The scent of burning wood clung to the dawn.
Elara stood barefoot at the edge of camp, her golden aura dimmed to a flickering thread beneath her skin. The old oak loomed before her—its gnarled bark carved with a sigil she didn't recognize, yet felt in the marrow of her bones. A circle with a crescent nested inside. Lines like claws, or fangs, or maybe the roots of something ancient, fanned outward from the center.
Beneath it, scorched into the trunk in ash-black script, were the words:
"Blood remembers. The Pact is broken. Rise, Daughter of Flame."
She traced the letters with shaking fingers. The bark was warm.
Behind her, Kael and Riven flanked her like twin sentinels, both tense, both silent. For once, there were no sharp words between them. Only the understanding of something larger than rivalry: a storm neither of them could control.
"It's his symbol," Riven said at last, his voice low. "Alpha Magnus. My father."
