The fire circle was already burning when Jackie arrived, casting long shadows against the granite standing-stones.
The flames crackled high into the starlit dark, their tongues reaching like spirits yearning toward the void. Smoke rose in slow, ritual spirals, scented with pine pitch, bone-moss, and redroot—ingredients sacred to the trial. Beyond the circle, the tribe gathered in silence, faces painted with ash and ochre, eyes catching the flickering light.
Tonight was the new moon. And that meant only one thing.
The Fire of the Ancestors had begun.
Jackie's carved totem mask hung from his belt, still warm from the shaping. He'd spent three days etching it in solitude, just as the lore demanded—no speech, no sleep, only wood and will. Its surface bore a snarling wolf's maw, but the grain of the heartpine had split unexpectedly near the eyes, leaving jagged marks like lightning.
Spirit-sign, some would say. An omen, others might whisper.
Jackie didn't know. He only knew he had to carry that mask across the fire.
With the ember. With the pain. Or not at all.
Elder Toma, the ritual flamekeeper, stepped to the center of the circle. He wore the antlered helm of his office, and his body was wrapped in fire-dyed leathers, painted with the glyphs of the first ancestors. His voice echoed deep as a drum.
"Let the trial begin."
The other initiates stood in a loose semicircle—seven of them, all near Jackie's age, though most were older by a season or more. Kaden stood among them, arms crossed, tattooed chest gleaming with sweat. He hadn't spoken to Jackie since the sparring match, but his glare was cold enough to curdle marrow.
Each youth held their wooden totem—fresh-carved masks or figurines unique to their spirit-heritage. A fox-shaped pendant. A bear-helmed visor. A bird with razored wings.
Jackie's fingers brushed the snarl of his wolf mask.
I'm ready. I have to be.
From behind the standing-stones, drummers began their cadence—slow, rising. Ancestral names were chanted in the old tongue, voices vibrating in the chest like memory itself.
"Tahu, who tamed the ember-serpent…"
"Seyka, whose blood ran silver…"
"Arokh, the first to bear Wolfflame…"
As the litany rang out, Elder Toma stepped forward with the sacred ember-tongs—twisted metal forged in fire from the crater-forge beneath the Heartstone. He plucked a single glowing coal from the heart of the flame and held it aloft.
"The ember remembers. It burns away all falsehood. Only the true self remains."
Then he turned to the first initiate.
One by one, they stepped forward.
Each grasped the ember with bare fingers and dashed across the fire pit—a shallow trench filled with hot ash and red-glowing coals, ten strides across.
Some ran fast, dropping their ember early and igniting their totem with only a flicker. Others stumbled, and the fire consumed their offering before it could catch.
A girl with red war-paint screamed as her totem cracked apart in flame.
Then it was Jackie's turn.
His heart pounded like thunder on the drum-skins. Sweat clung to his brows. Rahu's voice echoed in memory: Fear is not your enemy. It is your fire. Use it.
He stepped into the ring. The tribe's eyes were heavy on his back.
Toma approached, holding out the ember.
Jackie stared at the coal—a perfect oval, pulsing like a heart. He could feel its heat already, radiating in waves.
Your blood remembers, the wolf-spirit had said.
He reached out and grasped the ember.
Pain.
Agonizing. Immediate. His fingers sizzled, his palm blistered.
But beneath that pain—something else stirred.
His veins hummed.
Power-level moment—a subtle pulse like a second heartbeat awoke in his forearm. The same resonance from his duel with Kaden. The sigil on his wrist glowed faintly under the skin, as though echoing the ember's fire. The pain dulled for an instant.
Then the flame flared.
Jackie sucked in a breath and ran.
Across the trench—ash kicked up in gusts. The coals hissed under his feet. Sparks bit at his ankles, flames licked his calves. But his grip stayed true, locked on the ember and the wooden mask held tight in his other arm.
The pain surged again. This time it was alive. It wanted to consume him.
His vision blurred. He could see nothing but red.
Then—there—the end.
He collapsed to his knees, breath heaving, and slammed the ember into the cool sand.
His mask dropped beside it.
A hush fell.
At first, only silence. No flicker. No smoke.
Then—
FWUMP.
A single golden spark leapt from the dying ember.
It landed on the mask's carved brow—and ignited.
But not with fire.
With light.
The totem flared with a brilliant blue-white shimmer, radiating heatless brilliance that danced in the shape of a wolf's head—its eyes glowing gold, its mane whipped by unseen winds.
The crowd gasped. Elder Toma took a step back.
Even Kaden's scowl broke into something halfway between awe and confusion.
The light faded just as quickly as it came, leaving the mask charred but whole. The wolf's snarl had deepened, the lightning-shaped cracks gleaming faintly with silver sheen.
Jackie collapsed fully, gasping, hand blistered and blackened. But the totem lay glowing beside him, unburnt, alive.
The silence shattered into roars.
"He lives!"
"The blood remembers!"
"Did you see that light?!"
Jackie heard none of it. His vision swam. The scent of singed skin filled his nose, and every nerve screamed. But through the haze of pain, a clarity began to bloom.
He had done it.
Not just survived the fire—but awakened something older. Something deeper.
Rahu's voice came through the crowd, quiet but firm: "The boy carries the blood of the First Pack."
Elder Toma looked to him sharply. "That hasn't been spoken in three generations."
"It speaks again," Rahu said. "And it burns brighter than before."
Jackie blinked, head spinning. The pain in his hand was staggering—but the glow on his wrist still remained. Faint, but pulsing.
From the crowd, Yara stepped forward. She knelt beside him and poured water from her flask over his hand. Her eyes were wide—not afraid, but curious.
"I thought the flame would devour you," she whispered.
"It almost did," Jackie rasped. "But something pushed it back."
She nodded slowly. "I saw the shape in the fire. A wolf. But also something else. Like wings. Or—"
She trailed off. Her gaze flicked behind him. Jackie turned.
Kaden stood just outside the fire circle. His jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists.
For a moment, Jackie thought he'd speak.
Instead, Kaden turned and disappeared into the shadows.
Later, under moonless skies, Jackie sat by the cooling totem.
His hand was wrapped in bandages soaked in healing sap. The pain still lanced up his arm, but beneath it, the blood still pulsed with strange energy.
The mask's eyes still glowed faintly.
He remembered the light. The wolf's silhouette.
And he remembered the shape behind it—hulking, winged, antlered. A thing with too many forms to name.
Rahu appeared beside him without sound.
"You saw more than fire, didn't you?"
Jackie nodded. "There's something… else. I don't think it's just the wolf."
"No." Rahu looked toward the Heartstone's peak. "Your blood carries echoes. Fragments of something forgotten."
He hesitated. "The last to bear such signs vanished during the Black Moon War. No body was ever found. Only his totem remained—split down the middle, with both wolf and… something else carved inside."
Jackie's skin prickled. "What does that mean?"
Rahu's face was grim. "I don't know. But I fear your trial has awakened more than power."
Far beyond the fire circle, deep in the forest, something stirred.
A shadow drifted between the trees. Antlers of bone. Eyes like cracked mirrors.
It watched the totem's flicker from afar.
And whispered a name long buried.
"He has returned."
End of Chapter 7