The wooden blade struck with a sharp crack, and Jackie's shoulder jolted from the impact.
He staggered back, teeth clenched, sweat dripping from his brow as dust rose around his boots. Across the training ring, Kaden grinned — a wolf's grin, all teeth and spite.
"You're slower than a sap-drunk elk, half-blood," he spat.
Around them, a ring of young warriors-in-training watched with barely concealed excitement. The midday sun beat down, casting hard shadows across the worn sparring ground, where tribal totems of bone and bark loomed like silent judges.
Jackie forced his breath steady. This isn't about him. It's about proving you belong.
But his hands trembled on the hilt of the training sword.
It had started earlier, as most storms do — with silence, then a single spark.
Jackie had arrived at the practice field before dawn, as always. He'd swept the ash from the totem circle, set the water jugs near the fire pit, and knelt to begin his stretches when Kaden appeared, shirtless, tattooed, and smirking.
"Still pretending you're one of us?" Kaden had said, cracking his knuckles.
Jackie said nothing. Words were wind; effort was stone. He tightened the laces on his hide-wrapped bracers and looked past Kaden to Taavo, who stood at the far end, watching.
Taavo didn't speak either. He never did during sparring week. Only watched — judging, measuring.
Today's match-ups were drawn from the ritual pouch, as tradition demanded. But when Taavo's fingers drew the strip with Jackie's name, Kaden had stepped forward without waiting.
"I'll take the outsider," he said. "Let's see if his dreams are stronger than his spine."
Jackie's name was burned into a curved cedar slip, decorated with twin wolf-eyes — a mark given after his first dream of the spirit-wolf. The elders hadn't yet named it a true totem. But word had spread.
And envy, like dry tinder, needed only a spark.
Now, as the circle cleared and Taavo raised his hand to begin, Jackie centered his stance.
He recalled Taavo's lesson from the day before: "Don't fight his anger. Let it burn out while you endure. The mountain doesn't rush the storm."
The hand dropped.
Kaden came in fast. Too fast.
His blade swept from left to right, feinting high before darting low. Jackie blocked once, twice, but each strike sent jolts up his arms. Kaden fought like a fire-wind — reckless, hot, pressing forward with aggressive, practiced force.
"Come on!" Kaden barked, hammering down another blow. "Show me what blood runs in your veins!"
Jackie didn't answer. He gave ground, step by step, until his heels brushed the totem stones.
The circle tensed. Some murmured. Others watched in silence.
And then — it happened.
For one flickering instant, time seemed to slow.
Jackie's vision narrowed. The forest faded. The crowd dissolved. His heartbeat became the only sound — deep, thrumming, ancient.
From the base of his spine, heat coiled upward. His skin prickled. His left wrist — where the dream-sigil had burned days before — glowed faintly, the same amber hue as the heartstones embedded in the elders' staffs.
Kaden lunged in for the finishing blow —
Jackie moved.
He stepped inside the arc, turned his blade sideways, and twisted under Kaden's guard. The wooden sword met shoulder with a sharp crack —
—and Kaden staggered back, howling.
A thin line of red welled from beneath his collarbone.
Blood.
Not imagined. Not metaphor. Real.
Gasps echoed around the circle. Someone shouted.
Taavo stepped in at once. "Enough!"
Kaden's hand clutched his shoulder, eyes wide.
"You—" he growled, voice cracking. "You cheated!"
Jackie blinked. The glow in his wrist had faded. The warmth in his chest flickered, then vanished, leaving only the ache of overexertion.
"I didn't," he said, though his voice lacked conviction.
"You used something," Kaden snapped. "No one moves like that. Not you."
"I just—reacted." Jackie looked down at the sword in his hand, suddenly ashamed of how tightly he gripped it.
Taavo's eyes moved from Jackie to Kaden, then to the dark smudge of blood on the training ring.
He didn't speak. But his jaw was set.
From the gathered crowd, whispers rose.
"Did you see his arm glow?"
"He called something. A bloodline gift?"
"Wasn't he untouched a month ago?"
Rahu emerged from the far side, his robes dusted with sage ash, amulet of twisted iron swaying with each step. He stepped to Jackie and studied him with those deep-forest eyes.
"You saw it again, didn't you?" he asked quietly.
Jackie hesitated, then nodded.
Rahu's lips tightened. "The wolf watches closer now."
That evening, the sparring ring remained empty, though the fire pit still burned and laughter returned to the village.
Jackie sat alone by the water's edge, feet in the cool stream, sword across his lap.
He hadn't meant to hurt Kaden.
And yet… part of him had wanted to win.
Not for pride. For proof. Proof that he wasn't some outsider clinging to his mother's name. Proof that the blood stirring in him — wherever it came from — meant something.
But guilt gnawed at his ribs. The others had looked at him like he was a stranger, even after the victory. Maybe especially after.
"You fought well."
Jackie turned. Yara knelt beside him, brushing her fingers along the water's surface.
"I lost control," he muttered.
"No," she said. "You found it. That's what scared them."
He looked away. "He said I cheated."
"Then let him believe that," she said, voice firm. "The truth is more dangerous."
They sat in silence as the stars began to prick through the sky.
Far away, on the eastern ridge, the tribal scouts returned in haste.
Their cloaks were torn. One limped. The other carried a branch in his arms.
A charred branch.
They brought it before the elders, who gathered in the high-hut beneath the sigil-painted hide.
"This," said the lead scout, "was taken from the guardian trees. All three had this mark."
He turned the branch.
Carved into the wood was a crude circle of teeth.
Not burned by fire, but blood.
Rahu looked up sharply. "The Ember Maw stirs."
Chief Naru's knuckles tightened around his staff.
"And the boy?"
"He saw the storm before it broke," Rahu said. "His bloodline is awakening. But we do not know what stirs with it."
They fell to silence as thunder growled beyond the mountains.
End of Chapter 5