CHAPTER 1

  THE WHISPER OF KARAKAL

  Dawn brought with it a soft scent of milk and grass. The plains stretched slowly, as if they too were waking up, and in Karakal everything seemed to follow its usual calm rhythm. The sound of cowbells came from the other side of the pen, mixed with the song of a bird that hadn’t yet decided whether to start the day.

  In the midst of that barely changing routine lived Emily. Short black hair cut at the nape, eyes that looked far, delicate skin and an agile body. Her fourteen years belonged to a girl enjoying her childhood without major disruptions or obligations. She wasn’t especially different from the other children in town, but she wasn’t quite the same either. She had something. A way of staying quiet. Of observing.

  Some in the village said she was her brother in girl form. Not for what she said, but for how she listened to what couldn’t be heard.

  That day wasn’t much different from the others—at least at first.

  “Come on!” shouted Zimon from the hillside, laughing as he ran downhill. “I bet you a stone you won’t catch the balkan!”

  Zimon was slightly taller than Emily, slim and quick-footed. His hair seemed to constantly battle the wind, and his eyes, a light honey color, gleamed even more under Karakal’s sun. He always wore an old leather jacket, with a blue patch on the left elbow, inherited from his uncle. Quick to smile and slow to speak.

  Emily ran after him, dodging thickets and loose stones. The balkan was a large hare with tiny antler-like horns. Of course, they wouldn’t catch it—nor were they really trying. It was more an excuse to run, laugh, and feel alive.

  When they were tired, they dropped into the tall grass, panting.

  “Do you think we’ll ever leave this place?” Zimon asked, looking at the sky.

  “Sometimes I think yes. Sometimes, that we don’t need to,” Emily replied without looking.

  “Imagine if one of us received an ánima,” he said after a pause.

  His voice changed when he spoke of that.

  “Not everyone gets one.”

  “There’s never been one in my family. At least that I can remember. It’d be an honor to be the first.”

  Emily nodded without saying anything. Deep down, she’d wondered the same many times.

  “My brother used to say the ánimas were something different from what they are now. He said they were enormous, like bison made of stone and fire, and when they played together it looked like a battle between gods. Everyone would stop and watch.”

  Zimon looked at her in surprise.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “He told you that seriously?”

  “He didn’t speak much,” Emily said. “But when he did… I believed him.”

  One time he drew one for me. It had wings that looked like metal and bear-like paws. He called it Alción.

  Zimon sat up with a half-smile, changing the subject.

  “Your parents must have cheese in the cellar,” he said in his usual tone.

  “You know they do.”

  Zimon was crazy about cheese. Especially the fresh kind. The kind that still held warmth, as if the pen still lived inside it.

  They went down the hill laughing and talking about the things kids talk about when they’re happy.

  When they arrived, they snuck in carefully through the back. But not carefully enough.

  “Once again sneaking where you shouldn’t be!” shouted Emily’s mother from the other side of the pen.

  “We were just checking the quality,” Zimon replied with his mouth full.

  Emily’s mother raised an eyebrow but said nothing more.

  Her father, as always, sat in the shade, silent, watching. He didn’t need many words. One gesture was enough.

  His years as a rider in the mountains of Punta águila had made him a man of few words and many deeds.

  The afternoon passed without any major changes. It was one of those days of peace, of laughter. One of those moments, like so many others, you don’t know you’ll miss… until you can’t return to it.

  That night, Karakal slowly dimmed. Lights went out one by one, and the sounds of the day hid beneath the earth.

  Emily stepped out onto the threshold for a few seconds. From there, everything seemed still.

  Only the hoot of an owl broke the darkness.

  For a moment, she had the feeling someone was watching her from the plains.

  But there was no one.

  Emily hadn’t slept well for some time. She had the feeling something had changed.

  Something small, imperceptible, like a thought you don’t know where it came from.

  She turned in bed several times. In the end, she lay staring at the ceiling, silent.

  That’s when she heard it—this time more clearly.

  It wasn’t a noise. It was a kind of song.

  Low, distant, as if the wind carried words that weren’t its own.

  “The flame burns, the flame burns…

  Everything burns…

  and the end finds you in the plains.”

  She sat up suddenly. Looked around. Nothing.

  But her body felt it. As if the air had thickened.

  A flame climbed up her back, vibrating along her spine. It didn’t burn, but it wasn’t warm either.

  It was an echo in her bones. Something not from outside, but from within.

  Something she didn’t know she had.

  She remembered that, in the plains, right after falling into the grass with Zimon, she’d thought she heard it too.

  “What?” she had said, turning to him.

  “What?”

  “Did you say something?”

  “No… why?”

  “Nothing. Must’ve imagined it.”

  But she hadn’t imagined it.

  And that night, just before closing her eyes, she felt it again.

  A slight tingling at the nape of her neck.

  Subtle. Persistent.

  As if something invisible blew against her skin.

  As if something inside her… was waking up.

  That night, Emily was no longer just a girl from the village.

  Something was awakening. Though she didn’t yet know the price.