The rain came at dawn.
It was not a gentle rain but a cold, relentless curtain that beat the forest floor into mud. Ahayue woke with water dripping into his eyes, his meager fire drowned, his wolfskin cloak sodden and heavy. The eggs he had saved for another meal were ruined, broken open by the downpour. Hunger returned, sharp as a knife.
He sat against the trunk of a cedar, shivering, teeth clattering. The forest blurred under the sheets of rain, shadows shifting like restless spirits. For a moment, despair clawed at him again. He wondered if this was the spirits' reply to his vow — not blessing, but punishment.
Yet as the rain thickened, the forest grew strangely silent. Birds no longer sang. The usual stirrings of small creatures vanished. It was as if every living thing had withdrawn, leaving him alone in a hollow world.
Then came the voice.
Not spoken in air, but within him — soft, low, like embers whispering in the ashes of a fire.
"Child of broken limb. Why do you cling?"
Ahayue froze. His breath caught, his skin prickling cold despite the rain. He looked around, but no one stood near. Only the forest, drenched and watchful.
He swallowed. His voice cracked as he answered."I cling… because I must. I walk forward, even when my body betrays me."
The whisper coiled deeper into him."Your body is not betrayal. It is the vessel chosen. Do you curse the vessel that carries flame?"
Ahayue trembled."If I am a vessel, then why am I marked in weakness? Why do the others mock me? Why must every step feel like death?"
The rain slackened. A thin mist began to rise from the ground, swirling around him in shapes half-formed: faces in vapor, hands reaching, wings unfurling. The whisper thickened, as if the mist itself spoke.
"Because clay must be cracked before fire enters it. Because a vessel unbroken cannot hold what is to come."
Ahayue pressed a hand to his chest. His heart thudded fast, his fear mingling with awe."What is to come? What am I to hold?"
The mist faces leaned closer, mouths open, but their voices blended into one.
"Light that cuts shadow. Fire that does not burn. The song that breaks chains. You will carry these… or you will perish in trying."
The images swirled faster, then slowed, condensing into a single figure before him: a woman wrought of smoke and ash, her eyes twin coals glowing faint red. She was neither flesh nor ghost, but something between.
"Do you accept?" she asked.
Ahayue could not breathe. The question pierced him deeper than any mockery ever had. His life in the tribe, his exile, his hunger — all of it seemed to lead here. To this moment.
He bowed his head, rain dripping from his hair."I do not know if I am strong enough. But I accept."
The ash-woman's burning eyes flared. Her voice became many voices at once:
"Then rise, Ahayue of no-tribe. The path of marrow and flame is yours. Walk it, and be remade."
She dissolved into smoke, vanishing into the rain. The forest stirred again — birds calling, leaves dripping, life returning as though nothing had happened.
Ahayue remained kneeling in the mud, heart hammering. His cloak was still wet, his body still weak, his hunger still sharp. Yet something in him had shifted.
He looked at his burned arms, once marks of shame, and saw not wounds but signs. He clenched his uneven hands and felt, faintly, a warmth stir beneath his skin — fleeting, like a coal about to die, but there.
For the first time, he wondered if his "curse" was not a chain, but a key.
That night, when he built his fire again, the flames seemed brighter. They danced taller, as though the spirits themselves breathed into them. He sat before them, no longer only a boy lost in the wild, but a vessel chosen — for what, he did not yet know.
But the whisper lingered in his mind, etched like fire into wood:"Clay must be cracked before fire enters it."
And he understood this much — his suffering was not the end. It was the shaping.