The sky above the ridge glowed silver with starlight, still flecked by curling smoke from dying fires. The last of the Karus-bandit army had broken in the night, scattered like wolves driven from a campfire's edge. Now, in the hush that followed bloodshed, the village of Redthorn stood quiet.
Jackie moved through the aftermath like a shadow.
He held no spear. No battle cry throbbed in his chest. Only silence and the distant crackling of embers remained.
His boots crunched softly in soot and broken arrowshafts. He passed a pile of overturned wicker shields, blackened timbers, and the corpse of a bandit with half his face caved in. Yara's arrow had done that. Jackie had seen it fly.
He paused by the gate, where the wood still smoldered from a torch-laden battering ram. The palisade held—but barely. Every inch of the village's defenses had been tested. And still, they'd stood.
"Jackie," came a low voice.
He turned to find Rahu, blood streaked across his left shoulder, leaning on a crooked spear.
"They're gone?" Jackie asked.
Rahu nodded. "Broken. Driven east. Some may regroup, but not soon. We gave them pain they'll remember."
Jackie looked past him toward the firepit where wounded were being tended. Grunts and quiet cries of pain carried on the wind. He saw Taavo hunched beside a stretcher, his son's leg bound in thick poultices.
"He'll live," Rahu said. "But Olgar did not wake."
Jackie swallowed hard. Old Olgar, who had trained dozens of the tribe's youth. His tattoos marked the deeds of four decades. His death would be sung of at next moon.
"I'll tell his wife," Jackie murmured.
"No," Rahu said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "She asked for you. Said… the last words Olgar spoke were yours."
Jackie closed his eyes. He hadn't even known the elder had been close enough to hear his rallying cry.
"We stand, no matter what breaks against us."
Night deepened, but the villagers did not sleep.
A vigil fire was lit in the center of the square, and around it sat those who could still walk. Warriors with fresh scars. Mothers with ash-smudged cheeks. Even the children, faces pale, held woven talismans in silence.
Jackie knelt by the fire, head bowed. The Heartstone hung cool against his chest, yet a warm flicker pulsed from it—not of heat, but recognition. As if it, too, mourned and remembered.
A chant began. Low. Wordless. Just breath and rhythm.
Then the names were spoken, one by one.
Olgar.
Tenn of the Ridge.
Sallin Two-Hands.
Each name floated like a leaf on water, sent into the night sky by those who loved them.
When it was done, the fire was allowed to die.
Jackie stood slowly, gazing at the stars above.
He had saved his people. But he had not saved them all.
Before the dawn came, Jackie slipped away.
He walked alone to the High Stone, where rituals were carved into slate and bone over centuries. From here, one could see the full sweep of the valley, all the way to the ancient pines that hid the Cave of Whispers.
He sat cross-legged before the sacred slab and unslung the Heartstone from his chest.
It pulsed in the early light.
"I don't know what I am yet," he whispered. "But I know what I must become."
Power flickered in him then—deep in the marrow, a hum of bloodline memory. The Wolfflame stirred.
In his mind's eye, he saw the burning wolf again. Silver-eyed. Fur like cinders caught in a gale.
It stood beside him. Not snarling. Watching.
Not an enemy. A guardian.
An Ancestor.
The fire in his veins rose—not violent, but steady, focused. He placed the Heartstone atop the High Stone and let his hand hover just above.
"Flame to flesh. Blood to bond. I take the vow of stone."
He whispered the rite of warriors.
"Let the scars I bear write my name into memory."
As he finished, a faint outline of silver flared across his forearm—his personal totem, now burned into skin. A coiled flame rising from roots.
The Heartstone pulsed.
His vow was accepted.
When he returned to the village, smoke no longer rose. Only cooking fires burned now, and the smell of healing herbs.
The elders waited by the communal fire ring. Yara stood beside them, her eyes sharp but rimmed with sleepless red.
"Jackie," said Elder Mirra, voice like gravel and wind. "Kneel."
He did.
She placed a wolf-bone circlet on his brow.
"You held when the ridge trembled. You struck when doubt crawled in our hearts. You acted with fire and purpose. This is not reward—it is recognition. You are warrior-born."
The others murmured as one. Then came the chant:
"Flame in his chest, ash at his heels. May his bloodline burn bright."
Jackie stood, spine straight, gaze steady.
He didn't feel pride.
He felt ready.
Later that day, as light filtered gently through leaves, Jackie found Yara by the ravine. She was sitting on the rock ledge where the two of them used to watch for hawks as children.
"You didn't have to take that hit for me," she said, not turning.
"You would've done the same."
"Maybe. But you got lucky."
Jackie sat beside her.
"I didn't feel lucky."
They were quiet for a time.
"Do you still see him?" Yara asked.
He looked at her.
"The wolf," she clarified. "The spirit. From the fire-dream."
Jackie hesitated. Then nodded. "He's watching."
"Is it… real?"
He stared at the horizon. "It has to be."
Yara leaned her head on his shoulder. Just briefly.
"I'm glad it was you," she whispered. "Who rose."
Then she stood, brushed off her cloak, and left him with the wind.
That night, Jackie dreamed.
The spirit-wolf stood atop a black cliff, glowing eyes fixed not on him, but on something beyond the valley.
A shadow moved there.
Tall. Hooded. Cloaked in ash and silence.
And behind that figure—
A burning circle in the sky. A second sun. Blood-red.
The wolf turned.
"The gates have opened."
Jackie woke with a gasp, sweat on his brow. The Heartstone pulsed faintly against his chest.
Far in the east, past the forest and river, thunder rolled where no clouds stirred.
End of chapter 27