The Wolves #2
The village, stitched loosely along the coast, had no proper roads—only narrow paths knotted with brush and stones.
He followed the cries, but the chaos engulfed everything: villagers scattering in panic, guards shouting orders, firelight leaping from hut to hut as black powder turned timber into kindling.
He kept running into dead ends, walled in by confusion and flame.
By some miraculous chance, he rounded the back of a cabin already swallowed by fire. Smoke billowed thick and bitter, laced with the sour stench of black powder—Lekyi’s unstable formula roaring hotter than the sun.
At the front of the house, he saw them—Rhea and Sky, wild with desperation, battling what looked like a rolling inferno. No guard in sight. Just the two of them fighting a fire that didn’t behave like fire.
At first, Collin didn’t understand. The way it moved—heaving, writhing—something about it felt aware. Then the shriek came. A sound no flame could make, ripped from the core of the blaze.
A scream.
He knew, then. And terror surged in his chest, hot and suffocating. But it didn’t consume him. Some inner light, old and stubborn, refused to let him falter.
He sprinted. To a barn not yet aflame. Outside, stacked like a forgotten afterthought—burlap sacks. He seized as many as he could and bolted for the creek. The water was shallow, but bitingly cold, snowmelt-fed. He plunged the sacks beneath the surface until they sagged with water.
He raced back.
The inferno—no, the woman—was still thrashing, spreading fire with every movement. Nearby shrubs sparked to life; bits of hay blazed at their feet. Together, Collin, Sky, and Rhea beat at the flames, the drenched sacks smothering fire with sickening steam and sizzle.
They doused her. But they could not save her.
Her body was blackened, charred beyond recognition. The stench of scorched hair and burning flesh hung thick in the air. Her clothes were gone. Even the bead necklace she'd worn had melted into her skin.
And yet—she had shielded her child.
Clutched in her arms, wrapped in a scorched leather coat, the infant screamed. Burned—but alive.
Through ragged sobs, Sky bent down and gathered the child from the mother’s ruined embrace.
Captain Eric’s shouting pierced the night. The baby wailed again—shrill and frantic. Sky rocked it, whispering softly, but her sorrow pulsed through her touch like a tremor. The child only cried louder, as if echoing the grief in her blood.
The sound clawed at Collin’s chest. He wanted to comfort it. He wanted to flee from the helplessness it stirred in him. Still holding Dragonfly’s hand, he felt her recoil from the noise, her grief jagged and unrestrained. He squeezed her fingers, desperate to soothe her—desperate to steady himself.
Then came the commotion. Farther up the line, a sudden scuffle. Shapes shifted in the dark. Muffled grunts. The thud of a body hitting dirt. A low cry of pain.
Eric’s voice lashed through the darkness, “If you don’t settle down, you’ll be knocked out and carried back to the summit. Try to run again, and I’ll cut off your feet. You don’t believe me? I’ll show you exactly how that feels.”
Metal rasped from a sheath. A dagger. The sound was icy, sharp, and brimming with cruelty.
Dragonfly gasped. Collin pulled her close and buried her against his chest, eyes clenched shut. He wanted to block it out, all of it.
Don’t listen... don’t listen...
And then—steel.
A sword slid free. The sound cleaved through the night like defiance rising.
“I will kill you if you touch him,” growled the blade’s fearless master. Nic, his voice low and full of ice.
"Stand down, wolf!"
“I am not yours to command.”
Nic’s voice rang like iron—fierce, unflinching, brimming with hatred.
"I said stand down!" Eric’s voice cracked like a whip. "I’m your commanding officer! Obey—or I’ll teach your father how to build houses with one hand."
Aries’s voice came next, barely a whisper. Urgent. Pleading.
"Nic, don’t."
Collin couldn’t breathe. His pulse roared in his ears. Eric would kill Nic for this—or worse, wait. Wait and strike where it would hurt most. His family. His future.
Please, Collin prayed silently. Please, Nic, don’t do this.
At last, the sword slid back into its sheath, and Collin felt the knot in his chest give, if only slightly.
“Get him on his feet,” Eric barked. “If he runs again, break his legs.”
Low voices moved in the shadows as Aries and Lekyi helped Logan rise.
Collin and Dragonfly pushed through the line, past hollow-eyed refugees with their hands bound. They found Nic, steadying Logan as he wept—his grief a raw, broken sound.
