Chapter 8. Echoes of the First Flame

The attic was silent.

Too silent.

Aria sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, the mark on her chest still faintly pulsing beneath her shirt. It had faded during the day, shrinking into her skin as if trying to disguise itself. But she knew better. It wasn’t gone. Just dormant. Watching. Waiting.

She pressed her palm against it. Nothing happened.

No heat. No whisper.

But her wolf still didn’t return.

That absence, more than anything, gnawed at her nerves. It was like walking through her own mind and finding entire corridors gone. She’d always thought of the bond with her wolf as permanent. Unbreakable. A birthright. But now it felt like a memory she couldn’t access—something lost in fog.

She closed her eyes and tried to meditate, the way they’d been taught early on in pack training. Deep breaths. Ground yourself. Listen.

What she heard wasn’t her heartbeat.

It was fire.

Not real flame, but the echo of it—crackling, spitting,