CHAPTER FIVE: THE BURNING PATH

  Age Thirteen | Thornwake, Late Spring

  The cliffs east of the Tharnak camp rose like ancient sentinels, their weathered faces etched with the stories of countless seasons—stories told in frost patterns, sun-baked cracks, and the occasional darkened stain where blood had once seeped into porous stone. Sacred to the young, these heights served as more than mere geography; they were the crucible where courage was tested, where status was earned, where childhood began its painful metamorphosis into something harder.

  A proving ground of nerve and balance.

  Spring winds swept across the plateaus, carrying the scent of thawing earth and distant pine. The air tasted of possibility and danger in equal measure—thin enough to sharpen the senses, cold enough to remind one of mortality. Mock weapons clashed atop narrow ledges, their wooden impacts echoing across craggy drops that had broken more than bones over the generations. The ancestors watched here; everyone felt it, though few would admit it aloud.

  Sarkan stood near the precipice, a solitary figure perched upon a jutting stone that seemed to hover between earth and sky. His posture betrayed nothing of the turmoil that had plagued him since the incident with the mountain lion months before. Outwardly, he remained still, composed—a study in patient observation. Inwardly, the core Sha'vara had spoken of continued its restless spinning, a constant hum beneath his thoughts like distant thunder that never quite faded.

  Below him, a cluster of youths sparred with the wild abandon that comes with believing oneself immortal. Their laughter and taunts rose up the cliff face, carried by the wind that tugged at Sarkan's dark hair. Among them moved Rukk—quick-footed, light, eager—his movements betraying both natural talent and dangerous overconfidence. He ducked a clumsy swing, countered with a swift strike to his opponent's ribs, then spun away with unnecessary flourish.

  Still reckless.

  Sarkan's eyes narrowed slightly. Something in the air had changed—a subtle shift in the dynamics below. The sparring had taken on an edge, the friendly competition curdling into something sharper. He recognized the signs: bruised pride, whispered accusations, the subtle realignment of alliances that occurred whenever someone rose too quickly above their peers.

  Then came the shove.

  Whether born of accident or envy remained unknowable—intention obscured by the chaos of movement. But its trajectory was unmistakable, as was the force behind it. Varn's shoulder connected with Rukk's back as the latter balanced near the edge, his attention focused on another opponent.

  "Rukk!"

  Sarkan's voice cracked the air like thunder splitting a summer sky. He was already in motion, muscles coiling and releasing in one fluid leap that carried him impossibly far across the gap between outcroppings. His hand stretched outward, fingers splayed as if he could grasp the very fabric of time itself.

  But he was too late.

  Rukk stumbled backward, heels slipping on loose shale. His eyes widened—not with fear, but with the peculiar surprise that comes with the sudden realization that one's body is no longer obeying commands. His arms windmilled frantically against empty air. For a suspended moment, he hung between stability and freefall, between life and something darker.

  Then gravity reclaimed him.

  He fell.

  Not to death—a mercy granted not by gods but by the random chance of geology. A narrow ledge, jutting from the cliff face like a broken tooth, caught him mid-drop. The impact forced the air from his lungs in an audible whoosh, leaving him stunned but intact—a miracle written in bruises rather than broken bones.

  But something else broke in that moment.

  Inside Sarkan, a barrier shattered.

  The cliff face seemed to breathe—to inhale, to hold, to wait. The air grew dense and heavy, as if reality itself had suddenly thickened. Blood roared in Sarkan's ears, drowning out the shouts of alarm from below. Heat surged from his chest outward, flowing through his limbs like liquid metal seeking escape. His fingers flared red—not from reflected light but from within, as if sun had somehow taken up residence beneath his skin.

  Then—

  A blast of fire erupted from his body.

  Not simple flame but something more primal—a manifestation of pure energy that pulsed outward like a shockwave. It seared the cliff's face, scorching ancient stone and melting patches of lingering snow into instant steam. The force of it caught Varn, who stood frozen in shock, and hurled him across the stone platform like a rag doll tossed by a petulant child. He slammed against the far rock face with a dull thud, then crumpled into an ungraceful heap.

  The world froze.

  Time seemed to stutter, caught between heartbeats. Silence descended, broken only by the soft crackle of stone cooling from unnatural heat and Rukk's pained groan from the ledge below—bruised but alive. The other youths stared in horror, their faces masks of primal fear illuminated by the last flickering embers of Sarkan's outburst.

  Sarkan dropped to his knees, breath coming in ragged gasps that tore at his throat. Each inhale burned, each exhale trembled. His veins pulsed faintly with orange light, a network of molten rivers running just beneath the surface of his skin, like magma seeking escape from the confines of earth. The snow at the cliff's edge hissed into steam where his hands touched it.