Dragonfly’s tears returned at the sight. Collin pulled her close, an anchor in a current of sorrow, and together they fell in step behind their friends.
After the burned baby had been rescued, the fear finally caught up to Collin.
During the fire, he had moved without thinking. No fear, no pain—just instinct. He hadn’t realized he held the burlap sacks until they smoldered in his fists. Hadn’t noticed the creek until his boots were soaked and cold water clung to his trousers.
In the aftermath, the panic bloomed.
He left Sky and Rhea behind, unable to bear the baby’s screams—or the stink of charred flesh clinging to his lungs. His skin reeked of black powder and smoke. His clothes were streaked with ash. He needed to be clean. He needed to breathe.
Drawn to the creek, he waded in until the water rose to his shins. Though shallow, it ran swift, crystal clear beneath the moonlight. Stones and bits of gravel glinted like coins on the bed below. He dropped to his knees.
Even with his eyes closed, he saw flames.
He bowed his head. A whisper rose from his lips...
“Please forgive my sins. Please guide my soul. I’ve lost my way. Give me courage to do what is right. Give me strength to withstand another night.”
The words, once his mother’s lifeline, now tethered him. Ismene had prayed through every sorrow—her sister’s murder, her mother’s decline, the rockslide that stole her father, her husband’s execution, the death of every hope she once held. Her faith had not spared her—but it had steadied her.
Maybe she’d known, somehow, that her son would inherit a life like hers.
Collin stayed there, kneeling in the running water, repeating his plea to the silent silver moon. He didn’t know how long he remained like that. Eventually, the cold crept into his bones. His limbs trembled. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to rise.
Then footsteps. A shout. Captain Owen barking orders to torch the remaining cabins.
The trance shattered.
Collin splashed forward, away from the sound. He staggered out of the creek, spotted a row of huts still standing. As he passed, it was clear the villagers had fled in haste—doors flung open, food left burning on stovetops, candles weeping wax into the dark.
He was trotting past an open doorway when a soft whimper made him stop.
He listened. Another sob.
Cautiously, he stepped inside.
“I won’t harm you,” he whispered into the shadows.
Beyond the entryway, pale moonlight spilled through a cracked shutter—and revealed her.
Dragonfly.
She was crouched against the wall, arms wrapped tight around herself, shivering like a child expecting a blow. A body lay nearby—an old man, still and silent.
Collin rushed to her. Relief nearly knocked him to his knees. He’d feared the worst—braced himself to find another friend dead at every corner. But here she was, alive.
He pulled her into his arms. She gasped at his force, then sagged against him, trembling.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said into her hair, voice raw.
She sobbed into his shoulder. “Oh, look what I’ve done.”
Still holding her, he looked down at the man. No blood. No visible wound. Her sword lay nearby—untouched.
“What happened?”
“I was supposed to burn these houses,” she whispered.
“Lekyi and the guards vanished when the villagers ran. I waited—I wanted them to leave. But this man wouldn’t go.
I drew my sword, tried to scare him. He lunged.
I hit him with the flat. He cried out, clutched his chest, and fell.
I think—I think his heart gave out. I didn’t mean to. ..”
“You didn’t kill him,” Collin said quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“But now the powder won’t light!” Her eyes gleamed with panic. “If Eric sees, he’ll punish me!”
He touched the leather pouch in her hands—damp. Then noticed her soaked clothes.
“The powder’s wet,” he said. “That’s why it won’t catch. Why are you—”
“I fell,” she confessed. “In the creek. I was running, I couldn’t see, and then—”
Collin clenched his jaw. The thought of her stumbling alone through the darkness filled him with fury.
He took her hand. “We need to go.”
“But the fire—”
“Forget the fire! We shouldn’t be here. We never should’ve come!”
The climb to the summit grew more grueling with every step.
The path all but vanished beneath gnarled roots and tangles of vine, forcing Collin to release Dragonfly’s hand so they could push aside branches and claw through the brush.
The group moved in a slow, uneven line—single file through a corridor of thorns and shadow.
Often, they came to a full stop as guards hacked away at the dense vegetation choking the trail.
Nesaea was isolated by both geography and indifference.
To the north loomed a cavernous gorge, and beyond it, the near-impenetrable eastern reach of Black Timber Forest. No well-marked trail connected the village to the mountain summit—only the fading footprints of those who passed before.
Any path carved through this wilderness was a transient thing, born of necessity, erased by time.