The healer's dwelling was filled with the scent of aged roots and scorched herbs, the smoke spiraling like whispers about the stone walls. I crouched next to Xavier, his breath weak, eyes glazed with suffering. My fingers shook as I hovered them over his injury, singed skin swirling around the deep cut that Caleb had only just managed to cover.

He was losing his life.

And I had run out of time.

"You're different from them," the elderly healer wheezed, her gaze unsettlingly vivid

“You carry the mark of the prophecy. The fire in your veins isn’t natural... it’s ancestral.”

I blinked through the haze. “I don’t know what you’re...