The wind on the Broken Plains howled. Low and hollow, like a song sung for the dead.
Sylas crouched on the edge of a jagged outcrop, his cloak drawn tightly around him as the morning bit at his face with teeth of frost. The cold gnawed at his fingers, but he didn't move. The pain helped him stay present.
Below him, the land stretched wide and scarred, a canvas of ruin and silence. Pale grass, brittle with frost, danced in the wind's wake. Blackened stone jutted from the earth like ribs from a corpse. Once, before the gods turned on each other, this had been a sacred place - or so said the elders, so said his father. Now it looked more like a battlefield long forgotten, the bones of something ancient left to bleach under the sun.
The dawn spilled across the Plains slowly, thick and red like blood pouring from a wound. The horizon burned in streaks of orange and violet, casting long, violent shadows over the ruined stones. To most, it was just another sunrise. To Sylas, it looked like a warning.
He let his hand drift down to the cold stone beneath him, rough and pitted, like the land itself remembered what it had once held - divine footprints, sacred hunts, offerings made with trembling hands. But that reverence had died long before Sylas was born. All that remained was silence and stories.
And broken things.
A soft sound drew his attention downward. Nestled in a bundle of furs at his feet, a small coyote cub whimpered and shifted. It blinked up at him with weary, glassy eyes. Half-alert, half-lost. Sylas reached out, his gloved hand brushing gently over the cub's oversized ears.
"You're tougher than you look," he whispered.
The cub's nose twitched. Its ribs showed through patchy fur, and one hind leg was wrapped in a crude bandage made from a strip of Sylas's old tunic. It had shivered through the night, too young and too injured to survive on its own.
He knew he shouldn't have brought it here.
His father's voice echoed in his mind, certain and final.
"Coyotes are tricksters. Omens of ruin. We don't meddle with creatures that mock the gods."
Sylas exhaled slowly, watching the white curl of his breath vanish into the wind. He looked back toward the horizon, where the bones of the old temple stood like broken teeth. "Guess that makes two of us, huh?"
The cub flicked an ear, as if listening.
Sylas tugged his hood tighter and leaned forward, letting his eyes drift across the ruins. Most avoided this place. Superstition, they said. Or respect. Same thing, really. Even Eiran, ever brave, never came out this far unless ordered.
But Sylas liked the quiet. Out here, the voices of the village faded. Out here, he didn't have to be anything.
Not a hunter.
Not a vessel for the Bear god.
Not a disappointment.
The wind shifted, picking up dust from the plains below and scattering it like ash. It carried the dry scent of frost and old stone, and something else something faint, like burnt cedar and charred feathers.
He blinked.
That scent wasn't right.
He glanced over his shoulder toward the ruins again, suddenly alert. But the wind fell still. Only silence remained. His heart beat faster, a hollow thud in his chest. Maybe it was just nerves. The ceremony was tomorrow, after all. The Awakening.
His Awakening.
He'd dreamed of it once, when he was younger. Being marked. Stepping onto the altar and feeling the warmth of divine presence wash through him. Most hoped for Bear or Wolf. Strength. Endurance. Glory. His brother Eiran had been claimed by Bear on his sixteenth birthday, younger than most, a mark of pride.
Sylas wasn't like Eiran.
The thought curled inside him like a sickness.
The cub stirred again, dragging him back from his thoughts. Its nose pressed against his boot before it flopped back into the furs with a heavy sigh.
Sylas smiled faintly. "You really don't care, do you?"
The cub blinked, slow and tired. It didn't understand gods or legacies or what it meant to be unmarked. It only knew that it had been hurt, and he had saved it.
That should have been enough.
But it wouldn't be.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
His breath caught. He stood swiftly, turning, the sudden motion sending a gust of wind flaring his cloak like a banner. The cub stirred with a startled yip.
At the edge of the outcrop stood a tall figure, broad-shouldered and confident, his fur-lined cloak thrown back to reveal leather hunting gear and the glint of a silver clasp carved in the shape of a bear's head.
Eiran.
His older brother approached without hesitation, each step measured and certain, like the land itself yielded beneath his boots.
"So this is where you've been hiding," Eiran said, voice calm, but edged.
Sylas's shoulders stiffened. "I wasn't hiding."
"Right," Eiran said, stopping a few paces away. His eyes drifted to the bundle of fur at Sylas's feet. "Just communing with wild things?"
Sylas stepped slightly in front of the cub without meaning to.
"It's injured," he said quietly. "It wouldn't have survived."
Eiran raised an eyebrow. "It's a coyote."
"So?"
"So," Eiran said, stepping closer, "you brought a trickster into our grove. Do you have any idea what Father will say?"
Sylas didn't answer.
Eiran shook his head. "You're already on thin ice with him. And now you're what? Keeping omens as pets?"
Sylas's voice came out low, almost bitter. "I didn't do this to make things easy."
Eiran studied him, gaze unreadable. "No. I guess you didn't."
The wind picked up again, stirring the edge of the fur bundle. The cub yawned, unconcerned.
Eiran's expression softened a fraction. "Look, I get it. You've always seen things differently. But the Awakening is tomorrow. You need to focus. No distractions. No mistakes."
Sylas looked back toward the horizon. The ruins still loomed, black against the light. "What if it's not Bear?" he asked, the words torn from him before he could stop them.
Eiran's silence stretched.
Finally, he said, "Then you figure out what it is. You adapt. Like always."
And just like that, he turned and began walking back down the trail.
Sylas didn't follow right away. He watched his brother disappear into the golden haze, then looked down at the cub, who stared back up with solemn eyes too old for such a small body.
"Adapt," Sylas muttered, bending to scoop it gently into his arms.
The wind shifted again, carrying the scent of something old and wild.