The tall stranger's hand closed around the shaft of the arrow lodged in his shoulder, and before Taika could stop herself, she flinched at the sight. With a firm pull, he wrenched the projectile free. Her stomach turned as she glimpsed the blood, but what followed made her freeze in utter disbelief. The moment the liquid left his body, it drained of color, turning perfectly translucent as it clung to the arrow's tip. The wound itself remained a vivid red, contrasting sharply against the clear, almost ghostly fluid that dripped down.
Her captor's jaw dropped in equal horror. "What… what the hell is that?!" he stammered, taking a nervous step back, eyes darting between Taika and the man holding the arrow.
"It seems I'm harder to kill than expected," the stranger remarked dryly, holding the arrow in front of him like a curious trinket, as if noting the absurdity of the situation. Taika, meanwhile, felt her chest pound so hard she thought it might burst. Her mind was spinning. This man was no ordinary human—no ordinary human could bleed colorless blood or shrug off four arrows and still look completely unbothered.
"Four stray arrows," he muttered to himself, his ruby eyes narrowing just slightly as if the thought irked him. "Not one, not two, but four. Really, your aim is that bad?"
Then the chaos unfolded. In moments, the bandits who hadn't already fled found themselves thrown off their feet by precise, devastating strikes. Bodies collided with rocks, trunks, and loose earth in thudding, painful ways that made Taika wince. One man's boot caught a root and he stumbled forward, only to be met with a forceful punch that sent him sliding down the slope. Another tried to lunge with a knife but was thrown sideways with barely a flick of the stranger's wrist.
Finally, he turned to Taika's captor. With a calm but undeniably merciless motion, he grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and yanked him off the ground, slamming him into the dirt. The man groaned, winded and completely incapable of resisting, his earlier arrogance evaporated into a jittery, fearful tremor.
The stranger's chuckle, when it found Taika again, was low, amused, and soft in a way that made her heart stutter. He crouched before her, bringing his face level with hers, and tilted his head as though examining a curious insect. Up close, his features were open and clean-cut. His blonde hair was dusted with grit from the scuffle, and his clothes were torn where the arrows had struck; the arrow wound bled a thin, stubborn red at the edge of a ragged hole.
Taika froze, her mind spiraling. Okay. Breathe. Don't get pummeled. Don't get pummeled. Don't—oh gods, he's staring right at me. His eyes are… red. Oh gods. Oh gods, oh gods. If he thinks I'm a threat, I'm dead. I'm totally dead. Stay calm. Stay calm. Show him I'm not one of them.
Taika's first, instinctive reaction was an animal's: she shrank back, chest tight, expecting—praying—that he might be the kind of man who would steady his palm on her skull and render her unconscious to keep things simple. She imagined a quick, clinical blow, the world tilting into blackness, the bandits laughing—visions that made her stomach twist.
Her hands trembled, curling into fists at her sides, and then she realized the safest thing she could do: she needed to show him—meant no threat. No harm.
She swallowed hard, keeping her gaze fixed on him, voice caught somewhere in her throat. Think, Taika. Think. What would Grandpa do? Show trust. Show respect. Calm him down. Don't swing, don't run. Make him see you're not a bandit.
Her muscles, which had been all tight, surrendered into a different reflex. She closed the small distance between them and flung herself forward, arms locking around his torso in a desperate, clumsy hug.
It was raw and immediate: gratitude braided through terror, gratitude braided through instinct. Taika buried her face against the stranger's coat, feeling the grit of his fabric, the steady throb of a heartbeat beneath her cheek. The contact jolted her the way cold water jolts nerves awake. He smelled faintly of smoke and iron and something sweet underneath—something like dried herbs and rain. The sound of his breath was even and controlled and, impossibly, quiet enough to drown out the thudding of her own pulse.
For a second the man was as surprised as the bandits had been. His hands froze mid-motion. The ruby of his eyes flared, catching the light like tiny coals.
