CHAPTER 12

The air outside the trial tent felt heavier than the forest before a storm.

It hummed with ancient magic, low, pulsing, like a heartbeat buried deep in the earth. The ground beneath Aria’s bare feet felt warm, not from the sun, but from something older, something watching.

Waiting.

The entire camp had gathered in near silence.

No shouting.

No mocking jeers like before.

Just eyes.

Tense. Expectant. Some afraid.

As Aria stepped into the ring at the center of the camp, she felt the weight of every stare sink into her bones like frost.

They knew this wasn’t like the last trial.

This one could break her.

Kael stood on the edge, arms folded across his chest, face unreadable. But his eyes… gods, his eyes tracked her every step like he was preparing to lose something precious.

Maela stood nearby too, her mouth a hard line, her knuckles pale as she gripped the staff she never walked without. Nessa peeked around her leg, chewing her bottom lip, the tiny wolf carving pressed tightly to her chest.

The air shifted.

Then the elder entered the circle.

Elder Corwin, old as the stars, with eyes that had watched empires fall and wolves be born from ash. His skin was like bark, cracked and dark, and his robes shimmered with threads of copper and bone.

He said nothing as he approached.

Just raised one gnarled hand and touched Aria’s brow.

A single word whispered through the air: “Begin.”

The world fell away.

Darkness swallowed her.

But not the cold kind.

It was hot. Suffocating. Alive.

Aria blinked, but her body didn’t move. She wasn’t standing anymore.

She was… somewhere else.

The scent of blood hit her first.

Then the sound of soft sobbing. Wet. Choked.

She turned, or thought she did and found herself in a dim room.

Stone walls. Candles flickering low. And a man kneeling in the center of it, trembling hands covered in crimson.

Her father.

Beta Dorian.

His wolf eyes, silver threaded with steel met hers.

Not with recognition.

But with grief.

So much grief it made her chest ache.

“Why?” he whispered. “Why did I do it?”

Aria’s voice caught in her throat.

This wasn’t real.

This was an illusion.

But it felt real.

There was something in his lap.

A body.

Burned.

Unmoving.

She couldn’t see the face.

She didn’t want to.

Dorian looked up again, tears streaking down his ash-smudged cheeks. “I tried to protect her. I tried to stop him.”

He pressed his bloody hands to his chest. “But the prophecy said she'd fall… and I let it happen.”

The room began to shake.

Aria screamed, but there was no sound.

The floor cracked.

The air turned to smoke.

Then silence.

She gasped awake… no, not awake, she was still in the illusion.

But now it was… different.

A small clearing in the woods. Summer dusk. The sky a soft watercolor of lavender and peach.

And there, under a willow tree.

Kael.

But not Kael as she knew him.

He was younger. No scars. No tattoos. Just a boy, maybe thirteen, with wild black curls and fire in his eyes, holding a dagger with shaky hands.

Before him knelt another boy.

Blond. Bloody. Crying.

“You said we’d run together,” Kael said, voice cracking. “You said you’d choose me.”

The blond boy lifted his head.

Rhys.

Aria’s heart twisted.

“I did,” Rhys said. “But not over them. I’m sorry, Kael.”

“You lied.”

Rhys sobbed. “They’ll kill me if I help you, if they know…”

“Then I’ll kill them first.”

The blade flashed forward.

Aria shouted, lunged, but she couldn’t move.

She was a ghost here.

A witness.

The dagger stopped mid-air.

Kael froze.

Then he dropped it, trembling.

“I won’t be like them,” he whispered.

He turned away from Rhys and looked out, right at Aria.

As if he saw her.

Older now. Changed.

“You saw this, didn’t you?” he whispered. “You’ve always been watching.”

Aria stepped back.

The vision shattered like glass.

Pain lanced through her skull.

She fell.

Hard.

The illusion broke, and she slammed back into her body, sprawled in the center of the circle.

Gasps echoed around her.

Aria blinked, every bone screaming. Her skin burned like she’d stood too close to a bonfire.

Maela was suddenly there, kneeling beside her, hands pressed gently to her cheeks.

“Easy, child.”

Aria tried to speak.

Only ash came out.

The elder stepped forward, raising both hands.

The camp silenced.

“She walked through memory,” Corwin said, voice thunderous. “Through blood and betrayal and pain.”

He looked down at her with eyes like molten silver.

“She did not break.”

Then his voice dropped lower, like it wasn’t for the camp anymore, but for the stars themselves.

“She is marked by the prophecy.”

The camp erupted.

Not with cheers.

Not with jeers.

But with terrified murmuring.

People backing away. Others stepped forward, unsure.

Aria couldn’t hear them.

Couldn’t see clearly.

Only Kael.

He knelt before her, brushing the sweat-matted hair from her brow. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

His face was open, raw.

She clung to his voice like rope in the dark.

“I saw you,” she rasped. “As a boy. With Rhys.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed with something between fear and anger.

“That wasn’t meant for you.”

“But I saw it.”

“I told you,” he said, voice rough. “This would burn.”

She gripped his wrist. “What did you do, Kael?”

He looked away.

And in that silence… she had her answer.

.

.

.

The fire in her bones didn’t dim after the elder’s declaration.

If anything, it burned brighter, fiercer, more wild.

Aria sat on the edge of the healer’s tent, hands trembling, eyes locked on the scarred fabric of the canvas before her. Her fingers twitched as if still clinging to something unseen. The visions clung to her like smoke.

Her father’s blood.

