CHAPTER 53: CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

The air shimmered around me, thick with heat and grief.

I stood at the edge of a forest that was not my own, but somehow felt familiar. Fire crackled in the distance, eating through dry branches and thick underbrush. Smoke curled through the trees like whispers, carrying voices I couldn’t understand.

This wasn’t just a fire. It was a memory. A warning. A test.

I was still within the spirit realm, somewhere between what was real and what was remembered. The ground under my feet felt like ash, soft and crumbling. Each step I took sent it puffing up in little clouds that clung to my legs.

I looked back once, hoping to see the path I came from, but the forest had swallowed it. Orrin had warned me that this second trial would be harder. That it would take from me before giving anything back.

The trees moaned as the flames moved, their limbs blackening and splitting. I could hear wolves howling somewhere inside—and children crying.

Then, I heard my name.

"Luciana."

It was my mother’s voice.

I ran.

I didn’t care that the heat burned my arms as I brushed past flaming brambles. I didn’t care that my eyes stung or that the fire licked at the hem of my cloak. I chased the voice because it was hers.

Through the blaze, I saw her—Aira.

She stood beneath a tree, holding Kiani in her arms, her face streaked with soot and tears. But when I reached for her, my hand passed through smoke.

She wasn’t really there.

The forest flickered, and suddenly I was back in the Thornridge courtyard, years ago, the night my mother vanished. I was six years old. Confused. Angry. And then I saw it—her silhouette running toward the portal, her body glowing faintly in the moonlight.

"Mama!" I screamed, the way I had that night.

She didn’t turn.

The fire swept over the scene and turned it to cinders. And I fell to my knees.

Why show me this again? Why bring back a wound that never truly healed?

The ground beneath me cracked. Flames burst upward in a ring. A figure emerged from the smoke. Tall. Robed in black. His eyes glowed like embers.

The cursed wizard.

He didn’t speak at first. Just stared at me like I was something fragile and doomed.

"You carry their sins," he said finally. His voice was like smoke and glass. "Your kind took everything from me."

I stood, my fists clenched. "I’m not them. I didn’t—"

"But you carry their blood."

The flames surged higher. The trees bent inward. The heat became unbearable.

"You want to save your people," he said. "Then burn with them."

The fire rushed toward me.

For a moment, all I knew was pain. Fire seared my skin, curled my hair, filled my lungs. I screamed, expecting everything to end. But instead of death, something shifted.

A voice whispered inside me.

Pain is not the enemy.

I opened my eyes.

The flames danced along my arms but didn’t burn anymore. They wrapped around me like silk, warm and wild, alive.

The forest began to change. Trees once blackened and dying began to glow with orange veins, pulsing with heat. Not in agony, but in rebirth. The fire was no longer destroying—it was remaking.

I looked at the wizard.

"This fire doesn’t belong to you," I said. "It belongs to those who endure."

His face twisted. "You think pain makes you worthy?"

I stepped forward. The flames followed me like a cloak.

"Pain made me fight. Loss made me rise. And love—love made me stay."

He lifted a hand, sending a wall of fire toward me, taller than the trees.

I didn’t run.

I howled.

Not a cry of fear, but of fury, of sorrow, of purpose. The howl broke through the blaze. It twisted the fire, bending it to my will.

I was not its prisoner. I was its keeper.

The wizard staggered.

The fire parted, revealing not destruction but a path of golden light. Flowers grew in the scorched soil. Trees shimmered with embers that glowed like stars.

The wizard lowered his hand.

"You are not like them," he said, almost in disbelief.

"No," I answered. "I am more."

He looked around at the forest he had once cursed. At the fire that now obeyed me. And he faded, his form scattering like ash in the wind.

Silence fell.

Then, a breeze moved through the trees. Soft. Cool. Pure.

The burning forest exhaled. The smoke cleared.

I sank to the ground, shaking. My body ached, my spirit worn thin. But inside me, the flame burned steady.

Orrin appeared beside me, silent as always. He didn’t speak right away. Just looked at the forest, now glowing with quiet fire.

"You faced the vengeance," he said. "And you lived."

"I did more than live," I whispered. "I became."

He knelt beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder. "This is only the beginning, Luciana. The third trial will demand even more. But now, the flame is yours. Use it well."

I looked at my hands, still glowing faintly.

"I will."

The forest behind me burned no more.

It breathed.

The morning mist hung low over the Vale when I woke. My body ached from the trials I’d endured in the spirit realm, but I felt different. Not broken. Not even tired. Just... aware. Like something inside me had been lit, a flame that wouldn’t go out.

