The house smelled of freshly baked bread and warm milk.
In the kitchen, Emily’s parents spoke in low voices while preparing breakfast.
“We’re running out of salt,” said her mother. “If the caravan doesn’t come soon, we’ll have to trade it for cheese.”
“Last time we traded for fabric, and look how that turned out,” replied the father, nodding toward the crooked curtains in the living room.
They laughed softly, like those who have shared many identical mornings.
The fire crackled in the stove, and the clear light of a new sun poured in through the window.
Emily came down the stairs with a slightly furrowed brow.
Her nape was tingling, as if someone was blowing on it from the inside.
It wasn’t pain. It was… that. A persistent tingling. A warning.
“Good morning,” she said, sitting at the table.
“Good morning,” they both replied at the same time.
They looked at her a second longer than usual, as if they saw something different in her eyes. But they said nothing.
“Today I’m going with Zimon to Broken Hill,” announced Emily as she cut a piece of bread. “There are some plants I want to find, the ones that grow near the red stones.”
“What do you need them for?” asked her mother, without a reproachful tone.
“For nothing in particular. I like them. And they’re good for dyeing, too.”
The father nodded slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe that was the real reason. But he said nothing more.
The road to Broken Hill was long but calm.
Zimon was waiting for her at the crossing of the three cypresses, as always.
“All good?” he asked when he saw her.
“More or less,” said Emily, walking beside him.
They walked in silence for a while, hearing only their steps on the dry earth. After a few minutes, Emily spoke.
“It came back last night.”
“What did?”
“The song. The one about the flame. And after that… I got the tingling.”
Zimon glanced sideways at her, curious.
“And how do you know it’s not a mosquito bite?”
Emily slapped his arm without stopping.
“Idiot. It’s not that. It’s like something’s touching me from the inside.”
Zimon said nothing, but his face grew more serious.
“You think it could be…?” he began to say, then stopped.
“I don’t know. But it’s getting stronger.”
ánimas manifested like that: with a faint tingling at the nape.
“The birth,” they called it.
After a few hours, they began to see Broken Hill in the distance. It was even smaller than Karakal. Just a few old houses, a collapsed windmill, and a well where children used to compete to see who could spit the farthest.
They spent a while chatting with other kids from the road, talking about unimportant things.
One of them claimed to have seen a white deer.
Another swore that, in the old eastern fields, a well had appeared that no one remembered digging.
Emily found the plants she was looking for —red leaves, maybe because they grew among stones of the same color. They had dark veins that gave a special tone when crushed into paint used for clothing. She picked them carefully and stored them in a linen bag.
“That’s it,” she said.
“And now? Lunch?” asked Zimon, with a hungry smile.
“That’s right.”
When they got home, her mother greeted them with her apron full of flour.
“How was it?”
“Quiet. I found what I was looking for.”
Emily placed the bag on the table and, after a moment of doubt, spoke:
“I think I need to see the great elder.”
Her mother set the dough bowl down and looked at her. She didn’t seem surprised.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Have you felt anything else?”
Emily nodded.
“The song came back. And the tingling.”
Her mother didn’t respond immediately.
“Then go. He’ll know what to do.”
The great elder lived in a house at the end of Oak Path, half-covered by roots and ivy.
He was over eighty winters old, but still had a clear voice and eyes like burning coal.
“Emily,” he said when he saw her. “It’s about time.”
She sat in front of him, not knowing what to say.
The elder closed his eyes for a few seconds, as if listening to something within the silence.
“You’ve felt it,” he stated.
Emily nodded.
“I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t need to. Sometimes the soul knows things the mind doesn’t. What matters is that you’re listening.”
There was a long moment of silence. Then the elder picked up a small bronze bell and rang it gently.
“You’ll come in three days, at dusk. The fire ceremony will be that night. There we’ll see if the flames say anything more.”
That afternoon, at the market, someone mentioned that the roads were emptier than usual. That the royal caravan hadn’t come by yet, and that was strange.
One man said he’d seen smoke from afar on the southern route, and another claimed they’d closed the pass at the Gorge.
But no one seemed to know anything for sure.
“Caravans are never this late,” murmured an old woman. “Something’s going on.”
The night before the ceremony was quiet.
Emily barely slept, as if her body knew something was coming.
The tingling was still there —more constant, more real.
Like a second breath beneath her skin.
The day of the ceremony began early. The whole village dressed specially.
Each person carried an important object: a stone, a necklace, a drawing, a broken doll, an old tool.
