The plateau had gone quiet since the last group arrived.
No raiders. No signs of enemy scouts. No strange dreams from thrones of thorns or iron battlefields.
But Zaruko didn't feel peace.
He felt the stillness of expectation—the pause before the strike.
Ogou was waiting.
And the waiting was worse than the fire.
For three days, Zaruko couldn't sleep more than an hour at a time. His nights were filled with shallow breath and a strange taste of ash in his mouth, though no fires were burning. His body felt strong, but wrong. Alert. Tight.
He trained at the edge of the cliffs—sweating through hours of movement with the blade he'd forged himself. Iron scavenged from broken weapons, stone reshaped into something living. Every cut through the air felt sharper than it should be, humming with unseen force.
Ogou wasn't speaking.
But he was watching.
On the fourth morning, Zaruko found Maela tending the new food stores near the ridge pools.
She turned as he approached. "Another night without sleep?"
Zaruko nodded. "Something's… off."
"Is it the people?"
"No. It's something I carry."
Maela narrowed her eyes. "The mark?"
He pulled back the cloth. The sigil had spread slightly—another vein of black-red lines curling around his wrist. No one else in the world had ever seen such a thing. Not even in the old ruins.
She studied it silently.
Then said, "It's growing. Like it's hungry."
Zaruko clenched his fist. "It is."
That night, he lit no fire.
Instead, he stood at the center of the clearing, surrounded by stones and raw silence. The tribe slept a short distance away—close enough to hear his scream, but far enough not to see his shame.
He knelt on one knee.
"I don't know your rites," he said aloud.
His voice didn't echo. It just sat in the air.
"I don't remember the prayers. I don't remember what my ancestor offered you. But I know you're watching me."
He touched his chest.
"I know I've called on you. And I know you came. That means something still binds us."
Wind stirred the grass.
"I need to understand what you want."
The fire-mark on his arm burned suddenly—not painfully, but hot enough to feel real. Enough to make his heart pound.
And with it came a memory.
He was a child again.
Not in this world—but his.
Sitting on a porch in Louisiana, too young to understand the words his grandfather spoke, but old enough to feel their weight. The old man was carving something—an iron medallion with markings Zaruko had always thought were decorative.
"Ogou don't speak like the others," his grandfather had said, running a whetstone across the carving. "He don't waste time on riddles or pretty songs. He want action. Movement. Sweat."
Zaruko, wide-eyed, had asked, "What does he like?"
The old man had chuckled. "He like rum. He like fire. He like iron. He like men who don't flinch."
Then the memory faded.
Zaruko opened his eyes.
And this time, he knew what to do.
The next day, he set to work.
He said nothing to the others—not even Maela. He simply walked into the forest with a sharpened flint blade and returned hours later carrying:
A rough-carved cup from mountain ash wood
A metal offering bowl, shaped from an old raider's chestplate
A bundle of firewood, dry and bitter-smelling
A wild bird, caught cleanly with his own hand
He sat on the ridge that night with these before him, breathing slowly.
There were no priests to guide him.
There were no drums, no chants, no sacred languages.
Only instinct.
And blood.
He began by stripping the bark from the ash cup and rubbing it with crushed berries and ash to stain it black.
Then he placed the metal bowl at the center of a small stone ring. Into it he poured the blood of the bird—not all, just enough to coat the inside. He cleaned the rest and wrapped it carefully for later.
From the food stores, he took a splash of fermented root drink—close enough to rum—and filled the ash cup.
Finally, he lit the fire.
It was small.
But it burned blue for a moment—just long enough for him to know: Ogou saw.
He placed the cup and the blood bowl at the edge of the firelight, then sat behind them on his knees.
He said nothing.
He simply waited.
The sigil on his arm pulsed.
An hour passed.
Two.
Then three.
He felt foolish.
Like a child playing at a game he didn't know the rules to.
Then the wind shifted.
And the flames split—not higher, not louder, but sharper, as though an axe had divided them. The air pressed down on him. His knees buckled.
He bowed his head instinctively.
And then came a sound—not a voice, but a groan of metal, like armor bending under strain.
The fire swirled, and the ash cup shattered without touch.
The drink within burned upward into the night like a silent explosion.
And then…
Laughter.
Low. Iron-rich. Familiar.
It came not from the air, but from within his chest.
"You remember," said the voice.
Zaruko's heart seized.
Ogou.
"You forgot for a long time. But blood remembers. Sweat remembers. The fire always remembers."
Zaruko raised his head slowly.
"I offer what I have."
"You offer who you are," Ogou said. "That is enough. For now."
Then the voice fell silent.
The fire died instantly.
And the mark on Zaruko's arm… was complete.
The outer ring had closed.
Maela found him before dawn, still kneeling, arms bare, breathing like he'd been running for hours.
She knelt beside him, worried. "What happened?"
He didn't speak right away.
Then finally, hoarsely: "He answered."
Far away, in the temple of the god of thorns, the emissary froze mid-step.
His eyes bled green.
His mouth opened in a silent scream.
And the statue before him—carved from bone and bramble—cracked down the middle.
The thorn god stirred.
Another force had taken root in the world.