The stranger froze. Surprise flickered in his expression, subtle but undeniable. Not that he softened. Not that he even looked concerned. But the pause was enough. He stayed still, one hand half-raised as if assessing whether to shove her off or react. Taika's chest pressed against his, trembling, and for a heartbeat, the world narrowed to their contact and the adrenaline in her veins.
Finally, he lowered one hand to glance at her state, then surveyed Kuurra and the bundles. His crimson eyes narrowed in consideration.
"Hmm," he muttered, voice low and measured. "You're a fugitive. Running away, I'd guess, given the state you're in and the horse with your supplies. Careful not to get caught, yes?"
Taika's brow furrowed, her pride prickling. She stepped back, clutching the locket beneath her collar, shaking her head. "I'm not running away from anyone!" she said, voice sharp despite her trembling. "I'm hiking up the mountain to prepare camp… for myself and my grandfather. Just… that. Nothing more."
The stranger's gaze flicked to her, then to the trail above, then back at her again. He made no reply that softened his assessment, no apology, no acknowledgment of her gratitude. His crimson eyes, so vivid against his pale skin and blonde hair, were unflinching. Yet beneath the surface, the faintest twitch of interest hinted that her explanation registered—he wasn't simply dismissing her.
The stranger moved with an ease that belied his size, picking Taika up as though she were no more than a child's doll. She struggled briefly, limbs flailing, heart hammering against her ribcage—but the grip around her was firm and unyielding, yet careful enough not to harm her. Within moments, she was perched atop Kuurra, the horse's broad back steady beneath her as she tried to catch her breath.
He bent slightly, his eyes scanning the slope for the discarded sword. A few feet away, it lay haphazardly in the dirt, still glinting from the morning light. He picked it up, examining the blade for a fraction of a second. The edge was clean, untouched by battle; the metal smooth, almost inviting. Without a word, he slipped it back into its sheath and returned it to its place at Taika's hip, an almost imperceptible gesture of restoration.
The reins were in his hands next. Kuurra, still tense from the earlier chaos, hesitated briefly, then fell into step under the stranger's guidance.
Every now and then, he glanced back at Taika. Her wide blue eyes were still brimming with panic, framed by strands of hair plastered to her face by sweat and exertion. They reminded him of something unsettling, something he had seen earlier, and the thought struck him cold: her grandfather would not be arriving anytime soon; the familiar, steady hand he had trusted would never guide her here. He allowed himself a brief moment of calculation, the pieces falling into place with grim clarity.
He led them up a slope toward a high clearing, one that overlooked the village with a near-perfect vantage point. The wind gusted against him, carrying the faint scent of smoke and earth, but he ignored it, his focus narrowing on the village below. He brought Kuurra to a halt and motioned for Taika to look, his voice quiet but deliberate, almost conversational.
"See there," he said, nodding toward the village with a tilt of his head. "Focus on the center. Look closely at what stands above the walls."
Taika leaned forward, curiosity overtaking the remnants of her fear. "What… what am I looking at?" she whispered, her voice trembling, still struggling to process the mountain's earlier violence.
Taika's brow furrowed in concentration. Her inhuman vision was limited, the distance too great, the details too fine. She hesitated for a moment, then extended her hands subtly, drawing her magic to enhance her sight. The world sharpened, colors intensifying, details clarifying.
And then she saw it.
Her locket throbbed against her chest as her breath caught. Her eyes widened in horror as she registered the grim spectacle. Her grandfather's head, mounted atop a pike, swung gently in the wind above the village. The blue of his eyes seemed dulled and hollow, his familiar warmth replaced by an unnatural stillness. The mountain air carried the faint metallic scent of blood and iron, and the shock of it was enough to make her knees weaken.
Her body went rigid for a fraction of a second, heart stopping, and then she fainted, slumping forward slightly against Kuurra.
