CHAPTER 16

The camp breathed in low murmurs the next morning, hushed like a room holding its breath.

Aria felt it the moment she stepped outside her tent, something invisible, but heavy. Like the wind itself had turned its back on her.

She moved through the paths quietly, cloak pulled tight, eyes fixed ahead. But it didn’t matter. Whispers clung to her steps like shadows.

“Did you hear? She bewitched him…”

“She dances once and suddenly she’s the camp’s future?”

“Kael hasn’t been right since she arrived.”

“She’s cursed. Look at her eyes… too silver and her hair. Too unnatural.”

Aria clenched her jaw and walked faster.

At the edge of the food tents, she slowed, just enough to grab a piece of warm bread from a basket and duck behind the forge. She wasn’t hungry. She just needed to breathe. To hide. To think.

But even tucked behind the wall of heat and smoke, the voices found her.

“…swear I saw her near Kael’s tent again.”

“She’s playing him.”

“He doesn’t even see it. Not like we do.”

“And her eyes glow, did you notice? I saw it during the trial, like moonlight in a mirror.”

Aria turned slowly, peering between the stacks of firewood.

Two rogues stood nearby, one sharpening a blade, the other knotting rope. Both spoke in the kind of voices people used when they thought they were safe. When they thought the one they mocked couldn’t hear.

“She’ll burn this camp down from the inside,” the rope-knotter muttered. “And we’ll all cheer while she does it.”

Aria stepped away before they noticed her.

The bread in her hand had gone cold.

Later, when the sting had faded into dull heat behind her ribs, Maela found her by the southern fence, arms crossed and back against a tree.

“You look like you swallowed coal,” Maela said, biting into an apple and chewing with exaggerated casualness.

Aria didn’t smile.

“They’re talking,” she said.

“They always will,” Maela replied. “Talk is easier than facing your own fear.”

“It still hurts.”

“Of course it does.” Maela tossed the apple core. “That’s how you know you’re still human.”

Before Aria could respond, a new voice broke through.

“Are you the Silverborn girl?”

A tall man approached from the other side of the training ring, arms folded, dark hair tied back with a leather strap. His eyes were sharp beneath thick brows, and a long scar ran from his left jaw down to his collarbone, like a warning carved into flesh.

“I’m Aria,” she said carefully.

“Thorne,” he grunted. “I teach tracking. Kael says you need a skill other than bleeding.”

Maela snorted.

Thorne didn’t smile.

“Come on,” he said. “We start now.”

Tracking wasn’t as glamorous as she expected.

It was quiet. Tedious. Slow.

Thorne led her through forest trails and dry riverbeds, pointing at flattened grass, broken twigs, and subtle patterns in the soil.

“This?” he asked, crouching low. “Wolf print. Not ours. A loner. Male. Heavy. Two-day trail.”

She stared at the mark, barely more than a dent in the mud.

“You got all that from a smudge?”

“I got it from paying attention,” Thorne said. “You don’t have to be the strongest in a fight if you know where your enemy is going before he does.”

He didn’t praise. He didn’t insult. Just corrected her when she was wrong and nodded faintly when she got something right.

By midday, her boots were caked in mud, and her fingers were scraped from digging in cold earth, but she could tell a deer trail from a wolf path, and that felt like something.

Thorne offered her a drink from his flask when they paused at a mossy log.

“People talk,” he said suddenly. “Let them.”

Aria looked up at him, surprised.

“You heard them?”

“I hear everything,” he said simply. “But I see more.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “Like a girl who keeps getting up even when she’s already on fire.”

She smiled. Just a little.

Thorne looked away before she could thank him.

That night, the whispers didn’t fade.

But something changed.

It was small, like a thread tugged in the dark.

When Aria walked past two rogues arguing about meat rations, she heard more than their voices.

She felt their frustration.

Their hunger. One had lost a brother. The other was lying about how much he took.

She blinked, shook her head. Tried to ignore it.

