rowle said slowly. "Wotcher, girl. That's a tiger."
She blinked at him.
"Yeah," she said.
The understatement hung in the air between them, so inadequate it was almost funny.
The tiger made a sound. Not quite a growl. More like a laugh.
Thorfinn's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "Are you petting him?"
"Yes."
"He's Rabastan."
"I know."
She didn't know how she knew. She just did.
The tiger—Rabastan—leaned into her touch, butting his head against her palm like an oversized housecat. She heard herself laugh, a small, surprised sound, and the tension in her shoulders eased without her permission.
Thorfinn's frown deepened. He started forward, one hand outstretched, his massive frame moving through the underbrush like a goddamn landslide.
"Girl, you should step away from him. He's—we're—"
"Dangerous?" She tilted her head, still stroking the tiger's cheek. "Maybe. But he hasn't hurt me."
"Rabastan, what are you doing?" Another voice. Sharper. Colder. "You're frightening the poor thing."
Two more men emerged from the trees.
Rodolphus Lestrange was exactly as she remembered him—tall, dark-haired, angular, commanding. He moved like a general, each step measured, each glance cataloging, calculating. His eyes swept over her once and dismissed her as a threat.
His brother, though.
His brother was watching her like she was a puzzle he couldn't solve.
Rabastan Lestrange had dark hair like his brother, but it fell in loose waves around a face that was somehow softer and harsher at the same time. His jaw was sharp, his cheekbones high, his mouth full. His eyes were the same gold as the tiger's, and they were fixed on her with an intensity that made her feel like she was being examined from the inside out.
He was also, she noticed, completely and unselfconsciously naked.
The tiger had disappeared. In its place was this man, tall and lean and muscled, with a body that had been honed by something more than wizardry, and he was looking at her like she was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him.
His eyes found hers. A knowing look crossed his handsome features, then he transformed.
She yelped, covering her eyes. "Clothes!"
Rabastan looked down at himself, then back at her. One eyebrow arched.
Thorfinn barked out a laugh. "She's got you there, mate."
Rodolphus said nothing, but something tugging at the corner of his mouth was almost a smile.
"I'll find something," Rabastan said, his voice low and rough from disuse. He stepped back, fading into the shadows of the trees.
Hel kept her hands pressed firmly over her eyes, but her fingers had parted just slightly. Just a crack. Just enough to see the way he moved—fluid and silent and predatory even in human form. Just enough to watch him disappear.
She knew she should be afraid. She knew she should be running. She knew that these were Death Eaters, that they had done terrible things, that they had served a madman who had tried to kill her and everyone like her.
But she also knew that the tiger hadn't hurt her. That the man had looked at her with curiosity, not malice.
For now, that was enough.