CHAPTER EIGHT – OF FIRE AND FATE.
~AVA'S POV~
Damon didn’t speak after I said it.
Didn’t nod.
I wasn't reassured.
But something in the air shifted, something I couldn’t name. Like the wild in him recognized something in the wild in me.
We stood in the room, blood still drying on the floor, snow whispering through the broken doorway. The silence between us wasn’t cold anymore. It was low and steady, like a heartbeat waiting to be matched.
“I’m going to fix the door,” I said, finally.
Damon gave a short nod. “I’ll burn the bodies.”
There wasn’t a funeral. There didn’t need to be. The Shadowborn didn’t get graves.
They got ash.
I watched from the porch as Damon dragged them into a pile beyond the tree line. His movements were precise. Methodical. Like he’d done it before, too many times.
The wind bit at my cheeks, but I didn’t flinch.
I stayed until the fire started.
Only then did I whisper, “So was he.”
Damon looked up.
“The third one. The tall one,” I clarified. “He wasn’t just another scout. He felt… different.”
Damon’s jaw ticked. “Because he was.”
“Who was he?”
His eyes stayed on the flames. “One of the First Changes. An old bloodline corrupted by the Dark Moon.”
“The way he spoke to me…” My voice dropped. “He said I’d already been chosen.”
Damon turned then. Face still, eyes unreadable.
“You have.”
My heart thumped. “Chosen for what?”
“To wake the thing that sleeps inside you.” He stepped closer, boots crunching in the frost. “And to decide who you become when it rises.”
My throat went tight. “You said my mother saved you. That she gave something up. Was it this?”
His gaze softened, barely. “She bore the mark and never let it break her. Even when they tore her pack apart.”
The wind carried the scent of burnt fur.
“She died because of it, didn’t she?”
Damon didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
I stared into the fire, voice low. “Then I have to finish what she started.”
~~*~~
Back inside, I found the strength to sweep the blood from the floors.
Damon replaced the door with wood panels from the back shed, old, worn, but they held. Mira’s herbs still hung from the rafters, filling the space with sharp lavender and smoke. Somehow, the warmth returned. Not because the room changed. But because I had.
Later, I sat on her floor, crossing my legs, a blade in one hand, a cloth in the other.
I was cleaning it, not because I had to. Because I needed to.
Walking in with dust on his sleeves, Damon's eyes scanned the room like a soldier with no off switch.
He stopped when he saw me.
“Where’d you learn to hold a knife like that?” he asked, folding his arms.
I shrugged. “I didn’t.”
“You improvised.”
“Guess so.”
He knelt down across from me, setting his own blade beside mine.
For a while, we didn’t speak.
Then:
“You weren’t supposed to survive that attack.”
I lifted my head. “And yet.”
His lips twitched. Almost a smile.
“You tapped into the edge of something ancient last night,” he said. “That doesn’t happen by accident.”
I shifted. “What if I lose control next time?”
“Then we find a way to bring you back.”
I looked at him. Really looked.
“You keep saying we. Why?”
Damon didn’t blink. “Because I’ve seen what happens when people like us are left alone with it.”
The word us rang louder than anything else.
“You think we’re alike?”
He nodded once. “You and I were forged in ruin.”
I set the cloth down. “You think that’s all I’ll ever be? Fire and blood and ruin?”
“No,” he said simply. “I think that’s where you start.”
My hands still.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Your mother used to say the same thing.”
“What?”
“That pain doesn’t make you broken. It makes you sharp.”
I swallowed. “Did she ever regret it? Fighting the way she did?”
He looked at the floorboards. “She regretted not finishing the war.”
Something stirred in my gut. A fire low and aching.
“They’re going to come again,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Stronger.”
“Yes.”
I curled my fingers into fists. “Then teach me.”
Damon blinked.
“I’m done watching from behind you,” I said, firmer now. “I want to learn.”
He stood slowly, towering over me.
“You sure?”
“I’m still sore. My ribs feel like splinters. But yes.”
He gave a low nod. “Then we start now.”
~~*~~
I didn't sleep until late at night.
Training!
“Again,” Damon said.
I was drenched in sweat, shirt clinging to my spine. The snow had hardened to ice beneath our feet, and the clearing Mira used for rituals was now a makeshift battleground.
My arms trembled as I raised the dagger again.
“Your stance is wrong,” he said, circling me. “Too rigid. You’re not bracing for an attack. You are the attack.”
I exhaled, adjusted. “Like this?”
He moved behind me, adjusting my shoulders with a firm grip. “Lower. Good.”
A pause.
His breath was close, warm against my neck.
I shivered.
Not from the cold.
“You’re not afraid,” he said.
“I am,” I whispered.
“Good.” He stepped back. “Use it.”
I lunged at the tree target.
“Better.”
Steel sank into bark.
The hours blurred. Snow kept falling. My muscles screamed. But I kept going.
Because I needed to. Because somewhere deep in me, the thing that woke during the Shadowborn attack hadn’t gone back to sleep.
It waited.
And it hungered.
~~*~~
That night, I curled up on the cot, wrapped in a thick fur Mira had left behind. Damon sat near the fire, sharpening his blade with slow, measured strokes.
I stared at the ceiling. “You still dream of her?”
He didn’t pretend not to know who I meant.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“What was she like?”
He looked into the fire, far away now. “She used to braid her hair so tight it gave her headaches. Said it made her think sharper.”
I smiled faintly.
“She hated quiet,” he added. “Always had to hum. Or drum her fingers on something.”
“Sounds annoying.”
“She made the silence bearable.”
A long pause.
Then I asked, softly, “Do I remind you of her?”
He turned his head slowly.
“No,” he said. “You remind me of yourself.”
The fire cracked.
And I believed him.
~~*~~
Later still, a soft thud tapped against the windowpane.
Not a howl tearing through the trees.
Not the low growl of something waiting in the dark.
Just a raven.
It perched on the railing, feathers like spilled ink, eyes glinting silver in the moonlight.
Damon stood, his movements tense, and stepped onto the porch. I trailed him in silence.
The bird didn’t flinch. A slender strip of parchment was tied to its leg.
He unrolled it with steady fingers.
His jaw locked. “Mira’s not coming back.”
“What?”
He handed me the paper.
The Shadowborn have crossed t
he river. They took the eastern den. Mira’s gone into hiding. She says it’s time.
Train her well.
It begins.
My breath caught.
“Damon?”
He looked at me.
And for the first time, no mask. No control.
Only the truth.
“It begins,” he said again.
