Smoke drifted through the trees like breath from a dying beast. The battlefield quieted, the ground littered with ash, glowing embers, and the fallen. But Raine didn't feel victorious.
She stood in the center of the scorched field, staring at the mistwalker whose forehead still pulsed with that strange, ancient symbol. Its body lay crumpled, unmoving—but not dead. Not exactly.
Maelin approached cautiously. "It didn't vanish like the others."
"I know," Raine murmured. "Because I didn't kill it. I... connected."
Xavier placed a protective hand on her back. "What do you mean?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she knelt and touched the creature's skin. It was cold, but there was a pulse—deep, hidden, like a heartbeat sealed behind stone.
A voice echoed inside her mind.
"You are the key. The First Flame. Unbind us."
Raine's heart pounded. Images flooded her mind—visions of wolves bound in chains of mist, kept in darkness, twisted by sorcery older than any council. They were protectors once. Spirit guardians. But during the Blood Moon War, someone sealed them in shadow to keep them from tipping the balance.
And now… they were waking up. Because of her.
"I can save them," she whispered.
Maelin frowned. "Save that?"
Xavier's jaw tightened. "Raine, this could be a trap."
"Or it could be the answer," she said
"Why don't you ever listen?" he asked
She glanced at him and turned away
rising to her feet, eyes glowing bright, she said. "They weren't made this way. They were changed. Cursed. I think I can reverse it."
From the shadows of the tree line, another mistwalker stepped out. But this one did not attack.
It bowed.
Gasps followed from the wolves behind her.
Then another came. Then two more.
They all knelt.
"They're responding to your ember," Maelin whispered.
"They remember the First Flame," Raine said softly. "My mother must have known. That's what she was preparing me for."
Xavier looked into her eyes. "You're about to change everything."
"I already have."
She turned to her warriors. "We bring the wounded inside. We protect these mistwalkers. They're not the enemy. Not yet."
"But the Council—" one soldier began.
"Let me worry about the Council," she said. "We've seen what happens when they cling to fear. I'm choosing something else."
That night, Raine performed her first unbinding ritual.
It was agonizing. The mistwalker screamed, shadows ripping from its body like smoke from fire. But when it was done, a spirit wolf with silver eyes and blue markings lay in its place, breathing weakly.
Alive. Free.
Raine fell to her knees, exhausted—but victorious.
And far above, in the Council's sky chamber, Brax watched through the scrying mirror. His lips curled into a snarl.
"She's awakening the forgotten," he growled. "If we don't stop her soon, we'll lose control of every bloodline."
His second-in-command hesitated. "Then what do we do?"
"We do what must be done," Brax whispered. "We invoke the Shadow Pact."