The stranger caught her subtly, steadying her with an ease that spoke of strength honed over years of necessity. He adjusted the reins, guiding the horse slowly along the ridge so she would not fall, his eyes still taking in the village below. For a long moment, he allowed himself to observe, noting the connections, the movements, the implications.
No words of comfort passed his lips. He simply maintained control, his face unreadable, his posture unyielding. The girl was unconscious, the truth of her grandfather's fate settled harshly in her mind—but he would see that she survived; And that, for now, was enough.
The forest swallowed him and the horse whole, dimming the light and muffling every sound but the steady thud of hooves and the faint, uneven breaths of the unconscious girl slumped in the saddle. The tall stranger moved ahead of the horse with silent certainty, pushing branches aside and choosing paths that hardly qualified as trails at all. Thick brambles scraped against his arms, leaves fell into his hair, and the scent of moss and wet earth clung to the cool air. He avoided the main road without hesitation—if the girl was to be hunted, the obvious routes would be watched first. Better to vanish into the undergrowth where only beasts and madmen wandered.
His grip on the reins tightened as his thoughts—reluctantly—returned to the moment she'd unexpectedly thrown her arms around him earlier. A strange thing, that. Humans usually recoiled from him. Screamed. Ran. The only ones who didn't were too foolish to understand what he was— but she had clung to him with the desperate, blind trust of someone drowning, as if he were the nearest thing that might keep her alive.
Besides, he needed a human vessel. That thought had been just a distant hope, an unlikely convenience he might stumble across on his journey to the Pyre. Not something he expected to be thrust into his arms by chance—or by four idiotic archers with atrocious aim.
His gaze flicked to the girl's face—pale, still, framed by messy hair that the wind had tangled. A woman, young, slight in build. Not ideal. Vesselhood was strenuous, and men traditionally survived the strain far better than women.
He clicked his tongue in mild annoyance.
"Pity she's a woman," he grumbled, as if discussing the weather. "But no," he continued, musing aloud as though speaking to the trees, "I get a tiny northern girl with lakewater eyes and a talent she barely knows how to use." His tone, however, lacked disdain—if anything, it carried the faint sparkle of interest, like a craftsman spotting a rough gem. "Still… her magic was not negligible. Unrefined, yes. But potent."
He remembered the shimmer in the air when she'd enhanced her vision, the way she had enhanced her physical form to better wield her sword, and the shifting of her magic to form a shield; The way the magic had flowed instinctively, cleanly, without hesitation. Natural talent. Unrefined, but strong.
"Yes… with enough guidance, she could be shaped. Trained." His tone warmed slightly, not with gentleness, but with budding satisfaction. "A vessel must be resilient. Capable. And she…" His eyes lingered on her hands, scraped from her earlier scramble. "She fought back against her captor far better than most would."
He hadn't intended to intervene at all. It wasn't his problem whether she lived or died. She had seemed capable enough, and humans always had some conflict or another going on. Their suffering was ceaseless and, more importantly, irrelevant to him.
But then the arrows had hit him.
One in the shoulder. One grazing his ribs. One embedding shallowly in his arm. One nicking his side.
Four.
Four stray arrows.
His jaw tightened at the memory, irritation flaring fresh and hot. They had stung—not painfully, but insultingly—and the insult alone had been reason enough for him to crush the archers like pests. The fact that he'd ended up dragging this girl out of it with him was merely… collateral involvement.
"Still," he sighed, though it sounded more amused than weary, "perhaps a worthwhile inconvenience."
Branches parted ahead, revealing a section of forest where the slope dipped downward, offering a quiet path deeper into obscurity. No one would find them here. No one would dare venture this far from the trail unless they knew exactly what they were looking for—and none would be looking for him.
He straightened, shoulders rolling back as if shedding the last remnants of his annoyance, and a smirk curled faintly at the edge of his mouth.
"At last."
He inhaled deeply, the air sharp and cold in his lungs, and let the forest swallow his voice as he declared—quietly, but with the absolute certainty of a being who had never once doubted his rightful place in the world:
"Now I, the Harbinger of the Scorching Tempest, can return to the Pyre."