Later, while feeding Nessa by the fire, she suddenly knew, without looking that someone behind her was afraid. Of her.

Not just wary. Not annoyed. But afraid, like prey senses a predator.

She turned sharply, catching the eyes of a young rogue woman who flinched before ducking into a tent.

“Did you feel that?” Aria asked Nessa softly.

“Feel what?”

But the child just giggled, sticky with honey and crumbs.

As the sky dipped into night, Aria wandered to the river, hoping to calm the noise inside her skull.

She dipped her hands into the water, watching the ripples catch moonlight.

The breeze stirred.

A whisper.

At first, she thought it was the wind.

But then she heard it again.

“Silverborn.”

She rose slowly, heart racing.

Across the river, near the treeline, two shadows moved.

One of them was Ezek.

The other wore a cloak too thick for the warmth of night, hood pulled low over their head.

They spoke in hushed tones, the words indistinct.

But Aria’s skin prickled.

Every instinct screamed that this was wrong.

She stepped back slowly, blending into the brush just as the cloaked figure turned their head.

She caught a glimpse.

Not of a face, but of their eyes.

They glowed.

Silver. Like hers.

Aria stumbles backward, heart pounding, as the truth settles like frost in her bones. She’s not the only one marked by the silver.

Aria’s breath caught like a snare snapping tight in her lungs.

Silver eyes.

Just like hers.

She stood frozen, half-concealed by the underbrush at the riverbank, her fingers trembling where they clutched her cloak. Across the water, Ezek leaned in toward the cloaked figure, his tone hushed but urgent.

She couldn’t hear the words, not clearly but their body language spoke enough. The figure was taller than Ezek, broader in the shoulders, and moved like someone trained to erase sound. Their gloved hand lifted once to grasp Ezek’s shoulder, firm and controlling.

Aria’s pulse thundered in her ears.

Who was that? Why did they have the same eyes as her?

The wind shifted, and the figure stiffened.

They turned.

Not fully, just enough that their hood tilted in her direction. The silver gaze locked onto hers, even across the distance. No fear. No surprise.

Recognition.

The air around Aria turned cold.

She stumbled back a step, twigs snapping underfoot. A foolish mistake.

Ezek whipped around. His expression darkened when he saw her.

“Aria?” he called, voice tight.

The figure beside him melted into the shadows before she could blink. Gone. Like smoke on the wind.

Aria’s heart raced. “Who was that?”

Ezek walked toward her, not hurried, not ashamed. He stopped at the water’s edge, hands at his sides.

“Just a traveler,” he said coolly.

She stared at him. “Why were you meeting a traveler in the woods, in secret, under a cloak?”

His lips curled. “You ask a lot of questions for someone who hasn’t earned her place yet.”

Aria bristled. “That’s not an answer.”

Ezek stepped into the shallows, water soaking his boots as he crossed toward her, eyes glinting in the moonlight.

He stopped an arm’s length away.

“She’s not your enemy,” he said softly. “Yet.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone who knows more than you do,” he replied. “And that scares you, doesn’t it?”

Aria clenched her fists. “I’m not afraid of her. Or you.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You should be.”

Then he turned and walked away, dripping footprints behind him as if nothing had happened.

She couldn’t sleep that night.

Not with that silver gaze burned into her memory. Not with the echo of Ezek’s smug retreat lingering like smoke in her mouth.

Instead, she paced outside her tent, arms crossed tightly over her chest, eyes darting toward every shadow.

A part of her wanted to go to Kael. To wake him. To demand answers or protection or comfort.

But something held her back.

Maybe it was pride.

Maybe it was the look he gave her after every moment of closeness, like touching her would set the world ablaze, and he wasn’t ready to burn again.

So she stayed alone.

And when she did sleep, she dreamed of eyes. A forest of silver eyes watching her. Judging. Waiting.

The next morning, Aria didn’t mention what she saw.