  "Witch blood," someone whispered, carrying the weight of generations of superstition and fear. "He's burning."

  The words hung in the air, a judgment and a prophecy intertwined. Soon, others took up the whisper, the sound spreading like contagion through the gathered witnesses.

  Elders who had been watching the training session from a respectful distance now rushed in, their faces tight with concern and something darker—the ancient fear of forces beyond control. Sha'vara moved among them, her weathered face a complex tapestry of emotions. Concern predominated, but beneath that lurked something that might have been pride—or dread—or both intermingled until they became indistinguishable.

  She knelt beside Sarkan, seemingly unafraid of the heat still radiating from his trembling form. With a steadiness born of decades of ritual practice, she pressed her palm to his chest—directly over his heart, directly over the spinning core that now threatened to consume him from within.

  Mana flowed from her touch, cool and steady as a mountain stream—blue-green lines of energy glowing briefly as they traveled from her fingers into his burning chest. Ancient words fell from her lips, too soft for others to hear, words that knew the paths between worlds and the secret names of fire.

  "Easy," she whispered as her power wrapped around his, containing without smothering, soothing without weakening. "Let the fire settle. Let it sleep."

  Her eyes, clouded with Fye-sight, saw beyond the physical to the maelstrom of energy swirling within him—a storm taking form, a power seeking shape. What she witnessed there changed something in her expression, a subtle shift from concern to something approaching awe.

  Sarkan closed his eyes, surrendering to her cooling touch. Darkness folded over him like a merciful blanket, sparing him from the whispers that continued to spread outward from the cliff's edge, carrying news that would transform not just his future, but that of the entire tribe.

  As consciousness faded, one thought crystallized with perfect clarity: There would be no going back.

  By nightfall, half the camp had heard.

  News traveled through the Tharnak settlement like wildfire through dry grass—unstoppable, transformative, leaving nothing unchanged in its wake. Tribespeople gathered in small clusters, their conversations hushed yet animated, glances frequently darting toward the healer's lodge where Sarkan lay unconscious under Sha'vara's watchful eye.

  Some feared what they had witnessed; their expressions hardened with suspicion hardened by generations of warnings against magics that reached beyond the body. Others merely whispered, curiosity warring with caution in their eyes. A few—mostly the younger warriors who had seen Sarkan's previous display with the mountain lion—spoke with something approaching reverence. Power, after all, commanded respect regardless of its source.

  The settlement itself seemed to hold its breath, the normal evening activities subdued under the weight of collective uncertainty. Even the cooking fires burned lower, as if afraid of drawing unwanted comparison to the power that had erupted on the cliffs. Children were called inside earlier than usual, their usual twilight games abandoned.

  Inside the healer's lodge, the air hung heavy with the scent of medicinal herbs and sacred ash. Sarkan lay on a bed of furs, his breathing now steady but his skin still unnaturally warm to the touch. Occasionally, faint pulses of orange light would travel beneath his skin—like lightning seen through storm clouds, distant but potent.

  Sha'vara sat beside him, her ancient hands busy grinding herbs in a stone mortar while her eyes remained fixed on her charge. Her movements betrayed no anxiety, but the set of her shoulders spoke of readiness—for what, perhaps even she did not fully know.

  The lodge's entrance flap parted suddenly, admitting a gust of cool evening air and the imposing figure of Gorvak. He had returned from the high range where he had been leading a hunting party tasked with culling mana-touched predators that had begun encroaching on tribal territories. His armor, crafted from hardened hide and metal scraps traded from lowland settlements, still bore the dust of the expedition, and dried blood—both his and not his—spattered his forearms.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  His eyes, sharp despite the weariness etched into the lines surrounding them, immediately found his son's still form. Something flickered across his weathered face—concern briefly wrestling with something harder—before his expression settled back into the stoic mask expected of the tribe's war chief.

  Behind him followed several elders, their entrance lacking his powerful presence but compensating with the weight of tribal authority. Their faces revealed a spectrum of emotions—concern, fear, righteous anger—but all shared the same underlying tension.

  "The boy cannot stay," Elder Krogar declared without preamble, his voice carrying the gravel of advanced years but losing none of its authority for it. "What happened today proves what many have suspected since the mountain lion incident. The power in him is wild, uncontrolled. He could have killed someone."

  "He saved a life," Sha'vara shot back without looking up from her mortar, her tone deceptively mild despite the steel underlying her words. "And burned no one who didn't need burning."

  The implication hung in the air—that Varn's "accident" had perhaps been something more deliberate. Several elders shifted uncomfortably, aware of the long-standing tensions between certain factions within the tribe.

  "That's not for him to decide," countered Ellara, an elder whose face bore the ritual scars of a seer. "Fire that judges is fire beyond control. The old teachings are clear—external magics bring only ruin."

