Calder couldn’t explain what was happening within him. His bear growled and snarled like a beast in chains. Calder remembered seeing a bear like that once, long ago. A traveling band of entertainers had been going through the village Calder lived in with his family.

The travelers had a captive bear they used for entertainment. It was easy to see that said amusement was based on the cruelty they exhibited on the bear to make it appear fierce to the audience. The bear’s body and face were covered in scars and burnt tissue.

Calder had seen twelve summers, maybe thirteen when he first caught glimpse of the bear. He’d complained to his father, telling the older man that he wanted to save the bear, to release it from bondage.

His father had scolded him and reminded him that they did not interfere in the goings-on of humans. That the bear was not a shifter, nor was it human. It was merely a beast. This answer did not satisfy Calder, who against his father’s orders, in the still of the night with the snow falling, slipped out of the warmth of his bed and the security of his father’s cabin, into the cold night.

Finding his way in the dark, his shifter vision enabling him to see clearly even on this moonless night, Calder found the bear. The creature was hungry and miserable, and Calder’s heart broke to witness this.

A large padlock served as the obstacle that would allow him to remove the chain that held the bear prisoner in a cell too small for the beast to even stand in.

A key. That’s what Calder needed. A key to free the bear.

“I’ll be back,” he whispered to the bear, who seemed to understand that Calder was not the foe, and watched the young human with curious dark eyes.

Calder expected to hunt a key, to have to pilfer through possessions and tents. What he did not anticipate was that he would actually spy the large brass key hanging from a wooden peg driven into a post nearby.

It almost would have felt like a trap, finding the key so easily. Calder slunk into the shadows, not retrieving the key until he was certain it wasn’t a trap. That someone wasn’t waiting for another to reach for the key.

Then again, why would they? And why would they want to keep the key hidden? There was no reason for that. It wasn’t as if the bear could get out of the cell and retrieve it, or even have the manual dexterity to use it.

Calder wondered if perhaps his paranoia had gone too far. He rushed toward the key, slipped it off the peg and was in front of the bear in seconds.

“Here we go.” He unlocked the chain and beckoned the bear forward.

The bear snuffled and studied Calder for what seemed like an eternity while it made up its mind.

Then, taking one ambling step after another, the bear made its way out of the cell, tentatively, as though not believing it actually could leave the iron bars behind.

“Come on,” Calder whispered. “We need to get you out of here.”

And get him out of there, Calder did. They made their way toward the forested area that bordered on the town, and then Calder led the way into the depths of the shadows, where he shifted into his bear.

Together, Calder and the bear explored the forest, taking down a deer, enjoying the fresh warm meat in the icy temperatures of that far northern climate.

For three days, Calder led the bear farther and farther away from humanity and the dangers that people brought to his kind.

Finally, mission accomplished, the bear free, and Calder’s heart at peace, the boy made it home.

Sadly, what awaited Calder was a whipping at a post not unlike the one that held the key.

His father’s hand was heavy as he laid the leather straps into his son’s back until blood was drawn.

“You do not disobey me,” his father had said.

“How did you know?” Calder said between unshed tears. He’d refused to let the tears flow. “How did you know I was—what I did?”

For it was not unusual for Calder and his brother to occasionally vanish on hunting trips—together or separately—and return days later. Their father had never been concerned before, as bear shifters, they were perfectly capable of caring for themselves.

His father’s smile was grim. “I can smell the bear on you.”

And so, the bear he’d saved had inadvertently betrayed Calder. But neither Calder, nor his bear, had regretted the act they’d committed in saving the other animal.

It was that other bear’s confinement that brought Calder’s circumstance to his mind. His bear was as captive in Calder’s mind as that bear had been in its cell.

What is happening to me?

Calder knew it had something to do with witchcraft. What else could it be? What else could make all the men in his clan have the same symptoms? Were the men alive? Was Halvar? Or Gunnar, Torsten?

Calder had to get to them. To help them, but at the moment, he couldn’t move. His bear was chained within his mind, but something had paralyzed his legs. He couldn’t feel them. How did that happen? When? Was it related to his bear? He opened his eyes, and found himself encased in darkness so dark as to be midnight black.

What is this?

Even in solid darkness, he could see because of his shifter vision. Why could he see nothing now?

He raised his arms—at least he could do that—and rubbed his eyes. Still the same darkness persisted.

Have I gone blind? Permanently?

It was with these thoughts that Calder’s mind was plagued when the same darkens took him into a state of unconsciousness, his bear taking him into a shared blackness.