The scent of honey-cakes and woodsmoke was the first truth of my eighteenth birthday. It was a simple, grounding reality, the kind my mother, Lyra, built our lives around. I woke to the smell of a warm blanket in the cool morning air. Sunlight, thick with dust motes, slanted through the window, striping the wooden floor where I lay on my cot.
For a moment, there was only peace. A moment to forget the fire I kept banked within my blood. Years had passed since the summer my world cracked open, years of careful, quiet living. The whispers in Praag had never entirely faded, but they had softened to a dull murmur. The other children, Tomas included, had grown into young men and women who now offered me stiff nods instead of jeers. They didn't understand me, and so they feared me, but Borin Stonehand's words had proven true. By saving Tomas, I had become a strange, unsettling tool they didn't dare provoke. They didn't know the truth: my stillness wasn't a choice, but a cage I built around myself every day.
My mother stood at the hearth, her back to me. Her hair, once the color of rich soil, was now threaded with silver at the temples. She moved with a familiar, weary grace, her hands, still calloused, deftly turning a cake in a hot pan.
"You're awake," she said, not turning. She always knew.
I sat up, the rough wool of my blanket scratching my chin. "The smell woke me."
She finally turned, a small, genuine smile gracing her lips. It didn't always reach her eyes anymore. I saw the worry that lived there, a permanent resident behind the warm brown. "Happy birthday, Kael."
She sat on the edge of my cot, placing a small, cloth-wrapped object in my hands. It was light and soft. "It's not much," she said, her voice a low apology.
I unwrapped it carefully. Inside was a leather jerkin, stitched with incredible precision. It wasn't new leather; I recognized the grain from an old travel cloak of hers. She had salvaged the best pieces, oiled them until they were supple, and sewn them into something strong and new. It was a gift of time, of sacrifice.
"It's perfect," I said, my voice thick. I pulled the jerkin on over my tunic. It fit like a second skin. "Thank you, Mother."
Her smile returned, a little stronger this time. "Come. Eat. You have a visitor waiting."
My heart gave a small, eager leap. Grak.
He was sitting on the bench outside, looking massive and out of place. At eighteen, he was a mountain of green-hued muscle, his tusks now thick and polished. He looked up as I stepped out, his broad face splitting into a grin.
"There he is," he grunted, his voice a low rumble. "The old man of the woods." He tossed something at me. I caught it reflexively. It was a leather cord strung with three wicked-looking black claws, each as long as my finger. "Happy birthday."
I recognized them. From the shadow-cat we'd cornered in the Whisperwood last autumn. "Thanks, Grak," I said, a real smile touching my lips. "The knots look like they were tied by a drunk."
"They're strong knots," he shot back, shoving a poorly wrapped package into my chest. "Borin said to give you this. Said he's too busy to deal with sentimental nonsense today."
I knew that was a lie. I unwrapped the heavy parcel. Inside, nestled in oiled cloth, was a hand-forged hammer. It wasn't a blacksmith's sledge or a warrior's maul. It was a tool—perfectly balanced, the head forged from dark iron, the handle shaped from smooth hickory. It felt like an extension of my arm. Tucked into the wrappings was the small iron wolf he'd given me all those years ago.
"A hammer can build a house or it can cave in a skull," I murmured, echoing his words.
Grak nodded, his expression serious. "He remembers. He watches you, Kael. More than you think."
We ate the honey-cakes on the bench, the easy silence between us a fortress against the world. He had seen what I could do, felt the heat radiating off me in the woods that day, and hadn't recoiled. His friendship was an anchor.
"So," he said, swallowing the last cake. "Eighteen. A man. What's the plan, then? Stay here and scare children for the rest of your life?"
"What about you?" I countered. "Shovel grok-dung until your tusks turn grey?"
He snorted. "Better than being the village spook. At least they talk to me." The words weren't meant to wound, but they struck true. The isolation was a cage, and I was rattling the bars.
"Let's get out of here," I said, standing. "Let's go to the ridge."
The ridge was our place, a high spine of hill overlooking the Silverwood. Here, I didn't feel like Kael the Freak. I was just Kael. We reached the crest and sat on a familiar sun-warmed boulder, the view immense.
"I'm not going to be a farmer," Grak said. "Borin's offered me an apprenticeship. To be a smith. Says my shoulders are good for it."
"He's right," I said. "Praag needs a new smith."
"And you?" Grak asked. "You can't stay here forever. Every time a calf is born sick or a storm comes in too fast, they'll look at you."
He was right. My mother had shielded me, but I saw the toll it took on her. I was the source of her pain, the reason for the silver in her hair. All because of the blood in my veins.
"I want to leave," I said, the words tasting strange and powerful on my tongue.
The passion in my own voice surprised me, and I felt a familiar warmth stir in my chest. Not the sharp, angry heat of fear, but a slow, rising tide of power answering my own hope. I had spent so long damping the fire, it felt foreign to let it glow.
"Not just Praag," I continued, my gaze sweeping across the distant plains. "I want to see the great cities, the mountains that touch the sky. I want to go somewhere a man is judged by what he does with his hammer, not by the color of his eyes."
Grak stared at me. "An adventurer," he said, the word full of awe.
"Maybe. A sell-sword. Anything. Something of my own."
"You'd need someone to watch your back," he said, his voice a low rumble. "The world's not a kind place. Especially for people who are… different."
"I know."
He turned to face me, his expression more serious than I had ever seen it. "Borin said I could leave after a few years. Once I know the trade. I'm not letting you go out there alone, you idiot."
Hope, fierce and blinding, surged through me. The power in my blood responded, a thrumming energy that made the air around me feel thick and warm. It wasn't a threat; it was a promise of strength. My strength.
"You'd come with me?"
"Of course I'd come with you," he grunted. "Someone has to make sure you don't get yourself killed." He punched my arm. "We'll do it. A few more years. I'll learn the forge, you'll… learn to control that thing inside you. Then we go."
He stuck out his massive hand. "A promise?"
I gripped it, my fingers nearly disappearing in his. "A promise."
We stood there on the ridge, two young men on the cusp of everything, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. The world was spread out before us, a challenge and a vow.
And then the world began to hum.
It started not as a sound, but as a vibration, a resonance that echoed the power in my own veins. I let go of Grak's hand. The hopeful warmth inside me curdled, turning sharp and sour with alarm. The demon blood reacted instantly to the new emotion—fear. A hot, frantic energy buzzed under my skin, and the taste of copper filled my mouth.
"What is that?" Grak asked, his brow furrowed.
My senses, supercharged by the sudden surge of power, screamed at me. My vision sharpened, the world gaining a terrifying, predatory clarity. I saw the tremor in a blade of grass fifty feet away. I heard the frantic beat of a rabbit's heart in a burrow beneath us. I looked to the east.
There. A low, dark line, a smudge of soot against the clear sky. It wasn't a cloud. It moved with a terrible, unified purpose.
The humming grew, resolving into the sound of a thousand drums, of ten thousand iron-shod boots. The ground began to tremble, a steady, rhythmic pulse that my blood answered, beat for beat.
"Grak," I said, my voice a strained rasp. The power was a roaring furnace now, and it took all my focus not to let it consume me.
The dark line on the horizon grew, resolving into shapes. Black banners. The glint of sunlight off countless points of steel. A tide of darkness, crested with iron, rolling unstoppably across the plains. Rolling directly towards the Silverwood. Directly towards Praag.