  Murmurs of agreement rippled through the assembled elders. The teachings were indeed clear, passed down through generations that had witnessed the fall of greater civilizations to unchecked magical corruption.

  Gorvak raised a hand, the gesture simple yet commanding immediate silence. He walked further into the lodge, his steps deliberate, measured. The flickering light from the central hearth cast his shadow large against the hide walls, a looming presence that seemed to fill the space beyond his physical form.

  He approached his son's bedside, standing opposite Sha'vara. For a long moment, he simply stared down at Sarkan, his expression unreadable as stone. Then, almost imperceptibly, his fingers brushed against the boy's forehead—the lightest of touches, there and gone in an instant.

  Finally, he turned to face the circle of firelight where the elders waited, his massive frame backlit by the flames.

  "He is no longer asleep," Gorvak stated, his deep voice resonating in the confined space. "That is clear."

  The words carried multiple meanings—referring not just to Sarkan's current state of unconsciousness, but to the deeper slumber of latent power that had now fully awakened. There was no denying it anymore, no dismissing the mountain lion incident as aberration or coincidence.

  "Then he's dangerous," Elder Krogar insisted, leaning heavily on his gnarled staff. "We all know the stories of the witch-blooded. They begin with wonder and end with ash. Always."

  Sha'vara finally looked up from her work, her eyes reflecting the firelight in a way that made them seem to glow from within—a reminder that she, too, walked closer to the edge of acceptable magics than many were comfortable acknowledging.

  "No," she said with quiet certainty that somehow filled the room more effectively than a shout. "He's waking. And that's not the same."

  She rose from her seat, her slight frame belying the presence she commanded. With the power of powerful shaman, seer and mate of a war chief, and when she spoke, even the elders found themselves leaning forward to catch her words.

  "There is a difference between power that consumes and power that transforms. I have watched this boy since the day I birth him. I have read the patterns in his blood, in his bones, in the very way mana flows around him." Her gaze swept the gathering, challenging. "This is not corruption. This is evolution."

  "Evolution toward what?" Ellara demanded, her voice sharp with suspicion.

  Before Sha'vara could answer, a soft groan from the bed drew all eyes to Sarkan. His eyelids fluttered, though he did not fully wake. The orange glow beneath his skin pulsed once, strongly, then subsided to a barely perceptible shimmer.

  "That," Gorvak said into the ensuing silence, "is what we must determine." His eyes met Sha'vara's across the bed, an unspoken communication passing between them. "I will speak with him when he wakes."

  It was both promise and command, and though several elders looked as if they wished to protest, none dared contradict the war chief in this moment.

  "Until then," he continued, voice brooking no argument, "he remains under Sha'vara's care. No decisions will be made without my word."

  With that proclamation, he turned and strode from the lodge, leaving the elders to disperse in his wake, their whispered concerns following them into the night.

  Sha'vara resumed her seat beside Sarkan, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips as she returned to grinding her herbs.

  "They fear what they don't understand," she murmured to her unconscious charge. "But your father—he fears what he understands all too well."

  Outside, the night deepened. Stars emerged, cold and distant yet somehow watchful—ancient lights bearing witness to the unfolding of patterns set in motion long before the Tharnak claimed these lands as their own.

  Later that night, inside Gorvak's private lodge—the largest in the tribe, a testament to both his status and the necessity of accommodating his formidable frame—father and son sat across the hearth from one another. The structure stood apart from the main settlement, positioned on slightly elevated ground that offered both privacy and tactical advantage, as befitted the dwelling of a war chief.

  Trophy hides adorned the walls—bear, wolf, mountain cat, and creatures less easily named, some bearing the strange markings of mana corruption that had become increasingly common in recent seasons. Iron-banded weapons hung between them, their edges gleaming dully in the firelight—tools of war crafted with both skill and bitter experience. The lodge itself smelled of smoke, leather, and the particular muskiness that seemed to accompany masculine power throughout the world.

  The fire burned low between them, its flames dancing without sound, as if even they dared not intrude upon the weighty silence that filled the space.

  Sarkan sat cross-legged on a fur, his back straight despite the lingering exhaustion that tugged at his limbs. The outburst on the cliff had drained him in ways he was only beginning to understand, leaving behind an emptiness that paradoxically felt like potential rather than lack. His eyes, reflecting the firelight, revealed nothing of his inner thoughts—a skill learned from the very man who now regarded him with unreadable intensity from across the hearth.

  The silence burned hotter than the flames.

  "I once saw a human mage," Gorvak said at last, his voice emerging from the quiet like a boulder breaking the surface of still water. "Captured him during a raid on our northern settlements. His eyes glowed like the old tales—amber ringed with violet. He smiled when he burned half our forces. And then himself."

