Age Twelve | Emberrest, Season of Verdant Rise

  The flames crackled low in the ritual pit, their amber tongues licking at the night air, casting long shadows over the gathered youth like ancestral spirits dancing on the edge of memory. Above them, the stars wheeled slowly across the sky—not mere points of light, but silver beads meticulously sewn into the night's vast tapestry by hands older than time. The first hunt ritual had begun.

  Sarkan stood among the others, silent as ever, his lean frame wrapped in the deep green furs of the hunter's initiation. The pelts hung heavy on his shoulders—not merely as garments, but as the weight of tradition itself. His face, carved from shadow and firelight, betrayed nothing of the storm brewing within.

  But Sha'vara watched only him.

  Her gaze was not maternal—it was mystic, piercing beyond flesh and bone to something more elemental. Her breath remained steady, her eyes clouded with Fye-sight as reality peeled away to reveal what lay beneath. She inhaled the sacred smoke—pine, bone, and dried sage intermingling in ancient communion—and traced symbols in the air with fingers that knew secrets older than the mountains.

  The ash did not fall evenly.

  It bent.

  Around him.

  (“The core is moving,”) she thought, the realization settling into her bones like winter frost. Not swelling... spinning. Even from across the ritual circle, she could feel the subtle disruption in the air, a ripple in the invisible currents that flowed through all things.

  She whispered a name to herself—an ancient one, syllables that tasted of dust and power on her tongue. Not a prophecy. A warning.

  Later, after the ceremony had ended and the tribe had dispersed into the night, Sarkan found her alone beneath the moon-split canopy. Light filtered through the leaves in fractured silver patterns that danced across her weathered face. She did not speak, but he did.

  "It's changing," he said, his voice barely above a whisper yet carrying the weight of mountains. "Inside me."

  "I know," she replied, eyes fixed on some middle distance were the present met future. "It spins too soon."

  "What does that mean?" His question hung between them, fragile as morning mist.

  She turned to face him fully now, her eyes reflecting starlight and something deeper—concern etched into the lines of her face. "It means your core listens before your voice does. Before your heart does." Her fingers reached out, hovering inches from his chest, sensing rather than touching. "The patterns are wrong. Too early. Too eager."

  Sarkan nodded, then paused, his next words chosen carefully. "Rukk wants it too." A heartbeat of hesitation. "Can you help him awaken?"

  "Rukk?" Sha'vara's expression softened, tinged with something like pity. "His blood runs true to the tribe. Steady. Predictable."

  "But mine doesn't?" The question carried no accusation, only curiosity—the kind that burns.

  Sha'vara turned her eyes to the stars, reading patterns that had been old when the first Tharnak drew breath. "The flame comes when the blood remembers. Not all fires are born the same." Her hand dropped back to her side. "Some burn. Others... transform."

  "And which am I?" he asked, though something in his eyes suggested he already knew the answer.

  "That," she whispered, "is what frightens me."

  …………………………………………………………….

  The next morning dawned crisp and clear, the sun's early rays cutting through lingering mist as the tribe's youth gathered around the sacred fire. The pit was ancient—stones worn smooth by generations of bodies sitting in the same circle, telling the same tales, passing down the same warnings.

  A hunter-elder, Dnoger, his face a map of scars earned in battles both seen and unseen, recited the rites. Old chants flowed from his lips, practiced and precise, each syllable carrying the weight of ancestors watching from beyond the veil. This was how the Tharnak taught magic—half tradition, half warning, whole truth.

  "Mana is earned," Dnoger rumbled, voice like stones grinding against each other, as he drew a blade across his palm. Blood hissed as it struck the flames. "It does not obey those who do not bleed. It does not respect those who have not suffered." His eyes, sharp as a hawk's despite his years, moved from face to face. "Pain is the price. Control is the reward."

  The youths sat transfixed, cross-legged on worn hides, bodies leaning forward despite themselves. Among them, Sarkan remained perfectly still, his posture revealing nothing while his mind absorbed everything.

  Drenag, a stocky boy with shoulders already broad enough for a warrior twice his age, couldn't contain himself. "I can harden my skin now," he boasted, slamming a fist against his chest. "Last night, I held my arm in the flame until the count of ten and felt nothing!"

  "That's nothing," countered Molvar, taller but leaner. "When I sing the war-song, my strikes come twice as fast. I broke three practice posts yesterday."

  But no one spoke of casting. Not real casting. That was for shamans. Or madmen. Or worse—those touched by powers the tribe did not name.

  "Those who call fire risk being devoured by it," Dnoger muttered, throwing a pinch of red dust into the flames. The fire leaped, shifting from orange to crimson for three heartbeats before settling again. "External magic draws attention. Spirits do not like to be used. They hunger. They remember."

