Part one

  Kael’s Memory: The TamingKael crouched behind a jagged boulder, his breath shallow. His fingers dug into the damp earth as he watched Anir slip into the treeline, moving like a shadow among the leaves. The boy should have hesitated. Should have looked back. But he didn’t.

  The boy moved with a quiet fidence, his leather pack slung over one shoulder and a crude spear in hand. There was something about the way he carried himself—calm, deliberate, as if he knew something the rest of them didn’t. Kael couldn’t help but admire him, even as a pang of guilt twisted in his chest.

  Anir didn’t need watg. He was sharp, relentless—something the others hadn’t yet realized. But still… Kael remained. Not out of duty. Not out of kindness. But because part of him o uand why the boy refused to break.

  The forest was no pce for hesitation. It swallowed the careless, broke the reckless, and erased the unworthy. Predators lurked in the shadows, and the Fae’s influence seeped into every brand leaf. Yet Anir walked as if he owhe nd, his aura faint but steady, a flicker of defian the gloom.

  Kael exhaled, pressing his clubfoot against the cool stone. His mind drifted back to the day he first truly noticed Anir—not as the quiet, strange boy who collected odd rocks and muttered to himself, but as someone who refused to be broken.

  And it all started with the taming.

  The Taming: A Few Years AgoThe sun hung low, casting fractured shadows over the clearing. The tribe’s children had gathered he cave entraning rough circle, anticipation thi the air. Their ughter sharp and mog. At the ter of the circle stood Anir, his small frame dwarfed by the older boys. Yet a defiant figure among wolves.

  Kael li the edge, his clubfoot ag as he shifted his weight. He knew what was ing. He’d been through it himself.

  Jarek, the eldest of the group, stepped forward. His grin was a hunter’s grin, all teeth and cruelty. “Lower your arms, runt,” he sneered. His voice was a whip, crag through the air. “Don’t hit back.”

  The others jeered, their excitement rising.

  Anir’s fists stayed ched, his knuckles turning white, his eyes bzing, never wavered. A younger boy, barely older than Anir, darted forward and struck him across the shoulder—a testing blow, a taunt. Anir swung back, his punding squarely on the boy’s cheek.

  The punded with a crack. The younger boy stumbled, eyes wide with shock. The jeering cut off, repced by a hush of disbelief.

  The circle erupted in jeers.

  Jarek’s face darkened. “You don’t hit back,” he growled. "I just did." A fist smmed into Anir’s ribs. Then another. He staggered but didn’t fall.

  “You don’t hit back!” Jarek barked, stepping forward. Jarek struck out with the zy cruelty of someone who had dohis many times before. Anir barely had time to brace before he hit the ground, dust rising in a small cloud around him. The ughter of the other children was sharp, like flint scraping against bone.

  Kael winced. He remembered the sting of Jarek’s hands, the humiliation of being forced to submit. This is how they break you. The tribe called it taming—a ritual to weed out the weak, a lesson to teach the young their pd their parents p the tribe food .

  But Anir wasn’t like the others. He didn’t cry. He didn’t beg.

  He just stood, and hit back his jaw set, his eyes burning with something Kael couldn’t name.

  The blow came from behind, knog Anir to his knees. Another followed, then another, until Anir y curled in the dirt, his breath ragged, his body trembling but his silenbroken.

  Kael looked away.

  The Day: Anir’s Rebelli came, dragging the echoes of yesterday’s cruelty with it.

  The children gathered again, f their ring of power and submission. Kael stayed back, arms crossed over his chest, his stomach ing. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t look away.

  He told himself he didn’t care. It’s just the way things are.

  Anir stood in the ter once more. His lip lit, bruises blooming across his skin, but his posture remained unyielding.

  In his hands, he held something nee, crudely braided from leather, a jagged stoied to one end.

  “What’s that, runt?” Jarek shough his voice cked its usual fidence.

  Anir didn’t answer. His eyes were wild holding a promise of violence, his unignited aura flickering like a dying fme. His silence was sharper than any insult.

  The younger boy lunged again, but this time, Anir was ready.

  The rope swung in a deadly arc, the stone smashing into the boy’s temple with a siing crack.

  Anir’s arm tensed— He swung the rope in a deadly arc, with a whistling crack the sto flesh crag against the boy’s temple.

  A sharp cry followed. The child stumbled back, and crumpled. Blood welled where the impact had split skin, trig down his face like aint.

  The circle erupted in chaos.

  Jarek rushed forward, fury twisting his face. Anir didn’t hesitate. The rope shed out again, striking Jarek’s arm with enough force to stagger him. Another boy tried to grab Anir from behind—an instant mistake. Anir twisted, elbow smashing into ribs.

  The fight devolved into chaos. Young unignited auras g like magic fields. Blood, dirt, and dust filled the air. By the time it ended, everyone was bruised, battered, and bleeding.

  Kael’s breath caught in his throat. Anir moved with a ferocity he’d never seen before—a feral, desperate energy that made the older boys hesitate.

  Anir stood st. His breath heaved, the rope dangling from his raw-knuckled grip.

