Chapter 3 Buried in Fur and Flame

Midnight in Drowmere, under a dying moon.

"Under the starlight and steam, I sensed it-the truth tearing itself free, and it had my name on its tongue."

---

I stood on the bank of the holy hot springs, where the ground pulsed with pent-up age and the starry sky churned with stories too old to be spoken. The mist enveloped me, biting at my skin with a recollection I still didn't understand. Coci Flameleaf stood before me, back to me, as stiff as the statue carved of moonlight and myth.

I hadn't known. She hadn't informed me where we were headed. Only that we had to go away. I left because I didn't wish to stay behind with the crawling of my bones, the searing of my dreams.

"Are we certain we are meant to be here?" I whispered, my voice cracking on the chill air.

She didn't look at me. "No. But some truths need old witnesses."

Her answer should have unsettled me. What it did, instead, took root in my heart. I stepped a little nearer. The pool glowed, not with light but with potential. It glowed in a way water could not.

"What is here?"

"The Flame Baths," she said. "Where wolves first learned to change by will, not birth. Where secrets sloughed like bark."

She turned around, her eyes aglow with soft moonlight. I could feel her power for the first time since I'd seen her as a pulse. It didn't scare. It welcomed.

"Why did you bring me?"

"Because fire is choosing you. And you need to prepare yourself."

She directed me to the pool. "Get in. If the water burns, then you're not human."

I didn't stir at first. Then I noticed the look in her eyes. Not fear. Hope.

I opened my shirt. Her eyes dropped, and something crossed her face as she looked at the tiny sigil on my chest-a mark I'd never seen until the swelling receded. She didn't say anything.

I stepped into the water.

It hissed.

The warmth surrounded me, not agony, but famine. I breathed, but did not make a sound. My body convulsed as the pool engulfed me, spun steam into my lungs, breathed realities into my bone.

And visions came.

Flame. Wolves. War. Coci, amidst blood and ember. Kael, screaming beneath a scarlet sky. And I-a creature of smoke and flame, dancing between worlds.

When I exploded in, I found I was not what I had thought.

Coci sat by the water, her hands tracing over my face.

"What did you see?"

"Flame. You. Death. And freedom, too."

She swallowed. "You're waking up faster than I was afraid to believe."

"I'm afraid."

"I am, too."

We did not talk, heartbeats pulsing in the same old rhythm. Behind us, the steam carried our secrets out into space.

We were not alone.

Wrenna stood amidst the forest, her eyes cold.

She turned and vanished, as quiet as the trees.

---

Morning broke with news of a hunt. Coci took me back into the woods, but her mind was far away.

"What you saw-"

"Was real," I said. "I do not understand how it is. But I feel. called. To something. To you."

She looked at me then, and I would have sworn her spirit quivered in her eyes.

"Tonight," she replied. "I'll take you to the lorekeeper. She might be able to clarify."

"And Kael?"

She didn't answer.

---

In the Council circle, Wrenna stood before Kael.

"She brought him to the Flame Baths."

"Did he incinerate?"

"Yes."

Kael said nothing. Then: "Then he is more than an intruder."

"He's a threat."

Kael's eyes went cold. "Then we treat him as a threat."

"But Coci-"

"Already betrayed me."

---

That night, we went into the cave on the cliff. Mitha, the lorekeeper, stood like time itself. Her eyes blinked like owls. Her skin was cracked like stone.

"He dreams of fire," Coci told her.

Mitha laughed. "Don't we all? But some are meant to be it."

She gestured me close.

"Show me your mark."

I showed it to her.

She hissed. Rang her dry finger over the symbol.

"Flamebound Sigil. Dead. Or so we believed."

"What is it?"

"That your souls had been bound long before your bodies. When you rise, she must fall. Or become as you."

Coci shivered. "What are you talking about?"

"Love and power cannot exist together. Something has to yield."

Wind stormed through the cave. And with it-Kael.

"You led him to the source of our power," he declared, stepping out of darkness.

Coci positioned herself between us.

"Kael, don't-".