Now I’m just someone who chose to step into the unknown.
Before, my life had direction—clear, steady, shaped by expectation from the moment I was born. There was no unknown. But now? Every step feels like walking through mist.
“Do you know where Lyra is?” I ask.
Thane gestures over his shoulder with a nod of his head. “She’s been training with some of the newer recruits all morning. I passed them on the way here.”
A small smile tugs at my lips. Of course she has. It’s just like Lyra to slip into a place like she was always meant to be there.
A soft birdsong rises through the branches above us. I glance up.
The oak rustles in the breeze, limbs wide and reaching. Light filters through the canopy, dappling the ground in flickering gold.
From the corner of my eye, I notice Thane follows my gaze upward.
“That’s a flamecrest,” he says, nodding toward the bird.
Its rust-colored wings flash in the light as it flits from branch to branch, the golden plume on its head rising like a flame with every note of its song.
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“They’re native to the Fire Clan’s highlands,” Thane says. “They nest near lava flows—heat doesn’t bother them. Some say they’re born from embers.” He glances at me. “People say they only sing that particular song when they sense something’s about to change.”
I look back at the flamecrest, its song light and clear through the trees.
I’m still watching the flamecrest when Thane speaks. “Valen told me you chose.”
I shift my gaze to him. His eyes are steady, measured.
I nod.
My gaze drops to my hands. I didn’t even realize I was wringing them until the ache sets in. I pull them apart and sit on them, pressing them into the bench like I can force the tension out of my body.
Thane just watches me. He doesn’t press, and I’m grateful for that. I don’t want to talk about my grief—not with him. He may be many things, but right now, he’s still a stranger.
I’ll find Lyra afterward.
I glance at Thane. His eyes—smoke-gray—catch the light like struck flint. I’ve never seen eyes that color before.
In the Earth Clan, people have eyes in shades of brown or green. The Air Clan is all blues and silvers, like the sky after a storm. Water Clan leans hazel, soft and shifting like river stone. Some have blue eyes, like the ocean, I’ve been told. And the Fire Clan? Gold, mostly. Sometimes brown. Maybe hazel.
But smoke-gray? That’s not a color I’ve ever seen. Not in any clan.
Maybe he’s some mix of clans. Maybe there’s an explanation.
Or maybe it’s just another thing I don’t know yet.
“So now what?” I ask, quieter than I intend.
“Now,” Thane says, “we begin training you.”
His tone is calm, certain—like the path is already laid out.
“Valen will help you harness and wield your elemental magics. I’ll train you in combat—hand-to-hand, weapons, whatever you’ll need. And we build from there.”
He pauses, and something shifts in his expression—a glint in his eye that hadn’t been there before.
“But first, if you want . . . we introduce you to my inner circle. Now that you’re staying.”
