Chapter 41: Flamekeeper’s Mark

The journey was less a walk and more a test of attrition. Kade moved with the slow, deliberate pace of a man carrying a glass coffin full of TNT. The Nexus Field, contained within his six-sided sheath of Pack Will, weighed nothing physically, but it demanded every available joule of his mental and magical stamina. His vision swam with the strain, and a burning migraine pulsed behind his eyes, a direct reaction to using his Alpha power as a structural material.

He had bypassed the main roads, cutting straight into the oldest, wildest section of the Obsidian territory—the mountains that housed the remnants of the First Pack settlements. Here, the tunnels to the Great Hearth—the Locus of the First Forge—were located.

He reached the collapse point, a fissure hidden behind a waterfall, just as the sun was fully above the horizon. The opening was barely wide enough for a shifted wolf, let alone a man maneuvering a large, floating silver construct.

No time to widen it.