Everything would be thrown into the fire as a gesture of gratitude.
A way to ask for guidance. To show respect for the unseen.
Emily brought a piece of burned cloth. One that had belonged to her brother.
When night fell, the village gathered in the square.
Flowers hung from doors and lanterns, and a great bonfire burned at the center.
The great elder spoke of cycles, of the earth, of the value of offerings.
One by one, the villagers cast their items into the fire.
Some closed their eyes. Others whispered prayers.
When Emily threw hers in, the tingling became nearly unbearable.
The fire crackled. It hissed. Some flames rose higher than usual.
But nothing else happened.
The silence was uncomfortable.
The great elder closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and simply said:
“It doesn’t always happen.”
And the ceremony ended.
The walk back home was a mix of shame and bruised pride.
Zimon said nothing.
He only placed his hand on Emily’s shoulder.
Everything was said in that gesture.
That dawn, while the village slept, the attack came.
Hooded shadows, silent as smoke, began to enter through the alleys.
They didn’t shout. They didn’t run. They just advanced.
One of them opened the door to Emily’s house.
She woke up to the sound of splintering wood.
She peeked from the stairs just in time to see her father standing in front of the dark figure.
“Today the Nasfan sings to the wind. Today the flame spreads and becomes ash. Where is it?” said a deep, broken voice.
The hooded figure’s eyes glowed red.
Emily screamed. Her mother pushed her out the back of the house, just as another attacker entered.
They ran.
The village was burning.
Neighbors were dragged to the square, tied up. Others fled through the fields.
Some didn’t make it.
Zimon was being dragged through the mud.
Everything was chaos.
Emily tried to run to him, but it was useless.
A black hand dragged her toward the center.
The hooded ones surrounded the place.
One approached her, raising a kind of curved staff.
Just then, the tingling turned to heat.
A blue flame lit behind her. A small figure emerged from the glow.
It had the shape of a wolf… or something similar. But it was more than that.
The creature raised its head, sniffed the air… and then looked at her.
It stepped forward.
Emily felt time stop.
The hooded one raised his staff to strike, but the ánima lunged.
It leapt on him like a blue arrow, knocked him down, and rolled across the ground wrapped in fire.
The remaining attackers reacted.
Two rushed at Emily, but the ánima turned with brutal fierceness and repelled them with its claws.
Another tried to throw a rope, but was split by the burning back of the wolf.
Emily, still trembling, wrapped in a dome of light connected to the wolf by fine filaments, was paralyzed.
Her head pounded, as if a thousand war drums beat all at once.
Zimon appeared through the smoke, covered in dirt, wielding a shovel like a sword.
He shouted her name through the flashes of fire.
“Emily! Emily, run!”
But it was too late.
Everything was happening.
Slowly, Emily moved toward her house.
The smoke was thicker there.
Inside, she saw her father on his knees, bleeding, in front of the same dark figure.
His eyes found hers.
“Run, Emily,” he whispered. “Run and don’t look back. Your brother is…”
The sentence hung in the air.
The hooded one raised his weapon.
A flash.
And the blow fell.
Silence.
Emily’s world held a final breath… before breaking.
Emily’s scream was not human. It was a roar mixed with flame and pain.
The ánima responded. It roared too, and a wave of blue fire spread across the square.
The enemies staggered. Some fell. Others fled. But it was too late.
The wolf rose like a wall, its ember eyes fixed on the attackers.
It now stood over two meters tall.
It charged at them with unstoppable fury.
One was thrown against a stone wall.
Another rolled across the ground in flames.
Emily’s mother screamed from outside.
The smoke made it impossible to see beyond a few steps, and her voice faded among the chaos.
Emily walked to the center, surrounded by ash.
Zimon, on the edge, bloodied and muddy, searched for her with his eyes.
The chant began, faintly:
“The wind blows. And the flame is burning.
You cannot escape the wind.
You cannot escape the end.”
A voice shouted before being swallowed by a dazzling blue light.
The last hooded ones fled into the shadows, leaving behind only fear, smoke, and ash.
And an old air pushed through time and space.
The whole village fell silent.
Emily trembled.
Zimon too.
But she wasn’t afraid.
She trembled for what had awakened.
For her father.
For her brother.
For herself.
For everything.
The ánima turned, looked at her… and howled.
A long, broken howl, full of memory and flame.
The day had not yet arrived.
But the girl no longer existed.
Only the daughter of the flame remained…
…and the wolf.
