Jade Goldlight's Arc

Chapter 20 of 20

At dawn, Jade carried the rest outside. The torn pages sat loose in her hands, edges curled, faint print still showing. She knelt at the base of the dead tree near the village and laid them in the hollow between its roots. Raihan watched from a few steps back. She struck a match and touched it to the pile. The pages caught fast. Jade pressed her palm to the bark until the last scrap turned to ash, then sealed the hollow shut with a slow pulse of stone magic. When she stood, the tree was clean and the ground was quiet. She walked back toward the treehouse with Raihan at her heel, ready to be seen as herself — not feared, not borrowed from a wolf. The story was hers now, and the village would meet her in it.