Two words. Soft. The beast's gaze dropped to Elias with a reverence that made Mara's stomach turn and her throat close at once. Reverence was for altars and kings. Not for her child in a borrowed blanket on a gray afternoon.
"What do you want?" she whispered.
He leaned closer. The fence creaked. His breath smelled of pine resin and rain. He extended one clawed hand—slowly, palm open, the way you show a nervous horse you mean no strike—and reached toward the baby.
"Just let him decide."
Mara almost drove the pitchfork forward. The tines trembled an inch from his fur. She could smell the animal heat of him. She could see, under the beard, the line of a mouth that had once known how to smile without terrifying anyone.
Elias reached out.
Fearlessly. As if the claw were a finger, as if the giant were a neighbor leaning over a cradle. His tiny hand—still wrinkled at the wrist, still new—found the tip of the beast's claw and touched it.
Light.
It burst orange-gold, radiant, not fire and not sunlight but something between: the color of harvest when the wheat is late and the barns are full; the color of a forge when the smith has done good work. It poured from the place where skin met claw, climbed Elias's arm in soft ribbons, spilled across Mara's shawl, and washed the beast's face until his human eyes shone like coins held to a candle.
Mara gasped.
The beast made a sound that was almost a word and almost a prayer.
"Oh."