Eiran's footsteps faded down the trail, swallowed by the trees. Sylas didn't move. He stood still, the dawn wind curling around him like a slow exhale, carrying with it the faint scent of dust and pine.
The coyote cub shifted at his feet, curling tighter into its blanket nest. Fragile. Small. The fur behind its ears twitched, but it didn't wake.
Sylas crouched beside it again and ran a finger over the bundle, checking the tightness of the wrapping around its injured leg. It was healing, slowly. But time was a luxury neither of them had.
He glanced toward the trees.
"Just don't let it distract you," Eiran had said. Easy for him. The Bear had marked him clean and early. Strength. Honor. Eiran had never had to wonder if he belonged.
"I know," Sylas had said.
But he didn't, not really.
He gathered the cub carefully and rose. It fit snugly under his arm, warm against the cold air. Its shallow breaths tickled his ribs through the fabric of his tunic.
As he walked back toward the grove, his feet finding rhythm on the uneven trail, he spoke low under his breath.
"Guess you don't have much of a sense of timing," he murmured to the cub. "You picked the worst possible day to need saving. You know that?"
The cub didn't stir.
The trail narrowed, hemmed in by thornbrush and bramble, their branches clawing at his cloak. Sylas ducked beneath a low-hanging pine limb and adjusted his grip on the bundle.
Every heartbeat was a countdown. Every step closer to the grove pulled him deeper into it. The weight of legacy, of ritual, of everything he was supposed to become. A bearer of a mark. A champion. A son his father could point to without grim silence.
But even now, with the wind in the trees and the promise of firelight ahead, Sylas couldn't imagine that altar welcoming him.
His grip on the cub tightened slightly. "Maybe I'm the one that needed saving," he said softly.
The wind whispered in the canopy above, rustling the needles with a dry, scraping sound. Somewhere far off, a crow cried out suddenly and was gone.
He crested a small rise in the trail, and the scent of woodsmoke hit him.
Home was close now.
Maren would be cooking. Nara would be playing, probably. His father might already be prepping a lecture, measuring his disappointment by the hour.
Sylas's pace quickened.
He passed between two crooked stones that marked the edge of their grove. The trees opened up into the familiar clearing where the family's longhouse sat half-sunken into the hillside, smoke rising from the chimney, firelight flickering behind stretched hide windows.
But the sight that met him stopped him cold.
His father was already outside.
Deren stood near the kindling rack, sleeves rolled to the elbow, chopping wood in sharp, efficient motions. His frame was broad, carved from labor and pride, his shoulders wrapped in the signature bear-pelt cloak of their bloodline. The axe moved with rhythmic force. No wasted effort, no breath out of place.
Sylas froze behind the treeline.
He hadn't planned on this.
Deren looked up.
Their eyes met.
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then the axe came down one final time. Clean cut. Deren set the blade aside and straightened, brushing sawdust from his palms.
Sylas forced himself forward.
As he stepped into the clearing, Deren's gaze drifted down, toward the bundle in his arms.
The cub stirred faintly.
Sylas adjusted the fold of the cloak, too late to hide it.
Deren's voice, when it came, was quiet. "What's that?"
Sylas swallowed. "A cub. I… I found it injured. Yesterday."
"A coyote cub?"
Sylas nodded.
The silence stretched between them like drawn wire.
"I see," Deren said finally. "And why, exactly, did you bring it here?"
Sylas shifted his weight. "It would've died."
"That's not what I asked."
He hesitated. "I couldn't leave it."
Deren walked forward slowly, boots crunching on gravel and pine needles. He stopped a few paces away, his expression unreadable.
"You know what they say about coyotes."
"Yes."
"And you brought one home anyway."
Sylas's voice was quiet. "It's just an animal."
Deren's brows lowered. "Animals carry omens. They don't choose to. But the gods choose them."
The coyote cub stirred again and gave a faint whimper.
Deren's mouth tightened. "Do you know what tomorrow is?"
Sylas forced himself not to flinch. "The Awakening."
Deren nodded once. "And what happens when the gods see you standing there, holding one of their jokes against your chest like a prize? What mark do you think that invites?"
Sylas clenched his jaw. "I didn't bring it to the altar. I just…"
"You brought it home."
Maren's voice cut through the tension. "Enough."
Sylas turned.
His mother stood at the longhouse doorway, a clay bowl in one hand, her gaze sharp as glass. Behind her, Nara peeked around the frame, wide-eyed and already grinning like a fox with feathers in her teeth.
Maren stepped forward, cool and calm. "He's here. He's safe. And the creature hasn't brought down fire from the skies. Let it go, Deren."
Deren's jaw worked, but he said nothing.
Instead, he turned on his heel and walked back to the chopping block. The axe rose again. Wood split.
Sylas exhaled, only now realizing he'd been holding his breath.
Maren came closer, her eyes softening just enough. "You've got dirt on your cheek," she said, brushing it away with her thumb.
"Sorry," Sylas muttered.
"For what?"
"For… everything."
She smiled faintly. "You're a storm, Sylas. You bring trouble where you go. But sometimes storms are the only way the land changes."
Nara let out a soft "oooooh" from the doorway.
"Go find something useful to do," Maren called without turning.
"I am being useful," Nara called back. "I'm being a witness."
Sylas sighed and stepped past them both, heading toward his room tucked beneath the sloping roof.
The cub shifted again in his arms.
"Bad timing," Sylas whispered. "But I'm glad you're here anyway."
As he passed beneath the doorway, the wind kicked up again, whistling through the grove in a long, curling gust.
And buried in the sound just for a second was a low, rattling laugh.