CHAPTER 3

The dawn peeks through the trees in cold, hesitant shafts, silver and cruel. It reveals nothing of comfort—only the forest, indifferent, silent, waiting. 

The memory of the pyre claws at me—the searing pain, the laughter of those who thought to see me die, the venom in Lucia’s eyes. I taste it again: the smoke, the fire, the betrayal. And with it comes fury, pure and unfiltered, coiled in my chest like a beast scratching at the cage of my ribs.

I pushed forward, dragging my body over roots and stones, feeling the cold bite through scorched flesh, hearing the whisper grow louder. It pulses in time with my heartbeat, a warning, a promise. Not yet. Wait. Strike.

A rustle.

I freeze. The forest seems to inhale with me. Somewhere ahead, hidden in shadow, they move—rogue scouts from Bluemoon Pack. Sent to confirm my death. Sent to ensure my silence. My body tightens, every nerve screaming. And then, instinct takes over.

They don’t see me at first—my hair matted with ash, my skin streaked with soot and blood. My eyes burn like coals. I can feel the fire beneath my skin, a barely contained storm, wild and angry.

The first one steps too close. A hand brushing against a branch, a boot snapping a twig. The whisper stirs, urgent now. Strike.

My fingers twitch, curling with heat. My chest expands, and a guttural sound rumbles from my throat—a growl I didn’t know I could make. I am no longer afraid. Not of them. Not of the world.

The patrol doesn’t stand a chance.

The first man freezes as my hands flare, the embers licking at his sleeves, at his face, at his boots. He stumbles back, a scream caught in his throat. I move with the speed of instinct, my pain irrelevant, my hunger for survival blazing hotter than the fire beneath my skin.

By the time I realize I’ve torn through three of them, the last one is screaming into the morning, the forest itself recoiling from the chaos I’ve unleashed. Ash swirls like smoke demons around me, the ground beneath my knees smoldering. My own hands are scorched, but I barely notice. I am alive. More than alive. Dangerous.

The last scout falls to his knees, eyes wide, mouth open in terror. And I pause. The whisper is still there, guiding, coaxing, feeding my awareness. My first kill is not clean, not honorable, not deliberate. It is panic and rage made flesh—and I feel its power like a spark igniting a forest.

The forest is silent now. The only sound is my ragged breathing and the faint crackle of the earth beneath me. Smoke curls around broken trees, and the sunlight shines through it like molten gold. I lift my head, tasting the wind, feeling it carry my fire outward.

I am reborn.

And yet, the ache remains. My muscles burn, my ribs throb, my skin tingles with the memory of flames. Every step forward is a reminder that I am fragile, that I am human enough to bleed, to falter. But the whisper hums beneath it all, patient, waiting. More. There is more.

I stumbled into a clearing, and the sunlight strikes me fully. I see the scorched earth beneath my hands and knees. I see the broken, lifeless bodies of the patrol. And for the first time, the reality of what I am—what I’ve become—settles into my chest.

A shadow shifts at the edge of the clearing. I freeze, every nerve humming. Not from fear, but recognition. Something ancient brushes against the edges of my awareness, pulling at me, a presence felt more than seen.

Kael.

I do not know him yet. I do not know the shape of his face, the sound of his voice. I do not know the claim he carries, the power that hums through him. But I feel it. A pull, like a current through the smoke, brushing against the flames of my own rebirth. He is coming, moving towards this clearing without knowing why, drawn by what I have become.

I do not move. I do not flee. I do not think of running. I am the fire now, and the fire is patient.

The forest around me is smoldering, the air thick with smoke and tension. The early morning wind whispers through the trees, scattering ashes like tiny specters. My chest heaves, my body trembling, and yet, for the first time since that pyre, I am calm. Focused. Powerful.

I lifted my gaze and saw the last tendrils of smoke curling from the scorched soil. A single leaf falls from a tree, landing on ash and flickering with the faintest glow. I reached down and let it rest in my palm. Fire dances along its edges, delicate and dangerous.

They will see me now. They will remember the name they tried to erase.

And then, like a shadow in the smoke, I sense him. Kael, moving silently, inevitably, towards the source of power, danger, and chaos. The whisper hums, patient, knowing. Soon.

I stand, my body aching, senses raw, fire licking just beneath my skin. The forest holds its breath, the ashes waiting to be scattered. And I stepped forward, not backward, not in fear, but in anticipation.

The world believes I burned to death. But they were wrong.