Aziz moved through the forest in a slow, deliberate stride, the moonlight catching along the gold bands in his dreads.
His broad frame slipped between the roots and ferns with the ease of someone raised beneath older, wilder trees.
Night air clung to his skin, cool against the heat humming in the tattoos curled along his shoulders.
But the deeper he went, the heavier his thoughts became.
He remembered a time when his parents lived beneath the same roof—when laughter filled their home and nothing felt sharp or uncertain.
His father would guide his small hands through the first steps of the Arcane, warm and patient, while his mother hummed by the fire.
Then the orcs came.
Their raid split the world open in a single night. He could still see the torchlight flashing over steel, still hear his mother's scream as the blade took her eye. The gentle woman she'd been died there in the dirt.
What rose in her place was the She-Wolf. Unyielding. Fierce. Carved from grief and fury.
His father changed too.
Teaching him the Arcane became urgent, almost desperate. And then one morning, he was gone, leaving only a final lesson and a promise Aziz
never fully understood.
Now, as the forest opened before him, the memory tightened in his chest.
And I'm walking straight toward the man who left… to save him.
The past pressed close around him, whispering through bark and wind, reminding him exactly why this path could not be turned from.
A cool pulse slid up his arm. The Arcane stirred, pointing him toward running water. A river close enough he could almost feel its breath.
It wasn't sight or sound but something deeper, a quiet knowing blooming in his chest. His head snapped toward the feeling, instinct answering before thought.
"Good," he murmured. "I can stock up before I move on."
Aziz knelt at the river's edge, cupping cold water in his hands, letting it run over his face and drip from his chin. The river did not care who he was. It never had.
He sat back on a flat stone and unwrapped his meal: a warm loaf of grotto bread, soft at the center despite the night chill.
His mother used to call it a poor man's feast. To Aziz, it tasted richer than anything served in a palace.
He tore off a piece, letting the warmth ease the tight knot in his chest. A single breath of quiet just one that was all he wanted.
A sharp crack snapped the river's voice in half.
Then came shouting.
And a young woman's voice.
"Leave me alone!"
The bread slipped from his hand. Aziz was already moving, sliding into the trees faster than fear, faster than thought.
Through a break in the saplings, shapes twisted in the moonlight. He crouched at the crest of a low rise and looked down.
On the muddy shore of the lake, three men in ragged cloaks circled someone small. Her back was pressed to a half-sunken stump, fingers clenched around a jagged scrap of metal.
Smoke drifted. Moonlight caught on dark tangled hair, earth-dark skin, and black armor hugging a slender frame. A harsh streak of black crossed the girl's eyes like a warning carved in paint.
Even cornered, she looked like a storm waiting to break.
Aziz inhaled and froze.
Beneath each pulse of her heartbeat, a riot of color flickered under her skin. Rainbow filaments threaded through her veins like living light.
Arcane.
The same life-energy that existed in every creature, in every tree, in every breath of wind. But only a rare few could shape it at will. Channel it. Bend it.
And she was one of them.
His eyes narrowed. Disbelief coiled through him.
She's a channeler too?
He tensed to leap.
Then pink light detonated around her.
Arcane burst from her body in a scream, flaring bright enough to tear the dark apart. The ground bucked outward in a shockwave, scorching mud to glass.
When the smoke thinned, she stood at the center of the blast. Her eyes glowed with spiraled pink, staring at her trembling hands like they belonged to someone else.
She looked up at the nearest bandit with feral fury.
"You," she growled, thrusting her palm toward him like she meant to crush his heart from across the clearing.
"You burned my home. Dragged my kin like cattle. Slit my brother's throat. So how do you want to die?"
The man broke instantly, sobbing, begging for mercy.
She offered none.
Her fingers carved through the air. His arm snapped sideways with a crack of bone. Another flick and his other arm dangled loose. She stepped forward, gold brands unfurling across her forehead and forearm, shining wet in the Arcane haze.
Her palm dropped.
His chest split open.
Piece by piece, with clean, vicious efficiency, she carved him apart until nothing moved but twitching scraps on the ground.
Aziz's breath stuck in his throat. He'd never seen Arcane wielded with such brutality. She made Esau look like a saint.
Then she collapsed to her knees, shaking. The gold bands flickered weakly. Whatever she'd done to suppress his Arcane grip on his own energy had snapped.
Aziz could move again.
A soft whistle from the trees made his gut twist.
A fourth bandit pushed through the brush, raising a gleaming Arcane revolver etched with blue sigils. The cylinder buzzed like it was eager to kill.
He smirked. Tapped the grip. Click.
Arcane light exploded from the barrel, streaking toward Aziz's heart in a razor-bright scream.
Instinct took over. Aziz raised his hand and a lattice of deep crimson light wove itself into being around the shooter. Fragile as glass. Immovable as iron.
The Arcane round struck the barrier with a clear, ringing note and snapped back through the bandit's skull, exploding it in a wet bloom across the trees.
Aziz landed beside the girl in one clean motion. She looked up, face streaked with blood and ash, exhaustion dragging her features down.
"Pluto?" she whispered.
Then she collapsed into his arms as the night held its breath.
