New Arrivals
1570 Words
That Evening
By sunset, the gates of the Sanctuary rang with visitors.
Not soldiers.
Not rebels.
But families.
Scentless ones.
A woman arrived carrying a toddler marked with burn scars and a crescent birthmark.
An older Kin who’d lost her scent after a failed bonding stood in silence, then bowed before Liora.
“We have nowhere else,” she said. “We heard the flame had chosen.”
Liora opened the gates.
No questions.
No scent-scans.
Only memory.
---
In Her Room that Night , Rowan and Liora sat across from each other on the floor, a single candle between them.
“You opened the Sanctuary,” Rowan said. “You made yourself a target.”
“I was already a target,” Liora said. “This way, at least they see me.”
“You think the Council will come for you personally?”
Liora shrugged. “They don’t have to. They’ll go for the ones I protect.”
Rowan leaned forward, firelight catching his expression. “Then let me protect you.”
She looked up.
“I’m not just your bondmatch,” he said. “I’m your partner. In the fight. In this fire. In whatever comes next.”
“You mean that?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “Even if it means burning everything down.”
---
At Helix Tower
Across every major Kin district, the public vid-screens flickered. A new Council decree was being announced.
“The flame-born heir known as Liora Thorn is no longer under Council protection. Any wolf offering her shelter will be considered traitor-bound. All scentless who align with her will forfeit any existing registry privileges.”
Then the final line:
“The Ember Crown is not a recognized rite.”
“Memory will be corrected.”
---
At the sanctuary:
“Bastards,” Rowan growled, slamming his fist against the stone.
“They just declared us illegal,” said one of the Elders.
“No,” Liora said, voice steel beneath ash. “They just declared war.”
A beat passed.
Then she stood before the crowd once more — not in secret, not in hiding.
“I was born without a scent,” she said. “I was meant to be erased. But I chose fire. I chose memory.”
She reached into the fire and lifted the Ember Crown.
It glowed.
And when she placed it on her head, the crowd dropped to one knee.
Not because of fear.
But because they remembered.
---
Among, the strangers there was someone named Severin, a bit unique.
Severin didn’t sleep the first night.
Not in the way ordinary wolves did.
He sat cross-legged on the flagstones of the eastern garden, palms flat on the earth, eyes closed, as if listening to something no one else could hear. Rowan passed him just after midnight, half expecting some act of stealth — maybe a hidden comm or a message spell. But Severin simply breathed. Slowly. Steadily. With a stillness that didn’t seem human.
Rowan lingered behind a shadowed column.
He doesn’t twitch. Doesn’t flinch. Like a wolf who’s already seen too much to be startled by ghosts.
The only reason Rowan didn’t confront him right there was that the fire — the one that usually pulsed behind his ribs like a warning — stayed still.
But quiet fire wasn’t the same as safe fire.
And Rowan trusted nothing without a scent.
---
Liora also watched Severin from the steps of the Crown Chamber.
He’d asked for nothing. He hadn’t challenged anyone. He hadn’t even asked to speak with her privately — and that was the part that troubled her most.
People always wanted something.
And those who didn’t? Wanted more than they admitted.
She found Rowan by the barracks wall, sharpening his shortblade.
"He’s too quiet," she said.
Rowan looked up, gave a slight nod. "Too still. Too clean. His boots have the symbol of the Fourth Kin Division — old military. Disbanded after the Scent Riots."
"You think he’s a plant?"
"I think if he is, he’s the best kind. The kind that makes you want to trust him."
Liora exhaled. "Then let’s not give him reason to think we do."
---
"Let him fight," Cassian said the next morning. "Let the people see who he is. If he bleeds, he’s flesh. If he wins, he’s useable. If he loses... well. No one will cry."
So they staged it.
A mock combat.
Severin versus Arden — the youngest Scentless lieutenant in the Flameborn Guard. Fierce. Built like a storm.
Liora stood at the edge of the circle as the wolves began to gather. Rowan stayed a step behind her, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Severin entered without fanfare. No stretching. No swagger. Just a nod.
The match started.
Arden charged — full force, claws out, fangs bared — and Severin stepped aside. Not dodged. Not panicked. Just... moved.
