Chapter 10. The Fire Unseen

The storm didn’t break with thunder. It came in silence—unnatural, expectant. A stillness so profound that even the birds fell mute. That morning, the sky hung low, as if waiting to be split open, and every instinct inside Aria screamed to run. But she didn’t.

She stood in the center of the training circle, eyes closed, arms limp at her sides. The others ringed her—Jules to the east, Kade across from her, Headkeeper Ren to the north, and a dozen others who had either come to observe or intervene if things got out of hand. And things would.

She could feel it.

Kade had warned them all. The surge in her mark, the flare of heat in her skin, the strange flickering dreams—she was tipping toward something. The training session was supposed to be controlled, supervised. A test. But no one said what they were really testing: whether she could still be contained.

The Headkeeper began the invocation, words etched in the old tongue. The ground warmed beneath Aria’s feet.