Wolf Goldmane drove his sword into the frozen earth and swore to climb into heaven. His father was a god. His mother bore the blood of barbarian kings. Wolf wanted the throne among the gods, and no mortal had ever dared to want it. His white battle hound pressed against his leg, gold armor catching the gray light. Wolf scratched the hound's broad skull. "We start today," he told it. An ogre lumbered up the slope toward him. Grok Skullcrusher had once broken men for a dead master, then yielded to a greater warrior and kept his oath ever after. Now he served Wolf. His red eyes were wide. "Something comes," Grok said. "The sky is wrong." The air grew hot. Snow melted around Wolf's boots and hissed into steam. A figure stepped out of a pillar of flame on the war-scarred ground. His beard smoked. His eyes burned like forge-coals. Wolf knew him from the stories every clan child feared. This was Pyros Warbringer, god of war and fire. "A mortal whelp wants to climb to our table," Pyros said. His voice cracked like burning wood. "I came to burn you before you take one step." Grok raised his club. Pyros flicked two fingers. Fire wrapped the ogre's arm. Grok bellowed and dropped to his knees. Wolf's hound snarled and lunged. A wall of flame threw it back into the snow. Wolf did not run. He pulled his sword from the earth and walked toward the god. "You crossed the sky to kill one barbarian," Wolf said. "That means you fear what I'll become." Pyros laughed and threw a spear of fire. Wolf dove behind a broken timber. The wood burst into cinders above him. Heat seared his back. He rolled, came up, and could not reach the god through the flame. Then Wolf remembered what his mother taught him. Beasts obey a stronger will. He reached out with that will toward the only wild thing near enough to answer the fire itself. The flames bent. For one breath, they curled away from him and leaned toward Pyros like hounds returning to their master. Pyros stumbled back, surprised. The fire would not bite Wolf now. Wolf closed the gap and set his blade against the god's smoking throat. "Burn me," Wolf said. "Your own fire will turn and eat your hand." Pyros stared into Wolf's face. The god did not strike. Slowly, the flames sank into the ground. "You bend fire," Pyros said. "No mortal has ever done that." He stepped back into a column of smoke. "I will not burn you, whelp. But the gods have heard your name now. My father rules that table. He does not bend." The smoke vanished. Wolf helped Grok to his feet. His hound limped to his side. He had survived the god of fire. He had also been seen. Heaven knew his name, and heaven's king would not send fire next time.

The flames were gone, but the fear stayed. Wolf Goldmane stood among the broken timbers and the blood-dark earth of the old battleground. He had turned a god's fire once. He did not know how. He closed his hand and tried to feel his mother's gift again. Nothing came. His white hound limped at his side, gold armor dented. Grok held his burned arm against his chest. The ogre had yielded to Wolf and kept his oath, but even Grok looked shaken. "You bent the fire," Grok said. "Can you do it twice?" "I don't know," Wolf said. That was the whole problem. The gift had saved him blind. Against a stronger god it might sleep when he needed it most. He had to test it before the gods tested him. A stag broke from the treeline and bolted across the ruins. Wolf reached out with his will the way he had reached for the fire. Obey, he thought. The stag only ran faster and vanished. His gut turned cold. The gift did not answer. "You're pushing," a voice said. "Beasts don't kneel to a shove." A man walked out from under the tall trees, where the branches spread like great wings. Red hair streaked his black mane. War-paint marked his face. A red coonhound padded beside him, nose low, eyes sharp. Wolf knew the blood at once. This was Ferox Redbone, son of the barbarian king and the goddess of the hunt. Half mortal, half divine, like Wolf. Commander of wild beasts. "You want them to serve," Ferox said. "But fear can't ask. It can only break." He crouched and laid his palm flat on the bloody ground. The red hound sat. Across the ruins, three wolves slid out of the shadows and lay down in the snow, calm as hearth-dogs. Wolf's jaw tightened. "Teach me, then." Ferox studied him. "You reach for the thing itself. Reach for what it wants." He pointed at Wolf's white hound. "That one. He's hurt and he's scared. Don't command him. Steady him." Wolf knelt by his hound. He stopped straining. He thought of the dog's pain, its loyalty, its fear of the fire that threw it back. Warmth moved up his arm, quiet this time, not wild. The hound's breathing slowed. Its ears lifted. The limp eased as the beast leaned its weight into Wolf's chest. Something opened in Wolf. The stag, the wolves, the great winged trees full of nesting birds—he felt them all, threads he could hold instead of yank. The gift was not a weapon he grabbed in terror. It was a door he could walk through whenever he chose. He stood. His hand did not shake now. "I can use it," he said. "Every time." Ferox did not smile. "Then you're ready for the truth. The gods' king knows your name. He isn't sending another god." He looked north. "He's turning the beasts of the world against you. And I command them."