Aziz sat hunched over a small fire, flipping a fish on a hot stone. The crackle of skin couldn't erase what he'd seen. Her ripping that man apart. Calm as dusk. Blood drying on her jaw like she was born for it.
And the Arcane pistol now tucked under his cloak. If bandits out here had Arcane steel, then his mother's war was already bleeding beneath her feet.
He glanced at her.
Even unconscious against the tree trunk, she looked unreal. Skin a deep, smooth blue. White markings traced delicate patterns along her arms. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Danger wrapped in grace.
She groaned softly, stretching like a waking cat. Then her eyes blinked open. Clear. Unnervingly calm. Locked on him.
"Hey… where am I?" she rasped.
Aziz poked at the fish. "Somewhere in the forest. Not sure where."
She scanned the trees, then studied him like she recognized him from a dream.
"You look familiar. Have we met?"
He shook his head. "Not until last night."
"Last night…" She stared at her bloody gauntlets. "I don't remember. Just bandits. Killing my family. Dragging me away. After that it's all foggy."
Good.
Better she didn't remember the massacre she created.
Her hand flew to her throat. "Did you save me?"Aziz snorted. "Something like that."
The words barely left his mouth before he stilled. The old tribal meaning of that act hit him like a stone.
She smiled soft. Small. And his stomach tightened.
"Thank you."
She eyed the fish. Hunger shone plain as sunrise. He sliced it cleanly into quarters with his golden Bowie knife, then cut off a piece of grotto bread.Halfway through, a memory slapped him across the mind.
In his tribe, saving a Shujaa woman meant she became your bride.She chewed her fish slowly, watching him.
"Before anything else… your name."
Aziz nearly choked. "What?"
She leaned in, eyes glinting. "Your name. Come on. Say it."
"Aziz," he managed.
His heart misfired in his chest the moment the word left his lips.
She smirked. "Son of the She-Wolf. Figures."
Aziz took it in stride. His mother's name carried weight everywhere. Nothing surprising there.But then she tilted her head."So who's your father?"
That caught him.
After years hiding in these woods, people only ever recognized his mother's side. Never his father's.
"…The War Bringer," Aziz said, still a little stunned.
She froze mid-bite, the fish still halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she turned to stare at him.
"Are you joking?" she demanded.
Aziz sighed. "I wish I was."
She leaned back, blinking hard. "The gods must be crazy."
Aziz only shrugged and went back to eating, like dropping two living legends into a conversation was nothing.
But she wasn't done.
"You're royalty in your own right," she rambled, waving her half-eaten fish for emphasis.
"Son of the She-Wolf, hero of half the northern coast. And the War Bringer, revolutionary, scourge of the empire. Aziz, that makes you basically a prince of chaos. A walking rebellion."
He kept chewing, pretending it didn't rattle him.
She lowered her food.
"So… where are you headed? Is the pack moving into this region yet?"
Aziz shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. May Pen is overrun with royal guards. That's where the pack is held up."
She clicked her tongue. "Darn it. So why are you here then?"
Aziz finally met her eyes, the firelight catching the hard line of his jaw.
"I'm leaving," he said quietly. "To save my father before they execute him."
The piece of fish slipped from her hand. She sucked in a sharp breath, almost choking.
"Execute him? No. No, we can't let that happen." Her voice trembled with urgency. "He's the one who taught humans the Arcane. He gave us a fighting chance against those elves."
He shook his head. "We aren't doing anything."
The thought struck hard. Why is she even telling me this? Of course I know. He's my father.
Her leaf stilled in her lap. "What do you mean?"
He finally met her eyes. Steady. Cold with resolve.
"I'm going alone. And you need to understand who I'm walking into."
The forest seemed to hold its breath.
"I'm going after the royal family," he said quietly.
"The masters of the Arcane. People who were born in power and sharpened by it."
She pushed to her feet, leaning over the stump until her shadow swallowed him. Her eyes locked onto his. Steady. Unblinking. His breath tripped.
Her grip loosened on the leaf, and she let out a slow breath.
"Well, hero," she said softly.
He blinked. Hero?
For a moment, he wasn't sure he heard her right.
She leaned forward, eyes steady on his. "We're bonded now. That isn't something you walk away from."
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off gently.
"I lost my whole family," she whispered. "I have no home left… except the one I found with you."
The night wind rustled the leaves overhead, but she didn't look away.
"So wherever you're going," she said, voice firming, "I'm going too."
He stared at her, the weight of her words settling deeper than any wound he'd taken.
Then her tone shifted. Playful. Sure. Edged with something ancient.
"We Shujaa guard our own shadows. We don't leave the ones who saved us wandering alone."
She leaned in, whispering.
"In my mother's village, if a woman survives the death-sleep and the first face she sees is a man's… the elders say the Presence stitched their spirits together."
She smirked.
"So yeah. Divine matchmaking. Looks like you're stuck with me, hero."
Her smile sharpened.
"Bride and groom. Just like that."
Aziz dragged a stick through the dirt, refusing to meet her gaze.
"You're funny," he muttered.
But the image of her ripping that bandit apart clung to him like a burr he couldn't shake.
And now, apparently…
He had a wife he didn't ask for.