2 - EXIL

to the stars and the elders spoke in the measured cadences of people who had survived winters and boys who thought the

her as if they were looking at a foreign painting. The elder Bram-the old man who had seen her silver flame the night before-sat in the place of honor, hands folded l

ceremony, as if stating the weather. "You

ing ember. She had hoped the memory of last night's wonder would be enough, that the elder's soft w

m said. "It called to the bloo

the wrong things. Our elders remember times when magic tore through us-shifting kin turne

solitude; it had shown her images of a place she'd only known in whispered stories. But the threads of argumen

ger ones muttered about omens: a red moon, a flame, something ancient walking again. The tribe had scars from older disasters; t

ows. Or-we send you to the borderlands, beyond our protection. There, those who walk between worlds sometimes find themselves called by other fates. We wil

come a ghost in a world that might swallow her. Lyria had imagined exile many times as a child-sometimes cloaked

only a little. "There is another way," he offered. "Teach her. Bind the flame to service. We can make

radition. But her eyes drifted to the children in the back-small faces bright with

, the borderlands are where she must learn her measure. If the flame belongs to some

top herself. The word surprised her

ean shackles of a different sort-constant stares, whispered prayers, a life made of careful steps

must be control," she said. "And where there is control, there i

will place a mark upon your shoulder that will bind you f

ind a heart the way you bi

w," Hester replied. "And

inter; someone had to lead. Lyria had no illusions about being popular. Ye

aided a ribbon of wolf-hide into her hair, knotting an elder's rune into the leather. Bram pressed a small carved token into

the moon. "Remember where you came from. Let the flame

ldren had gathered silently by the tents, their eyes wide and full of questions. One little boy, T

k," he w

he smiled because it fe

the wagon where Old Mara taught her to sew, the mound where the wolves sometimes slept. Each step away felt like peeling b

ere older than written maps, trodden by traders, exiles, and legends. The air tasted of salt and old magic. Night creatures called, and the dark had eyes. As she crossed, Lyri

acticed infinity. The moon in its red dress watched her as if she were an actor hitting a cue. In that light, the

lic-sweet tang of the flame thrummed under her ribs. Alone, she let the wolf shape come and go as she pleased, shaking out a long, low howl

one, a bridge of living roots, a boy with hands like cold moonlight. She woke with the taste of iron on h

h the thin morning. From the ridge, a shape moved-tall, regimented, and sudden like the arrival of

not seem to notice her at first; their attention was elsewhere, to the scent of the woods. But the first rider-a youth whose face was half-hid

pulled it toward him. She had never met him, yet the pull felt like a chord plucked in the same key. He me

assed with the quiet taste of a story beginning. Lyria watched them ride away until they were as small a

, of chance encounters and dangerous wonders. Lyria stepped forward on a path that would teach her how to make choices when the world asked

the night of the red moon. She did not know if the story would be told as a triumph or a caution. All she knew was the current in her veins and the road