  The words hung heavy in the air, a warning and a prohibition all at once.

  Rukk, sitting close enough that his shoulder occasionally brushed Sarkan's, leaned in. His eyes, wide with a mix of ambition and fear, reflected the dancing flames.

  "Have you..." he whispered, voice barely audible above the fire's crackle, "done more than body strengthening magic?" The question carried both awe and trepidation.

  Sarkan met his eyes, gaze steady and unreadable as a frozen lake. Something ancient stirred behind his pupils—not quite Orc, not quite something else.

  "What I've done wasn't taught," he answered finally, each word measured and deliberate.

  "Can you show me?" Rukk's voice dropped even lower, edged with desperation and longing.

  "No," Sarkan said, voice low but firm as bedrock. Then, after a pause that contained multitudes: "But I can help you find the silence to hear it."

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  "What does that mean?" Rukk pressed, brows furrowed.

  "It means—" Sarkan began, but Krogar's voice cut across the circle.

  "Attention!" the elder barked, eyes narrowed directly at them. "When the elders speak of magic, young ones listen. Unless..." His gaze hardened on Sarkan. "Unless you have wisdom to share with the tribe, Outsider's Son?"

  The title—not quite an insult, but far from a compliment—rippled through the gathering like a stone dropped in still water.

  Sarkan didn't flinch. "No wisdom, Elder. Only questions."

  "Questions are for after the teaching," Krogar replied, voice softening a fraction. "And some questions are better left unasked."

  As the lesson continued, Sarkan fell silent once more, but his stillness had changed. It was no longer the quiet of one listening, but the stillness of one waiting.

  They were not far from the valley when the beast attacked.

  The sun hung low, casting amber light through the trees, warming frost-laced pine needles that shimmered like jewels. The hunting party moved in pairs through the underbrush—Rukk and Sarkan taking point, with Vorn trailing slightly behind, his movements betraying his nerves despite his attempts to hide them.

  The forest whispered around them, a complex language of rustling leaves and creaking branches. To most, it was merely ambient noise. To Sarkan, it was becoming increasingly legible—warnings and signals transmitted through the very fabric of the world.

  He felt it before he saw it—a dissonance in the forest's song, a foreign note that didn't belong.

  Then the mountain lion struck.

  It wasn't a normal beast. Even as it exploded from the undergrowth in a blur of muscle and fury, the wrongness of it was apparent. Its coat shimmered faintly with an inner light—mana-burnished, its paws unnaturally silent despite crushing through fallen branches. It moved like hunger made flesh, purpose distilled into perfect predatory form.

  Rukk screamed, a high, startled sound that cut through the forest's quiet. Vorn froze, his spear clutched uselessly at his side, his face a mask of primal terror.

  Sarkan stepped forward.

  Time seemed to stretch. The beast hung suspended in its leap, sunlight catching on extended claws, saliva glistening between bared teeth. Sarkan could see everything—individual hairs standing along its spine, the unnatural violet glow pulsing behind its pupils, the muscles bunched and coiled beneath its hide.

  Instincts flared—ancient hunter's reflexes passed down through generations of tribal blood. But this time, so did something else.

  The world slowed. Not by will, but by resonance.

  A vibration began in his bones, a humming that started so deep within him that it might have begun before his birth. It pulsed out through his limbs, flooding his veins with liquid fire. His vision narrowed, the edges darkening as the center became impossibly, painfully clear.

  He shouted—but not in words. In force.

  Something broke loose inside him—a dam collapsing, a chain shattering, a door flung wide that was never meant to open. Power rushed through the breach, raw and untamed, coursing up his spine and down his arm.

  A blast of heat erupted from his palm, catching the lion mid-pounce. Not fire exactly, but something more fundamental—pure energy that shimmered like heat above stone in summer.

  The world snapped back to normal speed with the sound of scorched fur and a feline howl cut abruptly short.

  The beast hit the ground in a tumble of smoke and burnt fur, its momentum carrying it into a sprawling heap mere feet from where Sarkan stood. Still breathing—but dazed. Its side was scorched black, steaming in the snow, the wound pattern spiralling outward like a strange sigil burned into its flesh.

  Silence followed.

  Rukk stared, mouth agape, spear hanging limply from nerveless fingers. Vorn had backed against a tree, eyes wide with a fear no longer directed at the beast, but at his companion.

  "What..." Rukk began, voice barely a whisper. "What did you just..."

  Sarkan didn't answer. He felt oddly empty, like something essential had drained from him, leaving a hollow space that echoed with each heartbeat. Yet simultaneously, he felt more complete than he ever had before.

  He walked forward and ended the beast with a blade—a clean, merciful cut across its throat. Not magic. Just Mercy.

