The hut stank of crushed herbs and old blood.
Jackie winced as Taavo's wife, Nima, dabbed a poultice along his ribs. The sting crawled deeper than skin. Her hands were weathered but sure, etched with the inked rings of a hundred healings—one for each life she'd saved, or failed to.
"You're lucky the tusk didn't puncture your lung," she said in her gravelly voice, wrapping cloth tight around his torso. "Or that you didn't land on your neck. Idiot."
Jackie grunted. "Is that your healer's oath? Call the wounded names until they recover out of spite?"
She snorted but said nothing more, knotting the final strip and leaning back to study him with eyes like flint.
Outside, the village stirred. Children chased one another through the tallgrass, the morning sun glinting off their bone-charms and copper bracelets. Smoke curled from cooking fires, and near the Great Totem, warriors carved fresh glyphs into the Ashwood posts—records of the day's hunt, the boar's death, and the blood that had been spilled.
Jackie's blood among them.
His breath caught—not from pain this time, but something stranger. A sensation stirring just beneath the surface, like a buried ember coaxed into heat. It pulsed faintly at his sternum. No fire. No lightning. Just… presence.
I felt it when I stood between the girl and the boar, he thought. That warmth in my chest. That wasn't fear.
He flexed his fingers, half-expecting them to shimmer again like they had during training. But nothing came. Only the soft rustle of deer-hide and the distant murmur of tribal voices.
Then a familiar one: Chief Naru.
He entered the healing hut without fanfare, his wolf-bone mantle casting shadows on the earthen walls. His face was marked by age and ash, though his gaze burned sharp beneath his brow.
Jackie sat up straighter despite the flare of pain.
"You did not defeat the boar," Naru said bluntly.
Jackie's throat tightened. "No, Chief."
"But you stood against it when others did not," he continued, voice like cracked stone. "You risked your life to save a child."
Naru stepped closer, crouching before him so they were eye-level.
"That act," the chief said, "is written deeper than ink."
Jackie blinked, unsure what to say.
Then Naru reached into the pouch at his belt and withdrew a small token—a fang, carved and scorched at the tip.
"This is not the mark of a warrior," he said, handing it over. "Not yet. But it is the mark of one who listens to the fire when it calls."
Jackie accepted the tooth with shaking fingers. It was warm, almost unnaturally so. Or perhaps it was his hand.
"Thank you," he whispered.
"Train harder," Naru said, standing. "Think faster. Die slower."
And with that, the chief left.
That evening, the fire circle burned higher than usual. Sparks danced like fireflies, rising into the smoke-thick sky as if called by spirits.
The whole tribe had gathered. Elders with sunken cheeks and braided gray beards. Warriors sharpening bone-spears and retelling battles. Children wide-eyed with dreams not yet broken by failure.
Jackie sat beside Yara on a low stool carved with the mark of the fox—his family's totem. His side ached, but he felt the weight of the day pressing against something deeper: the turning of a wheel.
Rahu's voice rose above the crackling flames.
"There was once a boy named Orun who spoke to wolves," the old shaman began. "Not with words, but with blood. When his village was threatened by frost-beasts, he did not flee. He sang the Song of Teeth and Fire and followed the wolves into the ice. He came back changed. Not because he had killed... but because he had understood what it meant to protect."
The crowd murmured. Jackie listened, unmoving.
Another tale followed. Then another. And with each, the fire seemed to lean toward him.
At one point, he turned to Yara and caught her watching him—not with pity, but something close to awe. She looked away too fast, cheeks pink in the firelight.
Kado sat across the circle, arms crossed, watching everything. He said nothing. But his jaw was tight.
Let him sneer, Jackie thought. He saw me fall, but he also saw me stand up.
That night, sleep did not come easy.
The wind moaned across the thatch roof, carrying the scent of pine, smoke, and old blood. Jackie tossed beneath his furs, heart racing. The bandages itched. His thoughts burned.
And then—
Dreams took him.
He stood barefoot in an ancient forest.
The trees towered like gods, their bark etched with runes that shimmered faintly in silver-blue light. Moonlight dripped through the canopy like liquid metal. Mist curled around his ankles.
And ahead, in silence, stood a colossal wolf.
Its fur was black smoke streaked with firelight, its eyes glowing with the same warmth Jackie had felt beneath his feet the day he struck the dummy.
It didn't growl. Didn't move.
It simply watched.
Jackie stepped forward, drawn as if by tether. The ground pulsed beneath him—once, twice—and he felt a shift inside. Not pain. Not power. A reminder.
He looked down.
There, glowing faintly on his wrist, was a sigil—a curved symbol of fang and flame, like a crescent moon caught in mid-howl.
The wolf inclined its massive head.
Then everything went black.
Jackie awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright.
The hut was still. The fire burned low in the center pit. No one else stirred.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked down at his wrist.
For a moment—just a breath—it was there.
A faint sigil, pulsing like heartbeat light, then fading into skin as if it had never existed.
The hut's flap rustled.
Rahu stood in the doorway, leaning on his staff carved from ancient bone.
He said nothing at first. Just looked at Jackie.
And smiled.
"The blood of the Ancients stirs in you," he said softly.
Jackie's mouth was dry. "What… was that?"
"Not a dream," Rahu answered. "A memory. But not yours. Not yet."
He stepped forward, placing something gently on the floor beside Jackie's mat. A bundle, wrapped in old crimson thread.
Jackie reached for it slowly, pulse loud in his ears.
Inside was a carved stone pendant, etched with the sigil from his dream.
Yara entered the hut behind the shaman, her face pale.
"I've seen that symbol before," she whispered. "In the old stories. The Ember Maw. The trial that only the cursed bloodlines take."
Rahu's expression darkened.
"Not cursed," he said. "Forgotten. Buried too deep for most to hear. But now… one has listened."
End of Chapter 3