Not to Maela. Not to Corin. Not even to Nessa, who came bounding into her tent with tangled hair and sticky fingers, babbling about a sparrow she’d tried to tame.

Aria braided the girl’s hair in silence, mind churning like a storm.

“Why’re you quiet?” Nessa asked, leaning against her knee.

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“Nightmares again?”

Aria nodded.

Nessa pulled something from her pocket. A small acorn carved with tiny runes.

“Put this under your pillow tonight,” she said solemnly. “Corin says it keeps bad dreams away.”

Aria took it gently. “Thank you.”

Then, in a softer voice: “Nessa… if you saw someone with eyes like mine, would you trust them?”

Nessa tilted her head. “Like silver eyes?”

“Yes.”

The girl shrugged. “Depends. Do they give me honey bread?”

Aria laughed, but it was brittle.

“People with eyes like yours are rare,” Nessa added. “That doesn’t make them bad. Just special.”

Later, as Aria washed dishes near the mess tent, Thorne approached.

“You’re distracted,” he said flatly.

She didn’t deny it.

“Tracking again?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then speak.”

She dried her hands on her cloak. “I saw Ezek speaking to someone last night. In secret. Someone with silver eyes.”

Thorne’s brows knit together. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Did Kael hear of it?”

“No.”

Thorne nodded slowly. “You should tell him.”

“I don’t know if he’ll listen.”

“Make him,” Thorne said. “If someone else out there shares your blood or power, we need to know.”

Aria hesitated. “What if it’s more than that? What if they’re... like me? What if I’m not the only piece of this prophecy?”

Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “Then everything just got a lot more dangerous.”

She found Kael in the training yard, watching two young scouts spar with dull blades. He stood like a statue, arms folded, face unreadable.

“Kael,” she called.

He looked up.

Their eyes met. Held.

“Walk with me?”

He said nothing, but after a moment, he stepped down from the platform and followed her toward the river’s edge.

She waited until they were alone.

“I saw someone last night. With Ezek.”

Kael’s posture stiffened.

“A woman. Hooded. I couldn’t see her face. But her eyes were silver. Like mine.”

His breath caught.

“I felt something,” Aria added. “Like... recognition. She saw me, and she knew. She wasn’t surprised. She didn’t run. She just disappeared.”

Kael didn’t speak right away.

Then: “What else?”

“She spoke to Ezek. They weren’t arguing. It felt... coordinated.”

His jaw tightened. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

He cursed under his breath, then turned and began pacing the riverbank.

“I thought they were all gone,” he muttered. “I thought the others were…”

He stopped himself.

Aria stepped closer. “What others?”

Kael looked at her, pain and fear mingling in his eyes.

“There were stories,” he said. “Before the war. About children born under blood moons. Wolves with silver eyes and... gifts. They called them the Emberborn. Or Silverborn, depending on who you asked.”

Aria’s breath hitched. “So you’ve known about this?”

“Only rumors. Whispers. The Council hunted them down decades ago, claimed they were unstable. Dangerous. Every one of them vanished.”

“And now they’re back,” she said. “One of them, at least.”

Kael nodded slowly. “And if Ezek is talking to her...”

“He’s part of it.”

“Or being used by it.”

Silence fell between them.

Then Kael stepped forward, closer than he had in days. “This changes everything.”

“I know.”

“You could be in more danger than we thought.”

She looked up at him. “So what do we do?”

Kael’s jaw clenched. “We find her. We find out what she wants. And if she’s tied to the prophecy… we prepare for war.”

That night, Aria couldn’t sleep again.

But this time, it wasn’t because of fear.

It was because of the possibility that she wasn’t alone. That someone out there shared her burden. Her power. Her blood, maybe.

And that meant she wasn’t the end of a prophecy.

She was just the beginning.

Deep in the woods, a silver-eyed woman knelt by a fire. Beside her, a map of the rogue territories. Marked in blood.

And Aria’s name, circled in black ash