  As blood steamed in the snow, he placed a hand on the creature's flank, feeling the last flutter of life beneath his palm.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered, words meant only for the dying beast. "You were beautiful."

  He dragged the body behind him—smoke still rising from the singed pelt in ghostly tendrils that twisted against the deepening blue of the afternoon sky. The carcass left a dark trail through pristine snow, marking their path home like an ominous prophecy written in earth and blood.

  Rukk walked behind, silent, eyes wide with a new kind of respect... and caution. His gaze rarely left Sarkan's back, as if expecting him to transform at any moment. Occasionally, he would open his mouth to speak, then close it again, questions forming and dissolving before they could find voice.

  Vorn had run ahead, no doubt already spreading his version of events.

  The camp went quiet at their approach, conversation dying in waves as heads turned and bodies stilled. A child pointed. Someone gasped. The silence spread like ripples in still water.

  "What happened?" someone whispered, voice carrying in the unnatural quiet.

  "Did he burn it?" asked another.

  "With what?"

  Eyes moved from the beast to Sarkan's hands—unmarked, unburned, yet somehow more dangerous than any weapon in the camp.

  Sha'vara stood at the edge of the gathering, her face a complex tapestry of emotions—vindication, fear, pride, and something deeper, more primal. Her eyes met Sarkan's across the distance, and in that moment, understanding passed between them without need for words.

  (“He didn't cast it, she thought, the realization settling into her bones. He became it.”)

  Gorvak, the tribe's chief, approached with deliberate steps. His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes, sharp as flint and just as capable of sparking fire, narrowed as he studied first Sarkan, then the beast. He crouched by the carcass, sniffed the charred hide, and ran a gnarled hand over the wound.

  "This wasn't flame from fire," he announced, his voice pitched to carry to the gathered onlookers. "It came from within." His gaze lifted to Sarkan's face. "The beast or the boy?"

  "Does it matter?" Sarkan asked quietly.

  Gorvak's expression shifted—surprise, then something harder to name. "Yes," he replied. "It matters greatly."

  Elder Krogar pushed through the crowd, his weathered face tight with controlled emotion. He did not speak as he examined the evidence before him. He didn't need to—his silence was judgement enough.

  Then Varn's voice came from the side, dripping venom and disbelief. "Witch-blood," he spat, the words landing like stones. "Like his mother."

  A murmur ran through the gathered tribe—part fear, part fascination.

  "Is it true?" Rukk finally found his voice. "What he says about your mother?"

  Sarkan said nothing for a long moment. He stared at the burn mark on the lion's hide. It pulsed faintly—spiral patterns left in the char. Not natural. Not fire-born. Something older, something that spoke of depths and currents in the world that the tribe acknowledged only in whispers and warnings.

  He flexed his hand.

  It didn't tremble.

  "My mother," he said finally, voice carrying despite its softness, "could speak to storms. She could read the memories in old bones. She could call birds from the sky." He looked up, meeting the gazes of those around him without flinching. "If that is witch-blood, then yes. I carry it."

  "Such things are forbidden," Krogar stated, voice heavy with tradition. "External magic—"

  "Saved my life," Rukk interrupted, stepping forward. "And mine," he added, less certainly. "The beast was mana-touched. You can see it in its eyes, even now."

  Gorvak grunted agreement. "The boy speaks truth. This was no ordinary predator."

  "Does that matter?" Varn challenged. "Forbidden is forbidden. The old ways—"

  "The old ways," Sha'vara cut in, her voice carrying the weight of her position as the tribe's spiritual guardian, "also teach adaptation. Survival." She moved to stand beside Sarkan. "The beast was mana-touched, yet the boy stands. The tribe benefits."

  Silence fell again, heavy with consideration.

  Sarkan knelt and drew his knife, making a precise cut below the beast's jaw. With careful movements, he extracted something small and glowing—a shard no larger than a fingernail, pulsing with violet light.

  "This is what changed it," he said, holding the shard up for all to see. "There are more of these. I've seen them in the high valleys. Something is changing in our lands." He stood, the mana shard still pulsing between his fingers. "Perhaps the old ways must change, too."

  He flexed his hand again.

  This time, the faintest nimbus of energy—barely visible, like heat shimmer—briefly outlined his fingers.

  "I don't know what I am," he admitted, voice carrying in the stillness. "But I know what's coming." His eyes met Krogar's, then Sha'vara's, then swept across the gathered tribe and stopped in front of his father. "And we will need every weapon we can find."

  The mana shard pulsed between his fingers, casting violet shadows across his face—not quite orc, not quite something else.

  Something in between, thought Sha'vara. A bridge. Or a harbinger.

  In the shadows at the edge of the gathering, a raven watched, its eyes reflecting the strange light. Then, with a single beat of midnight wings, it was gone, carrying news to ears not meant to hear it.

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