New beginning: the spark that remained
1453 Words
---
Weeks after the fall of the void, wolves gathered at the Silverroot Summit — not as enemies, but as survivors.
No more scentless.
No more stolen names.
Elders from every bloodline stood beneath the twin moons, arms bound in threads of red and gold — fire and memory, finally in harmony.
Myrra stood as the voice of transition.
“The Flameborn line is ended,” she declared, “but peace is not bound to blood.”
The packs cheered.
And for the first time in generations, the new Alpha was chosen by vote.
It was Kaelen — reborn not in power, but in empathy.
He accepted only on one condition:
“That every pup be taught the true names of those lost. And that none ever be made scentless again.”
He wore no crown.
Just a braid of red and black.
Averie’s colors.
---
MODERN DAY
Averie no longer glowed.
Her hands bore calluses instead of fire.
But in a quiet stone cottage near the foothills, she found peace she never knew she wanted.
She wrote the Book of Names — the first record of every wolf, every scent, every sacrifice.
Sometimes, Kaelen came to visit.
He brought her herbs. She gave him stories.
They didn’t need fate to bind them anymore.
One afternoon, a small pup ran into her arms — tangled curls, mischief in her smile.
“Gran, tell me the one about the wolf who burned the sky.”
Averie smiled.
She told the story gently — omitting the pain, keeping the flame.
As the child fell asleep, Averie looked up at the moon.
“I gave it up,” she whispered, “but I’d do it
again.
In the ruins of the old Flameborn pyre, a young healer named Riven gathered herbs.
He never knew Averie personally.
But sometimes, when he touched the stones… they felt warm.
This time, something glimmered beneath the ash.
A feather — burning gently, endlessly.
He reached for it, and it didn’t burn.
It hummed.
Behind him, the wind whispered a name he didn’t recognize.
But the flame knew him.
And so, the final fire passed quietly into new hands.
Not to destroy.
But to protect.
---
They said fire forgot her… but I remember the way my dreams burned. And now, my skin does too.
Liora Thorn had never shifted. Never scented. Never howled under a full moon.
And in a world where those things defined your name, your power, your place—she may as well have been invisible.
She stood in front of the mirror, hoodie zipped to her throat despite the late-summer heat. Her eyes, a storm-silver shade inherited from her mother, scanned the reflection like she was trying to find herself. Something. Anything.
All she saw was a seventeen-year-old girl with wild curls, dry lips, and a crescent mark on her collarbone that meant nothing to her—but apparently everything to the people who insisted on watching her like she was some dormant prophecy.
Behind her, the sky hummed with city sounds. Air shuttles cutting through cloudlines, a monorail gliding silently down the rails below their tower. The humans had built upward, always reaching. The wolves? They learned to hide among them.
"Liora, the car’s downstairs," came a voice from the comm-screen. Her guardian, Cassian, always sounded formal—even in his sleepwear. "Council transport. Be nice. First impressions matter."
"They already know who I am," she muttered.
Cassian’s voice cut sharper. "No. They know who your grandmother is. Make sure they see you."
Liora zipped the hoodie higher and walked out the door.
---
The Helix Academy for Gifted Kin looked more like a corporate skyscraper than a school. Forty floors of tech-glass and spell-coded entries, with a towering golden moon carved into the stone floor of the atrium. Humans thought it was just a private school for elite students. Only wolves could see the scent-seals woven into the walls. It smelled of paper, politics, and too many alphas in one place.
She kept her head down as she walked through the security check, ignoring the curious glances. She wasn’t new, but she might as well have been. Her enrollment had always been... honorary. A political gesture. The Flameborn Heir Who Never Shifted.
The girl with no scent.
She reached her locker, touched her wrist to the scanner, and opened it to find a sealed envelope.
Her chest tightened.
She recognized the handwriting immediately.
Averie Flameborn-Thorn.
She’d never opened the last one. Or the one before that.
She slid it into her bag without reading it.
---
At lunch, the scent of grilled meat and citrus was overwhelming. Liora sat alone, earbuds in, pretending to study while watching the packs form around the tables. You could always tell who was bonded to who. Some kids were practically curled up around each other. Others postured, half-shifted ears twitching with dominance.
Her fingers tapped the table rhythmically. She hadn’t meant to burn through three chairs last semester, but they still hadn’t replaced them.
The heat came randomly now. A flicker in her palms. A glowing mark across her shoulder blades. No one knew what to call it.
She called it warning.
"That seat taken?"
She looked up.
A boy stood there with a tray of food and moon-pale eyes. Not pale from sickness, but the kind of light that shimmered in water just before it boiled. His shirt was rumpled. His hair was a mess. He didn’t smell like anything.
Like her.
"No," she said slowly. "But why would you sit here?"
He sat.
"Because everyone else is afraid of you."
She arched an eyebrow. "You’re not?"
"Should I be?"
He took a bite of his sandwich and looked at her like she was a puzzle he’d already solved.
She didn’t reply.
---
Later that day, they met again in Combat Theory.
Rowan Vale.
That was his name. She heard it from the instructor, who glanced nervously between them.
"Partner up."
They stared at each other.
He tilted his head. "You wanna burn the mat now or later?"
She rolled her eyes. "Only if you try something stupid."
They squared off. Movements sharp, eyes locked. The class circled, half-whispering, half-watching with morbid curiosity.
Two scentless wolves.
Two fireless legends.
And when their hands met in a deflective push—
The mat scorched black beneath their feet.
Everyone stepped back.
Rowan looked at her, mouth slightly open. "What was that?"
Liora didn’t answer. She was already walking away.
---
That night, the letter burned in her hand.
She hadn’t meant to set it aflame. But something inside her snapped as she read the words:
My dearest flame,
They say our line is ended, but blood doesn’t forget.
If you feel the heat — follow it. The world may deny us, but the fire never will.
You were never meant to stay cold. You were born to choose.
—Averie
Liora stared at the ash-stained paper, her hands still smoking.
The full moon was rising.
She stood at her window, watching it split the night in two.
And deep in her veins, something ancient stirred.
Not a shift. Not a scent.
But a memory.
Of fire.
Of choice.
Of a throne made not of gold — but of ashes.
The Ember Archives weren’t listed on any map, but every student at Helix Academy had heard of them.
A place sealed beneath the school. Locked away after the last Flameborn war. Said to contain the memory of fire itself—what it meant, what it did, what it left behind.
Rowan didn’t believe half the stories.
But Liora?
She burned when she got too close to the truth.
So they had to find it.
---
Friday, 9:17PM – Lower East Tower
“Are you sure about this?” Rowan whispered, balancing against a ledge as Liora deactivated the motion grid with a flick of her datapad.
“No,” she said, breathless. “But my palms have been hot for hours, and my grandmother’s ashes literally lit up last night. So yeah. Let’s risk suspension and maybe unravel time.”
The hall beyond them was dark, filled with ancient engravings and temperature sensors that Rowan hacked using a bypass chip he’d built himself.
“You’re kind of terrifying,” he muttered.
“I get that a lot.”
They crept through the narrow corridor, past the old observation hall and into what had once been the Prime Chamber of Kin Memory. Gold seals had been melted shut, but behind them, carved in forgotten glyphs, was a single phrase:
“Ash remembers what fire denies.”
Rowan touched the glyph. It glowed faintly under his palm.
Then the wall split open.
- Writer