His eyes burned briefly with a flicker of ancient, simmering power—suppressed but never extinguished.
"And be restored to my former glory."
The forest seemed to quiet at the declaration, leaves shivering as though stirred by a breeze that had not touched them. He stepped onward, guiding the horse deeper into the wild, full of purpose and certainty—while his newly chosen vessel slept, unaware that her fate had just been decided for her.
Taika came back to awareness in a violent, staggering lurch—her body jostling upward as though the earth itself had kicked her spine. The world slammed into her in a blur of color and noise: the dull thudding of hooves, the evergreen smell of pines, the uneven sway of a saddle beneath her. Her fingers scrabbled uselessly at the air before finding the front of the saddle and clinging on.
Her skull throbbed. Her breath hitched. She felt sick, disoriented, floating.
And then she heard him.
"Good. You're finally awake. Thought you'd stay unconscious the whole way and make this more boring than it already is."
His voice came from beside her—low, clipped, unimpressed. The tall stranger was walking a few steps ahead, one hand gripping the horse's reins, pulling both horse and Taika along without even glancing directly at her. His tone held no sympathy, no relief at seeing her conscious. If anything, he sounded vaguely irritated that she'd taken so long.
Taika groaned, trying to steady herself. She tried to recall what happened, but her mind was foggy. Forest. Blood. Eyes. Her grandfather—
Her stomach twisted.
She tore her gaze toward the stranger. "W–wait. My—my grandfather—where—"
He snorted. "Dead."
The word hit harder than any of the blows she'd taken earlier.
He didn't soften it, didn't dress it gently, didn't even look back at her. He simply kept walking, pushing aside low branches as he dragged the horse deeper into the forest's shadows, avoiding any semblance of a trail.
Taika's throat closed. "You— you don't know that—he said he'd meet me—he said—"
"Right," the stranger drawled, stepping over a fallen log without slowing. "And then his head said something very different when it was stuck on a pole. I showed you. You fainted. Ringing any bells?"
The memory slammed in: the clearing, the view, the distant pike, her grandfather's face—eyes closed, peaceful in a way that made everything worse—
Taika's breath broke. Her fingers went numb.
The stranger didn't pause, didn't slow, didn't acknowledge the storm behind him. He just kept moving at a steady, purposeful pace through the deepening undergrowth.
Taika opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. She didn't even know who—or what—he was. He'd pulled arrows out of his skin. His blood didn't stay red. And he'd knocked armed men around like they were toys.
Still, she drew herself together, swallowing down her fear. "Thank you," she managed stiffly. "For helping me."
He didn't look at her this time. "Didn't help you."
His voice carried the same blunt finality as a door slamming shut.
"They hit me. That's all."
The words landed like stones in her chest. She blinked, startled. "You—what?"
"One arrow. Then another. Then another." His lip curled with disdain. "Their aim is an insult to the concept of aim."
"That's why you intervened?"
He shrugged a single shoulder. "If a bunch of twigs keep poking you, you break the twigs. That's all."
Taika sat stiffly in the saddle, fingers tangled in the horse's mane as though the coarse hair could anchor her to the world. Her breath came shallow. Her eyes kept drifting—unfocused, unmoored—toward the distant ridge where the stranger had pointed. The image she'd seen through the enhancement of her own magic still seared behind her eyelids, refusing to fade.
Her body trembled once, sharply, as though her bones tried to shudder the truth out of her. But her mind refused to process it. She felt herself pull inward, sealing away every instinct to break, to fall apart, to scream, to run back and search for him.
Not here, not now, not with someone else watching.
Her hands tightened against the saddle. She swallowed hard, forcing air back into her lungs until the shaking stilled.
Focus. Two simple facts:
One, she could not return to her village.
She had no one left.
She made herself breathe around them, made herself sit upright even as the numbness pressed down on her lungs like cold water.