  The words hung in the air, their implications clear enough to require no elaboration. Gorvak reached for a skin of fermented mare's milk, took a long pull, then offered it to Sarkan. A test, perhaps, or simply the acknowledgment that this conversation would not be between child and adult, but between two warriors facing a shared threat.

  Sarkan accepted the skin, took a measured sip of the bitter liquid, and returned it without flinching—another small victory in a lifetime of proving himself.

  "Magic doesn't obey," Gorvak continued, his eyes never leaving his son's face. "It infects. It consumes. It gives power—but never without price." His massive hands, scarred from countless battles, flexed unconsciously. "I've seen what happens when that price comes due. When the magic turns back on its wielder."

  Sarkan said nothing, understanding that this moment called for listening rather than defending.

  "The elders want you gone," Gorvak added bluntly. "They fear what you might become. Fear what you might do to the tribe."

  Something flickered in Sarkan's eyes then—not hurt, precisely, but awareness of a deeper wound. The tribe was all he had ever known, the only family granted to him after his mother's people had been scattered or slain. Exile would mean true aloneness in a world increasingly hostile to those who walked without protection.

  "I didn't ask for it," Sarkan said quietly, his voice steady despite the weight pressing against his chest. "But I'll master it."

  "So did the human," Gorvak countered immediately. "Right before his insides melted."

  The brutality of the image was intentional—not cruelty, but the harsh kindness of a culture that believed soft truths were more dangerous than hard ones.

  Sarkan looked up, meeting his father's gaze without flinching. Something had shifted in him since the cliff, some internal alignment altering in ways that would only become fully apparent with time. There was steel in his eyes now, tempered by the fire that had surged through him.

  "I won't be like him."

  It wasn't bravado or empty promise—it was declaration, as immutable as the mountains themselves. Something in Gorvak's expression changed, recognition dawning of the transformation taking place before him.

  "Then answer me one thing, boy," he said, his voice hardening to match the resolve he saw in his son's eyes. "Will you use it for us—for the tribe—or to raise yourself above it?"

  The question cut to the heart of tribal fear—that power inevitably led to hierarchy, to separation, to the breakdown of the collective bond that had sustained them through generations of hardship. The Tharnak's strength came from their unity, from the subsuming of individual ambition to group survival. Magic, by its nature, created division—between those who had power and those who did not.

  Silence fell again as Sarkan considered the question, knowing his answer would determine not just his place in the tribe, but potentially the tribe's future itself. The fire between them seemed to listen, its flames leaning slightly toward him as if awaiting his response.

  Then:

  "I'll lift the tribe," Sarkan said, each word precise and weighted with intent, "with me."

  The statement hung in the air between them—not quite submission, not quite defiance, but something new. A third path that acknowledged both his uniqueness and his belonging. A promise that bound him to the collective while acknowledging that he could never again be simply one among many.

  They stared at each other across the flames, father and son, leader and potential successor. The firelight caught in Gorvak's eyes, reflecting determination and calculation in equal measure.

  And for the first time, Gorvak didn't see a boy.

  He saw the beginning of a threat.

  Or a king.

  Or both.

  The realization settled into his bones with the weight of prophecy—The child he had raised—his own son, though born to an outsider—might be destined to reshape the very tribe that had hesitantly welcomed him. But transformation always demanded destruction before rebuilding could begin..

  "Dawn training," he said finally, the decision made though its full implications remained unclear even to him. "With me. No weapons."

  Sarkan nodded once, understanding both the opportunity and the warning contained within the command. Gorvak would train him—not just in combat now, but in control. In power. In leadership.

  And he would watch him. Closely.

  As Sarkan rose to leave, Gorvak spoke once more, his voice low enough that it might have been meant for himself alone.

  "The elders speak of what your blood might bring. But blood is just the vessel." His eyes followed his son's departing form. "It's the will that decides which way the blade falls."

  Outside, the night had deepened toward its darkest hour. Stars wheeled overhead, and somewhere in the distant mountains, a lone wolf howled—a sound of both belonging and separation, of pack bonds and solitary hunting.

  Sarkan paused to listen, feeling the sound resonate with something new awakening within him. The burning had subsided, but the path it illuminated stretched before him, winding into shadows and possibilities yet unnamed.

  Behind him, in the war chief's lodge, Gorvak stared into the dying fire and saw futures branching like lightning across storm clouds—some glorious, some terrible, all irrevocable.

  And in her own lodge, Sha'vara smiled in her sleep, dreaming of fire that transformed rather than consumed, of ancient power returning to a world long dormant, of a boy whose name would someday be spoken in whispers far beyond the boundaries of the tribe that had reluctantly claimed him.

  The wheel turned. The pattern shifted.

  And something old and patient stirred in the depths of the world, sensing the change.

  Rate the chapter