Some forests do not burn. They remember.
Before the fire, there was snow.
It fell soft and endless, dusting every bough in silver and silence. The breath of the forest was slow, ancient, deep. Beneath the frostlight canopy, the wind wove through sacred stones and prayer-furrows carved into the trunks by claw and tooth. The trees stood like sentinels — not unmoving, but waiting.
This was Frost-Fang Grove. Seat of the Frost-Fang clan.
The oldest of the seven wild tribes who still remembered the World Tree's root-song.
And she — she was Kaia of the Frost-Fang. Daughter of the Chief. Heir to the hunt. Pale as winter. Eyes like gold left in snow.
Not yet a warrior, not yet marked. But already, the forest watched her when she walked.
She ran barefoot across the ridge of a sleeping root, snow crackling beneath her step. In her hands, a pair of carved glaives — lightwood training weapons, soaked in glacierwater and oil. She moved like instinct — all grace, all breath, all threat — the way her father taught her. Not as a child.
As a headhuntress in the making.
A white tiger in blood and soul.
"Faster," came the voice that had shaped her spine.
Nal'Thara Frost-Fang, her father, towered above the stones. He wore no crown — only the necklace of fangs passed from chieftain to chieftain, each tooth a name, each name a death not forgotten. His fur-lined cloak swept behind him like a blizzard's shadow, and though his mane was streaked in gray, his eyes burned bright.
"No hesitation," he said. "The Tree chooses the strong, not the soft."
Kaia moved again, faster this time, slicing the air with every step. Her form flowed from cut to guard, guard to counter, a blur of white across the grove. She landed in a crouch, panting. Her father nodded.
"Again," he said. "And again. Until the forest remembers your shape."
That night, they sat by the stonefire in the chieftain's den. Her brothers sharpened spears. Her mother braided herbs into wind-chimes. Songs were sung low, to the rhythm of memory and bone. Snow fell beyond the woven hide-flaps.
It was the last peaceful night she would ever remember.
They came with morning sun.
The Order.
White robes. Silver tongues. Hands empty of weapons but heavy with promises. They spoke of harmony. Of unity. Of gifts from the Rift.
They bowed low. They praised the Frost-Fang for their ancient strength. They said they came in peace.
"We bring a new era," one of them said, stepping across the warding stones without flinching. His voice was smooth. Beautiful, even. "All we ask is obedience. In return, power. Protection. Ascendance."
Kaia remembered standing beside her father, her glaives at her side.
He said nothing.
They offered one more thing: a sacrifice.
"To prove your loyalty," the robed man smiled. "One life, freely given. Just one."
Silence fell over the grove like ash.
Nal'Thara did not raise his voice. He only stepped forward and bared his throat.
"Take mine," he said.
The Order refused.
"You are the tree," the man said. "We need the leaf."
His eyes found Kaia.
She remembered her father's growl then. It wasn't rage. It was something older — the sound of a storm remembering its name.
"No."
That was all he said.
They left.
And three nights later, they returned.
Not with honeyed words. But with fire.
Kaia woke to screams.
The hide walls were glowing — orange, red, then white. Her little brother's voice was screaming for their mother. She ran through smoke and clawed her way through burning snow. The forest howled. Trees split from inside as if the fire carried names only they remembered.
She saw her eldest brother fall — an arrow through the neck. Her mother thrown into the altar stone. The sacred wind-chimes shattering as the den collapsed.
She found her father in the center of it all — his body half-burned, blood pouring from his chest, glaive still clutched in hand. Dozens of white-robed corpses surrounded him.
He looked at her.
He smiled.
"Run, daughter," he said. "And let the wind remember you."
But she didn't run. Not fast enough.
They caught her. Branded her.
They didn't kill her. They wanted her marked.
"We do not need your loyalty," they told her, pressing iron into flesh. "Only your name, etched in pain."
And then they left her in the ash.
Alone.
Years passed.
The forest grew over the bones. The stones cracked. The names were forgotten.
But Kaia didn't forget.
She opened her eyes now — in the present — and the blue frostflame still burned beside her.
The shrine had endured. So had she.
"I used to pray here," she whispered. "Before they came. Before they turned our dreams to ash."
Rei was silent. Then he knelt beside her, close, but not touching.
"I was marked too, by the Rift" he said, voice quiet. "But I never understood it. Not until I saw it in your eyes."
Kaia turned to him — really turned — and for the first time in years, she let someone see.
He wasn't strong — not yet.
He wasn't wise — not always.
But he was here.
So was she.
And for the first time since the night her world burned, Kaia of the Frost-Fang… believed that maybe, just maybe — the forest would remember her again.