The tall stranger stood a few paces away, arms crossed, watching her with the detached disinterest of someone observing a peculiar insect deciding whether to live or die. No sympathy. No curiosity. Just noting, calculating, then discarding.
Taika found her gaze drifting to him again and again, if only because he was the only solid thing left in her periphery. Eventually, her mind sank down into that one point of grounding. She inhaled sharply, wiped the corners of her eyes with the heel of her palm, and rummaged through one of the bundles tied to her saddle.
Her fingers brushed familiar cloth, the small wrapped meals her grandfather had packed. That alone nearly shattered her composure again—but she bit down on the panic and held on. She retrieved a piece of bread, broke it, and extended half toward the stranger.
He blinked at it. Actually blinked, as if perplexed by the offering. His ruby eyes flicked from the bread to her face, as though checking for a trick, as though she had handed him a strange, possibly cursed rock. Then he took it, and gave it a perfunctory sniff before biting into it.
Taika watched him chew. She didn't know why. Maybe because it grounded her. Maybe because focusing on his oddly casual munching was easier than thinking about anything else.
"Can I have your name?" she asked quietly.
He lifted his gaze to her, chewed slowly, then deadpanned, "No."
"...No?" she echoed, thrown.
"No," he repeated, dusting crumbs from his fingers. "You don't get my name. You may address me by my title," He straightened, chin lifting with disproportionate pride. "The Harbinger of Scorching Tempest."
Taika blinked at him.
He stared back, clearly expecting awe.
"I swear I'm not a fae trying to steal your identity," she said quickly, hands raised as if surrendering. "I just— It's a bit… long. Do you have… something shorter? Or easier to remember?"
His jaw twitched.
"Shorter?" he echoed, as though she had personally insulted his ancestors.
"Yes?" she said meekly. "Just—practicality. It's a very long title."
"It's a perfectly adequate title."
"For shouting in emergencies?" she tried gently.
He glared at the trees. The trees, wisely, did not glare back.
"It is memorable," he muttered, bristling like a wet cat.
Taika hid another tiny, muted giggle behind the last bite of her bread.
"I'm sure it is," she said, her voice soft but honest. "It's just… a bit heavy to carry around in day-to-day conversation."
He opened his mouth—likely to insist that she use it anyway—but something in her exhausted expression shut him up. Not out of empathy, but instinct. She looked too fragile to argue with, and he didn't look like the type who enjoyed accidentally breaking things he found useful.
He stared at her, expression flattening further and further until he looked personally insulted by the concept of efficiency.
Taika shrank a little, shoulders curling in, but something about the absurdity of it all—the ambush, the mountain, her grandfather, the stranger with star-blood—left her too hollow and too tired to panic properly.
"…It's still a very impressive title," she offered weakly.
The stranger huffed, almost a growl, as if debating whether this human girl was worth educating on the gravitas of dragon titles—or whether she was simply too ridiculous to bother with.
He took another bite of bread as if to punctuate his irritation.
Taika opened her mouth to apologize, then hesitated. Perhaps she would simply give up on getting a name for now. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the soft rustle of leaves and the thudding of the horse's hooves.
Then, finally, he spoke, voice quieter, more deliberate, almost conceding. "You may call me… Soren."
Taika's eyes widened briefly, then a smile curved her lips. "Soren," she repeated, testing the sound. It felt far too ordinary for someone who had just slaughtered half a dozen men with an effortless sweep of his hands, yet… it was easier to hold onto than the full, grandiose title.
"Can we… camp soon?" she asked, voice tentative. "It's getting dark, and you must be tired after walking the horse all this way."
Soren tilted his head slightly, considering her. "Tired?" His voice carried no understanding of the concept, as though exhaustion from a long walk was foreign to him. Taika noted silently that he must be one of those impossibly hardy men—the sort whose bodies seemed impervious to fatigue.
