The first village burned three days later.
Amaya felt it before anyone told her.
It wasn't pain—not exactly. It was a sudden wrongness, like a thread in her chest snapping loose. She had been standing on the eastern ridge of the mountain at dawn, watching mist curl through the valleys, when her breath caught sharply and the golden light beneath her skin flared without warning.
Calix was at her side instantly.
"What is it?"
She pressed a hand to her sternum. "Something just… tipped."
He didn't ask how she knew. He followed her gaze eastward, where the land dipped toward the borderlands between Beast territory and the Free Cities.
A heartbeat later, the air itself screamed.
Not audibly—but through her.
Fire. Fear. A hundred voices collapsing into silence.
Amaya turned and ran.
—
They reached the village too late.
