The scent of wet ash and loam still hung over the village as dawn broke, smearing gold across the mist-shrouded pines. Jackie stood at the edge of the elder gardens, barefoot in the dew-soaked grass, muscles aching from the night's secret training. His makeshift spear—whittled from ashwood and bone—gleamed in the rising sun.
Again.
He inhaled, grounded his feet, and thrust forward. The spearhead hissed through the air, striking the hay-stuffed dummy dead center.
The moment it hit, a faint warmth stirred beneath his soles—like stepping onto a sunlit stone. Not enough to spark. Not yet. But real.
Jackie smiled, breath fogging.
The fire is waking.
But then, a thunderous crash split the morning silence. Birds erupted from the trees. The elder gardens trembled. From the shadows beyond the herb-mounds, a shrill scream followed—then a roar so deep it seemed to come from the bones of the earth.
Jackie spun, heart hammering.
The garden fence exploded outward in a storm of shattered wood and flying soil.
A boar—massive, bristled, foam-flecked—burst through the treeline. Its eyes burned yellow with fury, and its tusks were thick as thighbones, already slick with blood. Villagers scattered in its wake. The beast had the jagged pelt and shoulder hump of a Redback Razor, one of the feral old breeds that haunted the outer wilds.
"By the Ancients—!" Jackie whispered.
He raised his spear.
Just as the beast turned its gore-slick head toward the central village, a blur of bronze and black crashed down from the rooftops.
Kado.
The tribe's champion landed like a thunderstrike, his greatspear trailing fire behind it. His left arm bore the full sleeve of flame tattoos—mark of a matured Wolfflame—and his chest armor was made from the bones of beasts Jackie couldn't name.
"Stand aside, brat," Kado growled as Jackie moved forward. "You'll only embarrass yourself."
"I can help—"
"You're not blooded," Kado snapped, already charging.
The boar bellowed and met him in a storm of tusks and earth. Kado's spear clanged against bone. The clash sent a shockwave across the garden path, knocking fruit and prayer stones loose.
Jackie backed up, instincts warring. Stay out of it, one voice said. This isn't your place. But then—
A shriek pierced the fray.
A child—small, too slow—was frozen in the path of the beast, eyes wide, legs tangled in roots. The boar saw her. It turned, blood and foam flying.
And charged.
Jackie didn't think.
He moved.
Spear raised, legs coiled, he threw with all the strength he had—fueled by instinct, fury, fear. The weapon screamed through the air toward the beast.
It missed.
The shaft clipped the boar's flank and spun uselessly into the dirt. A wave of laughter and jeers echoed from the gathering villagers behind him.
"Should've stayed in the weeds, Ashborn!"
But Jackie was already moving again—running toward the child.
Just before the boar reached her, he dove. Wrapped his arms around her and twisted, pulling her out of the beast's direct path. But the Razor's shoulder still caught him—hard—and everything turned red.
The world went sideways.
Pain exploded through Jackie's ribs. He landed on his back, air knocked from his lungs. The girl scrambled free, sobbing.
The beast skidded, turned—
—and roared.
It charged again.
Jackie forced himself up, vision swimming. Blood trickled from his temple. He reached for anything—a rock, a broken shaft, his own breath—but he had nothing left.
The Razor boar was a wall of fury and bone.
Then, the air changed.
A pulse of heat, sudden and sharp, flooded the clearing.
A figure stepped between Jackie and the beast.
Taavo.
Old. Lame. Half-blind from war.
But still a warrior.
His simple spear gleamed with strange runes, and the wind curled around his feet like dogs on a leash. Jackie saw it then—the faint shimmer of bloodline aura curling from Taavo's skin like heat above stone.
The Razor charged.
Taavo shifted his weight, whispered something in the Old Tongue.
Then struck.
One clean, quiet blow. The spear pierced the boar's throat. Fire bloomed from the wound, not burning—cleansing—and the beast collapsed mid-charge with a thud that shook the trees.
Silence fell.
Villagers rushed in from all sides.
Jackie tried to stand and collapsed again, coughing. Hands steadied him. Yara knelt beside him, eyes wild with relief and fury.
"Idiot," she said. "You could've been killed."
"But the girl—"
"I know," she muttered, gripping his arm. "That's why it matters."
Kado pushed through the crowd, scowling.
"Trying to steal glory from those stronger than you," he sneered, though there was a flicker of something less certain in his tone. "Next time, let the real warriors handle it."
Taavo turned to him. His gaze was iron.
"He acted when none else did," the old warrior said. "That's more than I can say for the rest of you."
Kado's mouth closed. He turned and walked away.
Murmurs spread among the villagers.
"Did you see him leap between them?"
"He threw his spear. Missed, but… that took guts."
"Not bad for an Ashborn."
Jackie sat slumped against the well-stone, ribs screaming, but the pain was far away.
Because beneath it… was warmth.
His fingers tingled. His vision sharpened. Deep within his chest, something pulsed. Slow and steady. A spark of heat that wasn't from the sun.
Not just fire. Not just instinct. This is mine.
Shaman Rahu stood at the edge of the crowd, silent as a crow. He watched Jackie closely, eyes glittering beneath his bone-carved hood.
Then he whispered, almost to himself:
"The blood stirs in the soil. The root cracks the stone. He is not ash. He is coal… waiting for breath."
POV: Shaman Rahu – Moments Later
Beneath the shrine, in the hollow where the Heartstone pulsed like a buried heart, Rahu laid his hand upon the sacred fire-crystal.
Its glow shifted.
Once dormant, it now flickered gold and red.
"Another branch awakens," he muttered. "But it is not one I have seen before."
From the far wall, a glyph ignited on its own—one not etched by any hand in living memory.
Rahu stared.
"Ancients help us," he breathed. "The Ember Maw did not sleep in vain."
End of Chapter 2