"Even so," she pressed, keeping her tone gentle, "camp would still be nice. We could rest, eat more comfortably. Stretch our legs before the night falls."
At the mention of food, Soren's only response was a brief glance toward the bread she had offered earlier. He didn't speak, but the faint lift of his shoulders—almost imperceptible—was enough. Taika took it as consent.
With a wordless gesture, Soren guided Kuurra off the narrow path and toward a small clearing ahead, the undergrowth giving way to soft moss and patches of pine needles. The mare moved carefully, Soren's hands firm and precise on the reins. When they arrived, Taika dismounted shakily, still dazed but gradually reacquainting herself with movement.
Soren crouched slightly to steady her, one hand briefly brushing the saddle to help balance her. Then he moved efficiently to arrange the bundles and clear a small space for the fire, his movements fast and sure, no wasted motion, no words wasted on unnecessary conversation.
Soren didn't sit by the fire for long. Without a word, he rose, his tall frame moving with unnerving calm through the thinning trees, and simply walked off into the forest. The soft crunch of his boots on the moss-covered ground was the only sound that followed him, fading quickly into the darkness.
Taika's heart leapt into her throat. She scrambled backward a little, the firelight catching her panicked expression as she called out, her voice sharper than she intended. "H-Hey! Where are you going?!"
He paused briefly, his back still to her, one hand brushing a branch aside as he glanced over his shoulder. "Hunt," he said flatly. "For meat. Nearby."
The word alone sent a cold shiver down her spine. Meat. Hunt. Alone. Her stomach churned, fear twisting her chest. She shuffled closer to the fire, clenching her hands in the folds of her cloak. "You… you can't leave me here! I—I don't want to be alone!"
Soren didn't turn back, didn't hesitate. He continued forward, stepping silently over roots and rocks. She nearly lunged after him, but instinct—or perhaps something deeper—held her back. He clearly had no intention of taking her with him.
Then, almost casually, he stopped. He reached down to a nearby tree, gripping the trunk with both hands, and with a sudden, fluid motion, he twisted and broke it halfway down. He dragged over the broken trunk and two thick branches, set them down, and began arranging them around her with startling speed—stacking, wedging, wedging again, shaping a crude but sturdy ring of interlocked wood
"Sit," he said, crouching once to adjust the branches into a makeshift nest that surrounded her as snugly as the remnants of a fallen tree could allow. "If a predator comes while I'm gone, they'll take the horse. Not you. You're smaller, less tempting, and in the safety of the nest."
Before she could protest, before she could even formulate a coherent thought, he had already disappeared into the shadows beyond the firelight. She swallowed hard, her throat dry, knowing it would do no good to call after him. Yelling could draw unwanted attention—predators, bandits, who knew what else.
She huddled deeper into the crude nest, feeling the rough wood against her back and sides, the uneven support digging into her arms. At least Kuurra was safe; she had draped the thick horsecoat cloth over the mare earlier when they were setting up camp. The horse stood quietly, munching at the sparse grass near the fire's edge, calm in the faint glow.
Her breath quickened. Her hands curled into fists in the folds of her skirt. She was alone—properly, terrifyingly alone—for the first time in her life. No grandfather humming by the hearth. No guards within shouting distance. No familiar paths. Just darkness, the crackling of the fire, and the absurd makeshift nest that she wasn't sure was protection or a trap.
The horse shifted nervously a few feet away, and Taika instinctively edged toward her, but the nest confined her, and she didn't dare break it and risk Soren being… upset about it? Who knew.
She hugged her knees to her chest, trembling. She had never been alone at night. Not in the woods. Not in a place she didn't recognize. She pressed her forehead against her arms, trying to breathe, trying not to imagine every predator and spirit described in countless folk stories.
Her fear spiked, sharp and cold.
She whispered to herself, barely audible:
"It's okay. Just… wait. Don't panic. He'll come back. He'll come back."
But the nest of broken branches didn't feel like protection; it only felt like a reminder of how small she was.