I tested the spear in its back, jostling its wound. Again, there was no reaction.

It was definitely dead.

I crouched beside it and had begun to untie my pouch when suddenly its horns softened and melted into a river that flowed past its head, puddling like an oil slick on blood.

I snatched my pouch from its matted hair.

The shape of its head began to change.

Webs and talons vanished.

Matted locks became hair.

I stumbled backward, shaking my head. “No,” I said.

It continued to change. Slate-gray skin lightened.

“No,” I insisted.

My denial had no effect. It continued to transform. Height diminished. Mass decreased. It became what it was.

What it had been all along.

I began to hyperventilate. Squatting, I rocked back and forth in a posture of grief as old as time.

“No!” I screamed.

I’d thought I’d lost everything.

I hadn’t.

I stared at the person who lay dead on the floor of the forest.

The person I’d helped kill.

Now I’d lost everything.