  The clearing reeked of sweat, copper, and the quiet disbelief of those who had never seen a beaten dog bare its teeth.

  Anir’s face was a mask of bruises, his lip split, his knuckles raw. But he stood tall, his chest heaving, and that rope dangling from his hand, a on.

  The others backed away. Jarek gred, hatred seething behind his eyes, but he didn’t move. The unspoken rule of the tribe had been shattered—Anir was no one’s victim

  Kael watched, felt a strange mix of awe and fear, awe creeping into his bones. He fought back, and he’d made them bleed. No submission. No fear. Just raw, undeniable defiance.

  The children whispered. The adults took notice.

  And Kael, for the first time, saw something dangerous in Anir’s eyes.

  Something that would never, ever be tamed.

  The Aftermath: Resped IsotionThe bruises sted for days. The whispers would st far longer.

  Anir’s defiance had left a mark, not just on the boys who had bled under his strikes but oire tribe. The children who had once ughed at his silenow watched him from a cautious distance like a wounded predator. They whispered about him in hushed toheir voices tinged with fear and grudging respect.

  The ones who had kicked him now avoided his gaze. Even the ringleader Jarek, oouchable, carried the weight of his loss iiff way he walked past Anir, his jaw ched but his fists never rising. Though his eyes burned with rese whehey crossed paths.

  Yet respect did not e without cost.

  Anir moved through the camp like a phantom, alone even among his own people. No one challenged him again, but her did they wele him. He had shattered their rules, proven that the unspoken ws of submission did not apply to him. And for that, they did not know what to do with him. After all he did win.

  Kael saw it happen. The way Anir ate alone, worked alone, disappeared into the forest without a word. He acted as if he didn’t care, but Kael knew better. No one could be truly alohout feeling it.

  The rope, now frayed and stained, still hung from Anir’s belt—a reminder of the fight that had ged everything. A trophy.

  The Whispers of the TribeWhispers slithered through the cave like restless spirits.

  The adults saw it too—the way Jarek refused to meet Anir’s gaze, the way the other children moved around him like he was a sleeping predator. Fear curdled beh the surface, unspoken but thi the air. At first, they dismissed it as childish squabbling, but the sight of Anir’s battered fad the bloodied rope sparked uneasy murmurs spoken by parents with injured pride, ahat there kids position iribe might be taken by this new rival.

  “That boy is dangerous,” a hunter muttered he fire, his voice low, his gaze flig toward where Anir sat alooo wild. He doesn’t respect order.”

  “He’s strong,” another tered. “We rength, especially now.”

  Strength, they could respect. But something about Anir’s strength uled them.

  Kael overheard the versations, his stomach twisting with unease. He knew what it meant to be marked as different. He’d spent his life navigating the tribe’s judgment, learning to make himself small and useful. But Anir… Anir didn’t seem to care about fitting in.

  The Shaman, Tahya, watched in silence, her sharp eyes following Anir’s every move. She had seen it before, the quiet ones who grew into something beyond trol. She traced patterns in the ash on the cave wall, the same patterns she had seen in the embers of the fire the night before.

  The embers where saying something, Not chaos. Not peace. Something else.

  ge.

  Kael’s CuriosityOne evening, as the fire crackled and the night air carried the st of roasti, the tribe settled in for the night, Kael found himself sitting near Anir. The boy was sharpening a flint knife, his hands steady, his eyes locked onto the bde as if it held all the answers he needed.

  Kael found himself sitting near Anir. Not too close. Not too far.

  Kael hesitated, then spoke. “Why did you fight back?”

  Anir didn’t look up. He tinued running the flint against stohe rhythm slow, deliberate. “Because I’m not a dog,” he said quietly. “I won’t be tamed.” He stopped sharpening flint, his firaced the edge of the rope, now worn and frayed.

  Kael frowned, his mind rag as the words sank into his mind like stones into deep water. He’d always thought of the taming as iable—a harsh but necessary lesson. He’d learo submit, to survive. But Anir… Anir was different. "‘You could’ve e,’ Kael murmured. ‘If you’d just… let them win.’" He hesitated. “You know. Given in.”

  Anir’s eyes flicked up, sharp and pierg. "‘Given in. And how long before they took everything?’ Anir’s fiightened on the rope. ‘My pride? My name? My will? I’d rather bleed for something than kneel for nothing.’"

  Kael flihe words hitting too close to home. He thought of the times he’d curled into a ball, his arms ed around his head, waiting for the blows to stop.

  Kael’s throat tightened. He khat feeling. The nights curled into himself, waiting for the blows to stop. The acceptahat this was just the way things were.

  The thought kept ing, memory's of the times he’d curled into a ball, his arms ed around his head, waiting for the blows to stop.

  He’d told himself it was survival. But now, sittio Anir, he wondered if he’d just been lying to himself.

  He had survived by surrendering.

  Anir had survived by refusing.

  “You’re different,” Kael murmured, his voice soft.

  Anir’s lips curled into something that was not quite a smile. “Maybe.” He looked down at his knife. “Or maybe everyone else is just too scared to be different. To dream big.”

  Kael had no respoo that.