Orrin stood on a stone ledge nearby, watching the sky. His robes moved like fog in the breeze. I sat up, slowly. My palms still tingled faintly from the fire of the Binding Flame. I remembered it well—the heat, the pain, and the moment I chose to walk into it rather than run. I had passed the Second Way. Now, I had to face the third.

"Today," Orrin said without turning, "you meet silver."

A cold shiver crawled up my spine.

Everyone knew what silver did to our kind. It wasn’t just pain. It was agony. It ate through skin and soul like fire eats dry leaves. And now I was supposed to touch it?

"Silver is death to a wolf," I said.

"And yet, you must hold it," he replied. "You must resist it, not just with strength, but with will."

He turned then, and from behind his back, he drew a blade.

It was beautiful.

Deadly.

The blade glinted like moonlight caught in ice. Its edge shimmered unnaturally. Even from a distance, I could feel its bite, as if my skin recoiled just by seeing it.

"This blade was forged by the first smith who dared to work silver in a land of wolves," Orrin said. "He did so to test the courage of those who would lead. You must hold it, barehanded, and recite the oath of the Ancients."

I swallowed hard.

He stepped closer and offered the blade to me, hilt first.

I stared at it.

My fingers twitched. The memory of flames licking my hands still lingered, but silver was different. It was not symbolic. It was real. And it burned deep.

"If I fail?" I asked.

"Then you are not ready," he said, simply.

I reached out.

The moment my fingers brushed the hilt, pain exploded through me. My skin sizzled, and my vision blurred. It was like grabbing a lightning bolt. My instincts screamed to let go, to drop it, to run. But I didn’t.

I clenched my jaw and wrapped my whole hand around the hilt.

The blade hissed in response.

Smoke rose where flesh met silver. My knees buckled, and I dropped to the ground, still clutching the sword. Tears streamed from my eyes. My breath came in short gasps.

"Say the oath," Orrin said.

I couldn’t speak.

"Say it!"

I forced the words through clenched teeth. My voice trembled, cracked.

"By the blood of those before me,

By the moon that gave us form,

By the flame that showed my purpose,

I rise not to rule, but to protect.

I bleed not in fear, but in honor.

I carry pain to carry others.

I walk forward—even through fire and silver."

The words choked in my throat, but I pushed them out. Each line was a battle. My hands were blistering, the pain beyond anything I’d felt before.

But I didn’t let go.

Orrin knelt beside me. His voice was quiet.

"Do you know what separates a leader from a warrior?"

I couldn’t answer. My entire focus was on breathing through the pain.

"A warrior fights with their strength," he said. "A leader fights with their suffering. They take the pain others cannot. They carry the blade that burns."

I screamed.

But still, I didn’t drop it.

My vision went white.

Then black.

Then—

Something broke.

Or changed.

I don’t know when it happened. Maybe it was a second later. Maybe a lifetime.

But the pain became something else. Not less. But deeper. Like it wasn’t just hurting me—it was becoming part of me.

The silver didn’t burn me anymore. It lived inside me. And I was still breathing.

My grip loosened.

I opened my eyes.

The blade still lay in my hands, but the smoke had stopped. My skin was cracked, bleeding, raw. But I had not been destroyed.

Orrin nodded slowly.

"You resisted it."

I let out a shaky breath.

"Will it always hurt this much?"

"No," he said. "Because now you carry the memory of it. Pain remembered is pain endured. You won’t forget what this means."

He reached out and took the blade from my hands. His fingers, unlike mine, were untouched by its bite. I watched as he returned it to its sheath.

My hands trembled.

But deep inside, something felt strong.

The trial had changed me.

I was not the same wolf who entered the Vale.

Orrin helped me to my feet.

I looked at the morning light stretching over the cliffs. The air was crisp and clean. Somewhere, a bird sang.

"Three trials," I said softly. "And still more to come."

He nodded. "The worst is behind you. But the hardest lies ahead."

I looked down at my hands. The skin was already beginning to heal. Not fully. But enough to know I would keep going.

"When does the next path begin?" I asked.

Orrin turned toward the mountain peaks beyond the Vale.

"Tonight. With the stars."

He walked away, his figure lost in the mist.

I stood there alone for a moment, the echo of the blade still in my bones. Then I followed.

The Third Way had not broken me.

It had forged me.

I was silver-kissed now. And I would never forget what it meant.

Not ever.