Kael as a boy with eyes too old for his face.

The words: She is marked by the prophecy.

It echoed through her skull, louder than her heartbeat.

Outside, the rogue camp pulsed like a wounded animal. People whispered when she passed now. Some eyes softened in awe. Others sharpened in suspicion.

She couldn’t blame them. Hell, she didn’t even know what the prophecy meant yet.

But they did. The elders. Kael.

And no one was telling her.

“Aria,” Maela’s voice was gentle as she placed a cup in her hand. “Drink this.”

The scent of herbs and honey hit her nose. Aria took a sip and grimaced. “This tastes like boiled bark.”

Maela chuckled. “Good. That means it’s working.”

The healer crouched beside her, tucking a strand of hair behind Aria’s ear. There was something motherly in her hands, rough and tired, but safe. It almost broke Aria again.

“You should rest,” Maela said.

“I can’t.” Her voice cracked. “If I sleep, I’ll see more.”

Maela didn’t argue. She simply stood and drew the tent flap closed, casting the space in golden dusk. “Then let the fire keep you awake. But don’t let it eat you alive.”

She left her alone with the cup and her thoughts.

And the silence pressed in again.

Until it didn’t.

A shadow moved at the entrance.

Kael.

He didn’t knock. Didn’t ask.

He stepped in with the storm still in his eyes and something like regret weighing down his shoulders.

“You need to be ready for the third trial,” he said.

Aria snorted softly. “Are we pretending I just passed a stroll in the woods?”

His jaw ticked. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

She raised her eyes to his. “And you’re still hiding something.”

A long pause.

Then, with a quiet sigh, Kael sat across from her on the woven mat. Close, but not too close.

He looked tired.

No hollowed.

As if holding back too much for too long.

“I wasn’t meant to lead,” he said at last. “I was meant to die.”

The confession landed like a stone between them.

Aria blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“My family was marked for execution by the Council,” he said. “I was supposed to be the example. The warning.”

Her breath caught.

“But your mother,” he continued, voice rougher now, “she broke ranks. She came for me. Said she’d make them pay. And she did.”

Aria’s world spun slightly.

Kael kept going, as if the words were pouring from a cracked dam.

“She burned half a village. Killed two Silverpine nobles. And then... she left. Disappeared. And with her went everything I knew. I survived, but I wasn’t the boy she saved. I was just... what was left.”

Silence stretched.

Aria stared at him, heart aching with questions too sharp to ask.

“She was my friend,” he added quietly. “My protector. And maybe I wanted her to be more. I was just a kid. I didn’t understand what I felt.”

“But you never let it go,” she whispered.

“No.” His eyes met hers. “Because when I look at you, Aria, it’s like the ghost of everything she was walks into the room.”

Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back.

“I’m not her,” she said again.

“I know,” he said. “But sometimes I don’t want to remember that.”

She hated how much she understood.

They both carried ghosts. Carried fire.

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” she asked.

Kael rubbed a hand down his face. “Because I didn’t want you to carry her sins. Or mine.”

Her chest squeezed.

And still, there was something else. Something unsaid.

“The prophecy,” she murmured. “What does it mean?”

Kael looked away.

“Kael.”

He turned back, eyes dark with something old and aching. “It means you were born to burn kingdoms or rebuild them. And no one knows which yet.”

The words sat heavy in the space between them.

“Do you think I’m dangerous?” she asked.

His answer was immediate.

“No.”

Then, quieter. “I think you’re scared. And I think you’re braver than anyone here. Including me.”

Heat bloomed in her chest. Anger, grief, something deeper.

And beneath it, a flicker of something else.

Need.

Not just to understand him.

To reach him.

She reached forward before she could stop herself and laid her hand over his.

His breath hitched, but he didn’t move.

“I’m not going to become her,” Aria said. “But I’m not going to run from who I am, either.”

He looked at her like the wind had knocked him sideways.

And then, softly… “Good.”

They sat in the silence, not touching beyond the shared warmth of her fingers over his.

But it was enough to set the air humming.

The next morning, camp life surged around them like nothing had happened.

But everything had changed.

Aria woke to find Maela hanging herbs over her bed, muttering about spirits and sleep. Nessa had drawn a wolf on her arm in charcoal and insisted it would protect her from nightmares.

She didn’t have the heart to wash it off.

Corin passed her at the water barrels and offered her an apple. His smile was gentle, but his eyes studied her like a soldier reads the sky for signs of war.

“You’re still standing,” he said.

“Barely.”

He gave a small laugh. “That’s more than most.”

Later that afternoon, Kael summoned her to the strategy tent.

Rogue leaders sat around the map table. Murmured debates filled the space.

One of the elders, tall, bald, with faded claw marks on his throat narrowed his eyes at her.

“This is the girl?” he asked.

Kael didn’t look away from the map. “This is the Silverborn.”

Aria’s stomach twisted.

The word tasted foreign on her tongue. Heavy. Ancient.

Another leader snorted. “Prophecy or not, she’s still just a child.”

Kael looked up sharply. “She passed all three trials. Bled for this camp. Fought harder than most of you ever have.”

The tent went silent.

Kael met Aria’s gaze. “You belong here. Don’t let them make you forget it.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs.

She nodded.

She wouldn’t forget.

Not now.

Not ever.

Later that night, alone in her tent, Aria stared up at the stars between the canvas seams and whispered into the dark:

“Mother… who were you?”

No answer came.

Only wind.

And fire. Always fire.

But she wasn’t afraid anymore.

She was becoming