The morning broke blood-red.
Smoke clung low over the burned palisade, curling like specters between the scorched posts. A gray ashfall drifted from the western edge of the village, coating ferns and thatch-roofs alike. Somewhere, a child cried—the small, soft sound threading through the dawn quiet like a mourning dove's coo.
Jackie stood barefoot in the churned mud just beyond the village square, one hand resting on the haft of his spear, the other hovering near the Heartstone. It pulsed faintly at his belt, the color of banked embers. Not blazing as it had the night before, but not dormant either. A reminder: blood had been shed, and power had been stirred.
Around him, the warriors gathered in silence. Chief Marak, iron-gray and flanked by elders, was the first to speak.
"You saved the grain stores. The river gate held. We lost no kin to the shadow knives of the Karus. Only wounds and burned timber."
A few heads bowed at that. The price of survival was always counted in more than blood.
Marak's gaze settled on Jackie. "You acted swiftly, Wolfblood. Not as a boy. As a protector."
Jackie said nothing, throat dry. He could still feel the crackle of blood-forged energy lancing through his limbs from the night's battle. It had come unbidden—an instinctive surge in the darkest hour. When he'd raised the Heartstone to the sky and howled the old wolf-cry, the raiders had faltered, as if something ancient had stirred in them.
The elders moved among the survivors, offering redroot balm and wrapping wounds in smoked linen. The village slowly came alive—hobbling hunters, soot-covered children dragging buckets from the well, crafters salvaging splintered spear shafts.
Then came Kaden.
He limped forward, his side bandaged and smeared with resin. His golden-brown eyes met Jackie's, not with their usual sneer, but with something harder to read—wariness, perhaps, or reluctant acknowledgment.
He extended a fist, knuckles bruised. Jackie returned it after a moment.
"I thought you'd bolt for the hills," Kaden muttered.
Jackie managed a tired smile. "I thought you'd die choking on your own bravado."
They stood a moment longer before Kaden nodded and turned back to the warrior line.
Later, as the sun crested above the eastern ridge, Jackie helped clear wreckage from the granary's threshold. Each board he lifted seemed to echo with the clash of last night—bone on iron, torchlight against shadow. A strange weariness clung to his bones. Not just fatigue, but something deeper, as if his bloodline had been stretched, tested.
Kaela found him there.
She wore soot on her cheeks like war paint, her long braid tied back with a red cord. Her bow was slung over her shoulder, and she cradled a broken arrow in her hands.
"You were loud last night," she said, offering him a crooked smile.
Jackie chuckled. "That was the point."
She stepped closer. "The younger ones watched you. Even when it looked like we'd fall. You steadied them."
He shrugged. "I wasn't steady inside."
Kaela tilted her head. "You were enough. That matters."
He couldn't hold her gaze long. Not after what he'd felt in the heat of battle—that strange thrum in his chest when he'd leapt between Kaela and the Karus spear. The way the world had slowed, the way the Heartstone had burned like a second heart.
They stood quietly amid the smoke-silvered ruins, her shoulder brushing his.
By midday, the tribe gathered in the circle of stones for the Rite of Standing. It was not a festival, but a ritual of recognition—ancient and binding.
Chief Marak raised a carved staff and addressed the gathered. "When the wolves come, it is not the strongest who save the den—it is those who do not flinch."
He turned to Jackie.
"By the rite of ash and iron, by blood drawn and blood repelled, you are named among the Guardian Kin. Stand, Jackie of the Wolfflame, and take your mark."
A roar rose from the warriors. Jackie stepped forward, heart thudding. An elder approached with a bowl of soot mixed with boar's blood. With solemn precision, she painted three slashes across Jackie's chest—two down, one across—marking him as a defender, a shield-bearer of the tribe.
Heat welled in his chest—not just emotion, but something other. A pulse beneath the skin, hot and feral. He breathed deep, and for a moment, his vision shifted. Colors brightened. He heard the rustle of leaves far beyond the square. The crackle of unseen fires. A hawk's cry half a mile distant.
The Heartstone shimmered at his belt, and Jackie blinked. Whatever had awakened in him was not gone. It waited.
Afternoon came with long hours of repair. Jackie worked alongside youths who had once doubted him, now watching his hands for instruction. He taught them how to bind a spear haft with bone twine, how to knot a shield grip tight enough to hold through a storm. Small things, but in them lay the strength of tribes.
Still, the wind carried unease. And Jackie felt it too.
Near dusk, as he hauled stones to rebuild the palisade, Seer Maelin approached.
She wore her owl-feather mantle and walked barefoot, untouched by soot or splinter.
"Wolfblood," she said.
He set the stone down and turned. "Seer."
"You've stood in blood and did not break. That pleases the Old Ones."
Jackie frowned. "Then why does the sky feel heavy?"
She tilted her head. "Because the path ahead is darker than firelight shows. The Karus were not the storm—only its outriders."
He felt a chill ripple through him.
Maelin's eyes grew distant. "Tonight, when your dreams run wild, watch for the wolf with no shadow. When it howls, do not look away."
Before he could ask what she meant, she turned and disappeared between the tents.
That night, the tribe feasted in quiet unity. Roasted hare, river eel, and bitterleaf tea. No drums, no dancing—only firelight and shared silence. The warriors sat together, those with bandaged limbs still gripping their blades. Children leaned against their parents' legs. Kaela sat beside Jackie but did not speak. Her presence was enough.
When the flames burned low and the stars wheeled overhead, Jackie climbed the ridge above the village. He looked down upon the circle of firelight, upon the soot-darkened fences and the repaired gates. And he let the stillness in.
He thought of his mother's stories. Of the Wolf Ancestor who had swallowed flame and run with gods. Of how the blood remembered, even when the mind forgot. Of how the Heartstone had been quiet for years—until now.
He pressed his palm to it.
A flicker of heat answered.
"I'll protect them," he whispered to the night.
Then, like a distant whisper on the wind, a howl echoed from the north.
Low.
Haunting.
And without shadow.
End of Chapter 24