Part one

  Kael crouched behind a jagged boulder, his breath shallow. His fingers dug into the damp earth as he watched Anir slip into the treeline, moving like a shadow among the leaves. The boy should have hesitated. Should have looked back. But he didn’t.

  The boy moved with a quiet confidence, his leather pack slung over one shoulder and a crude spear in hand. There was something about the way he carried himself—calm, deliberate, as if he knew something the rest of them didn’t. Kael couldn’t help but admire him, even as a pang of guilt twisted in his chest.

  Anir didn’t need watching. He was sharp, relentless—something the others hadn’t yet realized. But still… Kael remained. Not out of duty. Not out of kindness. But because part of him needed to understand why the boy refused to break.

  The forest was no place for hesitation. It swallowed the careless, broke the reckless, and erased the unworthy. Predators lurked in the shadows, and the Fae’s influence seeped into every branch and leaf. Yet Anir walked as if he owned the land, his aura faint but steady, a flicker of defiance in the gloom.

  Kael exhaled, pressing his clubfoot against the cool stone. His mind drifted back to the day he first truly noticed Anir—not as the quiet, strange boy who collected odd rocks and muttered to himself, but as someone who refused to be broken.

  And it all started with the taming.

  The sun hung low, casting fractured shadows over the clearing. The tribe’s children had gathered near the cave entrance forming rough circle, anticipation thick in the air. Their laughter sharp and mocking. At the center of the circle stood Anir, his small frame dwarfed by the older boys. Yet a defiant figure among wolves.

  Kael lingered at the edge, his clubfoot aching as he shifted his weight. He knew what was coming. He’d been through it himself.

  Jarek, the eldest of the group, stepped forward. His grin was a hunter’s grin, all teeth and cruelty. “Lower your arms, runt,” he sneered. His voice was a whip, cracking through the air. “Don’t hit back.”

  The others jeered, their excitement rising.

  Anir’s fists stayed clenched, his knuckles turning white, his eyes blazing, never wavered. A younger boy, barely older than Anir, darted forward and struck him across the shoulder—a testing blow, a taunt. Anir swung back, his punch landing squarely on the boy’s cheek.

  The punch landed with a crack. The younger boy stumbled, eyes wide with shock. The jeering cut off, replaced by a hush of disbelief.

  The circle erupted in jeers.

  Jarek’s face darkened. “You don’t hit back,” he growled. "I just did." A fist slammed into Anir’s ribs. Then another. He staggered but didn’t fall.

  “You don’t hit back!” Jarek barked, stepping forward. Jarek struck out with the lazy cruelty of someone who had done this many times before. Anir barely had time to brace before he hit the ground, dust rising in a small cloud around him. The laughter of the other children was sharp, like flint scraping against bone.

  Kael winced. He remembered the sting of Jarek’s hands, the humiliation of being forced to submit. This is how they break you. The tribe called it taming—a ritual to weed out the weak, a lesson to teach the young their place and their parents place in the tribe food chain.

  But Anir wasn’t like the others. He didn’t cry. He didn’t beg.

  He just stood, and hit back his jaw set, his eyes burning with something Kael couldn’t name.

  The next blow came from behind, knocking Anir to his knees. Another followed, then another, until Anir lay curled in the dirt, his breath ragged, his body trembling but his silence unbroken.

  Kael looked away.

  Morning came, dragging the echoes of yesterday’s cruelty with it.

  The children gathered again, forming their ring of power and submission. Kael stayed back, arms crossed over his chest, his stomach churning. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t look away.

  He told himself he didn’t care. It’s just the way things are.

  Anir stood in the center once more. His lip was split, bruises blooming across his skin, but his posture remained unyielding.

  In his hands, he held something new—a rope, crudely braided from leather, a jagged stone tied to one end.

  “What’s that, runt?” Jarek sneered, though his voice lacked its usual confidence.

  Anir didn’t answer. His eyes were wild holding a promise of violence, his unignited aura flickering like a dying flame. His silence was sharper than any insult.

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  The younger boy lunged again, but this time, Anir was ready.

  The rope swung in a deadly arc, the stone smashing into the boy’s temple with a sickening crack.

  Anir’s arm tensed— He swung the rope in a deadly arc, with a whistling crack the stone met flesh cracking against the boy’s temple.

  A sharp cry followed. The child stumbled back, and crumpled. Blood welled where the impact had split skin, trickling down his face like war paint.

  The circle erupted in chaos.

  Jarek rushed forward, fury twisting his face. Anir didn’t hesitate. The rope lashed out again, striking Jarek’s arm with enough force to stagger him. Another boy tried to grab Anir from behind—an instant mistake. Anir twisted, elbow smashing into ribs.

  The fight devolved into chaos. Young unignited auras clashing like magnetic fields. Blood, dirt, and dust filled the air. By the time it ended, everyone was bruised, battered, and bleeding.

  Kael’s breath caught in his throat. Anir moved with a ferocity he’d never seen before—a feral, desperate energy that made the older boys hesitate.

  Anir stood last. His breath heaved, the rope dangling from his raw-knuckled grip.

  The clearing reeked of sweat, copper, and the quiet disbelief of those who had never seen a beaten dog bare its teeth.

