A storm of smoke rolled across the mountains, thick with the scent of burning trees and shattered stone. She stepped through barefoot. Her eyes searched with molten light, scanning the charred earth for life.

Then — she heard it. A cough. A flicker of breath among the silence.

She turned.

Half-buried beneath a collapsed stone ledge lay a stranger — pale-skinned, barely alive, his arm twisted, lips cracked from heat. He wore no tribal markings, no scent of the land. He did not belong here.

She knelt beside him.

“Still breathing,” she whispered, voice low like fire licking wood.

She placed her palm against his chest. A golden pulse of Phoenix flame spread from her hand, not to burn — but to heal, to restore. The man's ribs shifted slightly beneath her touch, his heart steadied. His eyes fluttered, though unconscious.

“You are not of this age,” she murmured. “The fire does not lie.”

She lifted him into her arms with ease. The wind howled above, shaking the cliffs. Flames licked the horizon, wild and untamed. But around her, the Phoenix’s fire bent and bowed — protecting rather than destroying.

“Whatever fate sent you here,” Firehair said, almost to herself, “I will not let you die in my time.”