Jax Thornridge's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Jax Thornridge pressed his palm flat to the cabin wall and begged his blood to go quiet. It would not. Under his skin, something old woke and burned, the war only he remembered clawing to get out. He had dragged the woman he loved to this hidden place to keep her safe. Now his own body was the thing that might get them both killed. She slept in the loft above. Jax kept his back to the ladder so she would not see his hands shake. Amber light glowed from the carved symbols along the timber. On the sill, a tiny dragon with rose-colored frills watched him, its green eyes bright. A green frog sat beside it, still as stone, marks glowing faint on its back. Both creatures stared as if they could taste what rose in him. The power flared. Light burst from his hands and threw hard shadows across the room. A wind that no window let in stirred his salt-and-pepper hair. He clenched his fists to trap it. Too late. The glow leaked between his fingers and lit the windows like a signal fire. A fist struck the door. Three slow knocks. "Thornridge." The voice was calm, almost bored. "I saw the light from the ridge. You may as well open up." Jax knew the man before he opened the door. Rael Kestis. The hunter who always found what he was sent for. Cracked leather armor. Silver streaks in his black hair. On his wrist a brand burned bright orange, and Jax understood what fed it. Not the woman upstairs. Him. "You're not glowing for her," Rael said. He tapped the brand. "You're glowing for you. I've hunted that light before. Long ago, in a war nobody living recalls." Jax's chest went tight. "You remember it too." "I remember what it costs to carry it loose." Rael stepped inside, uninvited, and eyed the frog. The creature's marks pulsed once, then dimmed, as if it judged the hunter's words true. "That thing burns hotter every time your heart does. It'll keep flaring till it burns down this cabin and everyone in it. I can teach you to hold it. Or I can collect the bounty on your head. Your call." Jax looked at the ladder. He heard her breathing, slow and safe, for now. If he refused, the power would flare again, and next time the light would carry farther than one ridge. "Teach me," Jax said. The word tasted like surrender. Rael gripped Jax's wrist and pressed a thumb over the burning vein. Cold shot up Jax's arm. The glow guttered and died. The room fell dark except for the amber symbols. For the first time in days, his blood lay quiet. But the brand on Rael's wrist still burned, and now it burned inside Jax's own home.