Then he moved again.
And again.
Until it became clear — Severin wasn’t fighting. He was studying.
"He’s watching her footwork," Rowan muttered.
"And letting her burn out," Liora added.
It took seven minutes for Arden to falter. One breath too slow. One pivot too wide.
And then Severin struck.
A single movement. An elbow to the throat. A pivot. A sweep of the leg.
Arden hit the mat.
Hard.
And didn’t rise.
Severin bowed. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t preen.
Just said, "Thank you."
---
That night, Liora called him to the Ember Chamber.
She sat alone, crown at her side, no guards.
"You fight like someone who’s been trained to kill, not survive."
Severin didn’t deny it. "Both are often the same thing."
Liora studied him. "Who were you before the tattoos?"
He hesitated.
"My mother was scentless. My father... was Kin. They erased us both."
"Erased how?"
"My mother disappeared in the registry purge of '97. My father left me at a Reclaiming House. Said he’d be back."
"Was he?"
Severin looked up. "Only in my nightmares."
---
Rowan didn’t like the silence between them that week.
Liora was thinking more. Sleeping less. Severin was always just... around. Not threatening. Not defying. But present.
It made Rowan feel cornered — and he hated that. Not because of Severin. But because of the way Liora looked at him now.
Like she was searching him, too.
"You trust him?" he asked her finally, under the starlight near the memorial wall.
"No. But I don’t distrust him enough to throw him out."
Rowan bit back the sharp reply. "What does that make me, then?"
She turned. "You’re fire. He’s shadow. You both burn, but differently."
Rowan stepped closer. "And which one do you want beside you?"
Liora’s throat bobbed. "Ask me again when he betrays us."
---
On the third day, Severin entered Rowan’s training court uninvited.
"You want to hit me," Severin said. "So do it."
Rowan turned, blade in hand. "You don’t get to guess what I want."
Severin stepped closer. "No. But I know how you feel. I saw her. Before you did. In the fire. The dreams."
Rowan froze.
"You dreamed of her too?"
"Of you," Severin said. "Of a boy who couldn’t shift. Of a girl made of smoke. And a throne they both refused."
He stepped back. "We’re not enemies, Rowan. Not yet. But when the Void calls... you’ll have to choose what part of yourself to kill."
Rowan stared at him.
And for the first time in years... felt afraid.
------
That night, Severin requested a meeting with both Liora and Cassian in the Crown Chamber.
He brought with him an old scroll. The parchment was thick with fire-dust, partially burned, its edges eaten away like moth-chewed cloth.
"I found this buried beneath the ruins of the East Kin Registry," Severin said. "It’s not written in Kin script. It’s older. Emberborn dialect. Only those marked by fire can read it."
Liora took it with caution. As she held it, the letters shifted before her eyes — ancient characters forming into shapes she understood:
The Flame is not a weapon. It is a key.
And she who wears the ash-mark shall remember the gate.
"What gate?" Rowan asked.
Severin pointed to the map beneath the text. "There’s a sealed archive in the Forgotten City. Deep beneath the Kin capital. Records of the Scentless Rebellion. Of Averie. Of you."
Liora's gaze sharpened. "You knew my grandmother?"
Severin shook his head. "No. But I was trained by one who did. And they believed... you are not her heir by blood. But by rebirth."
---
A decision was made by midnight.
Rowan, Liora, Severin, and two trusted scentless scouts — twins named Kaen and Mira — would journey through the old tunnels into the Forgotten City.
Rowan packed silently.
Liora found him on the balcony outside the weapons hold.
"You’re quiet," she said.
"I don’t like trusting people who talk in riddles."
"That’s everyone with fire in their blood."
Rowan gave a hollow laugh. "Including you."
She stepped closer. "Do you think I’m choosing him over you?"
He didn’t answer.
She touched his chest. "This fire? It’s not just mine. I only burn this bright because of you. You hold me together. You always have."
Rowan finally met her eyes. "Then promise me something."
"Anything."
"If we find something that changes what you are — what we are — you don’t leave me behind. Not again."
Her voice was a whisper. "Never."
---
- Writer