  Anir’s face was a mask of bruises, his lip split, his knuckles raw. But he stood tall, his chest heaving, and that rope dangling from his hand, a weapon.

  The others backed away. Jarek glared, hatred seething behind his eyes, but he didn’t move. The unspoken rule of the tribe had been shattered—Anir was no one’s victim

  Kael watched, felt a strange mix of awe and fear, awe creeping into his bones. He fought back, and he’d made them bleed. No submission. No fear. Just raw, undeniable defiance.

  The children whispered. The adults took notice.

  And Kael, for the first time, saw something dangerous in Anir’s eyes.

  Something that would never, ever be tamed.

  The bruises lasted for days. The whispers would last far longer.

  Anir’s defiance had left a mark, not just on the boys who had bled under his strikes but on the entire tribe. The children who had once laughed at his silence now watched him from a cautious distance like a wounded predator. They whispered about him in hushed tones, their voices tinged with fear and grudging respect.

  The ones who had kicked him now avoided his gaze. Even the ringleader Jarek, once untouchable, carried the weight of his loss in the stiff way he walked past Anir, his jaw clenched but his fists never rising. Though his eyes burned with resentment whenever they crossed paths.

  Yet respect did not come without cost.

  Anir moved through the camp like a phantom, alone even among his own people. No one challenged him again, but neither did they welcome him. He had shattered their rules, proven that the unspoken laws of submission did not apply to him. And for that, they did not know what to do with him. After all he did win.

  Kael saw it happen. The way Anir ate alone, worked alone, disappeared into the forest without a word. He acted as if he didn’t care, but Kael knew better. No one could be truly alone without feeling it.

  The rope, now frayed and stained, still hung from Anir’s belt—a reminder of the fight that had changed everything. A trophy.

  Whispers slithered through the cave like restless spirits.

  The adults saw it too—the way Jarek refused to meet Anir’s gaze, the way the other children moved around him like he was a sleeping predator. Fear curdled beneath the surface, unspoken but thick in the air. At first, they dismissed it as childish squabbling, but the sight of Anir’s battered face and the bloodied rope sparked uneasy murmurs spoken by parents with injured pride, and fear that there kids position in the tribe might be taken by this new rival.

  “That boy is dangerous,” a hunter muttered near the fire, his voice low, his gaze flicking toward where Anir sat alone. “Too wild. He doesn’t respect order.”

  “He’s strong,” another countered. “We need strength, especially now.”

  Strength, they could respect. But something about Anir’s strength unsettled them.

  Kael overheard the conversations, his stomach twisting with unease. He knew what it meant to be marked as different. He’d spent his life navigating the tribe’s judgment, learning to make himself small and useful. But Anir… Anir didn’t seem to care about fitting in.

  The Shaman, Tahya, watched in silence, her sharp eyes following Anir’s every move. She had seen it before, the quiet ones who grew into something beyond control. She traced patterns in the ash on the cave wall, the same patterns she had seen in the embers of the fire the night before.

  The embers where saying something, Not chaos. Not peace. Something else.

  Change.

  One evening, as the fire crackled and the night air carried the scent of roasting meat, the tribe settled in for the night, Kael found himself sitting near Anir. The boy was sharpening a flint knife, his hands steady, his eyes locked onto the blade as if it held all the answers he needed.

  Kael found himself sitting near Anir. Not too close. Not too far.

  Kael hesitated, then spoke. “Why did you fight back?”

  Anir didn’t look up. He continued running the flint against stone, the rhythm slow, deliberate. “Because I’m not a dog,” he said quietly. “I won’t be tamed.” He stopped sharpening flint, his fingers traced the edge of the rope, now worn and frayed.

  Kael frowned, his mind racing as the words sank into his mind like stones into deep water. He’d always thought of the taming as inevitable—a harsh but necessary lesson. He’d learned to submit, to survive. But Anir… Anir was different. "‘You could’ve ended it,’ Kael murmured. ‘If you’d just… let them win.’" He hesitated. “You know. Given in.”

  Anir’s eyes flicked up, sharp and piercing. "‘Given in. And how long before they took everything?’ Anir’s fingers tightened on the rope. ‘My pride? My name? My will? I’d rather bleed for something than kneel for nothing.’"

  Kael flinched, the words hitting too close to home. He thought of the times he’d curled into a ball, his arms wrapped around his head, waiting for the blows to stop.

  Kael’s throat tightened. He knew that feeling. The nights curled into himself, waiting for the blows to stop. The acceptance that this was just the way things were.

  The thought kept coming, memory's of the times he’d curled into a ball, his arms wrapped around his head, waiting for the blows to stop.

  He’d told himself it was survival. But now, sitting next to Anir, he wondered if he’d just been lying to himself.

  He had survived by surrendering.

  Anir had survived by refusing.

  “You’re different,” Kael murmured, his voice soft.

  Anir’s lips curled into something that was not quite a smile. “Maybe.” He looked down at his knife. “Or maybe everyone else is just too scared to be different. To dream big.”

  Kael had no response to that.

  SO,,,, thanks for reading, your comments help me write better so please don't be shy. notify me about any problem.

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