The scent of smoldering timber still clung to the wind.
Jackie stood on the edge of the ravaged palisade wall, staring out at the forest that had once offered only hunting paths and the quiet rustle of foxglove under moonlight. Now it felt different. As if the roots themselves had listened to blood being spilled and remembered.
Behind him, the village stirred—bandaged warriors hauling timber, children scrubbing soot from totem poles, and the elderly kneeling before the communal fire, whispering chants to the Skyfather and the Iron Wolf.
Yet Jackie's mind wasn't on rebuilding.
The words had echoed in his dreams again: Steel your heart, young warrior. The true fight approaches. And the seer's whisper still rang fresh: Seek the Cave of Whispers, where the breath of the Ancients lingers.
Rahu had told him little more than that. "Only those marked by bloodline flame may hear the whispers," the old lorekeeper rasped, eyes cloudy with age. "And not all survive the knowing."
But Jackie had made up his mind. The Karus were not the only threat. Something older stirred beneath the land, woven into his wolf-blood, awakened by the Heartstone now resting cool at his side.
He left before dawn.
Wrapped in a fox-fur cloak, his tribal tattoos freshly inked in ash and ochre across his chest, Jackie slipped beyond the charred fences and into the shivering gray of the woods. No escort. No song. Just the weight of questions pressing into his bones like frost.
The Cave of Whispers lay half a day's walk east, carved into the broken hill where legend said the first shaman met the stars. Few came here now. The elders said the air grew thin in that place, too thin for truth to be ignored.
Jackie arrived just as the sun broke above the treeline, sending blades of light through the canopy. Moss muffled his footsteps. The cave's mouth yawned like an open jaw.
He lit a small torch wrapped in wolfsage and stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed him. The air grew still, dense with the scent of iron and old stone. Carvings lined the walls—spirals, flame-rings, and rows of warriors with swords made of bone and sunfire.
Jackie reached the central chamber. Here, the ceiling opened into a shaft, letting a single beam of dawnlight strike a worn stone relief: a circle of twelve figures surrounding a blazing sun, arms raised, eyes hollow. Beneath them, something was etched in the tribal script:
Only the blood-awakened may see the past that breathes.
Jackie placed his palm over the sun at the relief's center. Nothing.
He waited.
Silence.
The questions twisted inside him. Was he wrong? Was he not yet worthy?
His hand clenched. The Heartstone flared at his hip, a pulse of red heat rippling through his veins. The stone under his palm warmed.
With a sudden grinding click, the relief shifted. A rune—previously invisible—lit up with a faint violet glow. Jackie leaned in. It was shaped like a flame wrapped in a spiral: the mark of the Flameborn Circle, one of the oldest bloodline clans.
He pressed it.
Stone rumbled. A hidden panel slid open behind the relief. Inside was a mirror, black as obsidian, set into the wall. Its surface shimmered like oil under torchlight.
He stepped forward.
And stared.
At first, it was just his reflection. Battle-weary, wild-eyed, hair damp with sweat.
Then the reflection shifted.
The furred cloak on the figure vanished. The tattoos became glowing runes. Jackie's eyes in the mirror burned gold like twin suns. Behind him in the reflection stood a great hall of fire and bone, banners of the old tribes flapping in ash-choked wind.
The figure in the mirror raised its hand.
Spoke.
"Steel your heart, young warrior. The true fight approaches."
It wasn't Jackie's voice. It was deeper, thunder threaded with sorrow. The image rippled again—and now Jackie saw the figure's face more clearly. An older version of himself… or not himself. An ancestor? A king?
Before he could speak, the image fractured.
Cracks shot across the obsidian. The torch in Jackie's hand flickered wildly. A gust of wind—impossible underground—rushed through the chamber, blowing out the flame.
Darkness.
But not silence.
A whisper. Not words, but a sense—like an emotion trying to be language. A call. A warning. A promise.
Jackie opened his eyes. The mirror was dark once more. But the relief's sun now glowed faintly behind him.
He turned, heart racing.
Something had changed.
He touched his chest. The runes of his totem tattoos were warm. Beneath them, the blood stirred—not like before. Not just warmth or fire. But depth. Like a door had opened inside him and something old now walked its threshold.
The Wolfblood within him howled—not in rage, but in recognition.
He had seen the past. And it had seen him.
Subplot Advancement: Kaden's Suspicion
Far away, back in the village, Kaden stood on the roof beams of a half-burned house, arms crossed. Bandages wrapped his shoulder where a raider's blade had grazed him, but his scowl was sharp as ever.
"Where's Jackie?" he asked.
Kaela, binding herbs for the healers, glanced up. "Gone to the hills. Looking for answers, he said."
Kaden snorted. "Answers from ghosts. While we rebuild with blood and wood."
He stared into the eastern trees.
"You can't trust power that whispers in dreams. That's not a warrior's path. That's a sorcerer's."
Kaela's eyes narrowed. "And yet he saved your life last night."
Kaden didn't answer.
Closing Hook: The Next Omen
Jackie stepped out of the cave as sunlight broke fully over the ridge. The forest seemed quieter than before, reverent. He looked down at his hands.
The skin over his knuckles shimmered faintly—brief as mist, but real. A flicker of power. Another step forward.
The Heartstone pulsed once.
And then, far in the distance, a hawk screamed—a sound unnatural, warped by something beneath it. Jackie turned, scanning the horizon.
A black shape flew over the mountains.
Too large to be a bird.
Its wings beat thunder.
And as it passed, the wind whispered two words only he could hear:
"They return."
End of Chapter 25