The forest held its breath.
A pre-dawn hush blanketed the world, broken only by the subtle crackle of cooled embers and the distant rustling of leaves in the breeze. Marco woke with a sharp gasp, his breath hitching in his throat as fire pulsed just beneath his skin. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. Panic twisted his chest.
The heat flared—raw, instinctual, unbidden.
Then: a weight on his shoulder. Familiar. Grounding.
Mavian.
The raven's talons curled just enough to anchor Marco in the present. Its feathered head tilted against his cheek, pressing in softly.
He exhaled. The fire faded.
---
Eloisa didn't flinch. She sat cross-legged near the coals, wrapped in her cloak, watching him with steady eyes. No fear. No judgment. Just presence.
"You're safe," she said softly.
Marco looked at her, confused, waiting for the distance that always followed. But she didn't move away. She stayed. Her voice and warmth were an offering, an open door.
Something inside him shifted.
---
The story came in fragments, torn and reluctant. But once Marco started, he couldn't stop.
He spoke of his father—Arturo Agustin—a name long buried in memory, a man marked by fire and hunted for it. Arturo, too, had been one of the lightning-struck. Gifted, cursed. Whatever name you gave it, it was the same thing: dangerous.
Hunted.
Marco's voice faltered as he described the isolation that followed—how his family, terrified of repeating Arturo's fate, had hidden him away. How power had become something to hide, not master. How love had become fear.
He ended with the image that never left him: his father's body, alone and burned from within.
"It's like he passed the curse down," Marco whispered. "And now it's mine."
Silence wrapped around them. Until—
---
"I knew of him," Geneva said, her voice thick with old sorrow. "Arturo."
Marco blinked, his breath catching.
"He wasn't wrong to be afraid," she continued. "We were being hunted. Some of us tried to find each other. I tried to find him."
She looked directly at Marco now, her eyes glistening in the dim light.
"But he was too afraid. He wouldn't let anyone in. He thought isolation was protection. It wasn't. It was a cage. And it killed him."
The truth struck like a physical blow. Not a curse—but a pattern. A choice, inherited and repeated. Marco felt it—the walls closing in, the pressure to disappear, to be alone like Arturo had been.
---
Geneva stepped forward.
"This ends with you, Marco. You can repeat his mistake… or you can break it."
No more words.
Just Eloisa, reaching into her satchel and quietly pulling out a torn piece of bread. She held it out, hand steady, eyes kind.
It wasn't dramatic. It was simple. Human.
Marco stared.
Then—slowly—he reached out and took it.
His fingers brushed hers. Warmth. Trust.
Peace settled over the group, fragile and real, as the first hints of dawn bled into the sky.
---
CRACK.
The sound snapped through the clearing.
A single twig. Broken.
Everyone froze.
Marco's hands lit with a pulse of ember-light. Geneva dropped low into a crouch, her eyes scanning the treeline. Eloisa pulled Dana's carrier tight against her chest, every muscle trembling. Above them, Mavian let out a guttural warning cry, deep and sharp.
Silence followed.
But the sense was undeniable.
They weren't alone.
Somewhere just beyond the firelight, hidden in the dark, someone had heard everything.
Every name.
Every secret.
Every broken truth.