Dog and Go have faithfully served the Emperor for years, if only to get back to his daughter. Now that he's finally been reassigned to duty in the capitol city, will things work out with her the way he plans? And what of the schemes of her uncle and the assassination attempts? Will he be able to have the life he wants? Written as part of the National Novel Writing Month competition of 2020, this is the second half of The Heartfire Saga. EXCERPT: My first memories of Nokomi were of her warm eyes, her fine linen clothes, and her feet dirtied by treading in the filthy streets where I lived. They were of a pomegranate shared between us, the quiet peace of listening to her voice, and our comingled blood dripping in that alleyway. I could never forget our first meeting. I had been nothing more than a street urchin with a wild dog at my side, and she had been a kind, beautiful girl about my age. We'd bonded that day, sharing fruit while she told her stories that we couldn't understand, and later as we'd fought the desert cat. By accident, her fire-filled blood had worked its way into the wounds that the cat had inflicted upon me; I feel it still in my forehead when my emotions run high. And then Dog had licked my wounds clean and transferred some of that same blood into his own wounds when he cleaned his own torn flesh with his tongue. The three of us had become a pack in that moment, and everything I'd done since then was to get back to her. That perfect day had ended when soldiers arrived with her father, who I'd later learned was the Emperor. Seeing how I had been covered with blood, they'd made the snap judgement that I had been a threat to the princess. I understand it, but it had made Dog and I part from Nokomi. We'd fled and ran to hide, though it had been like tearing off a limb to separate from ourselves from her. Years had passed, years with her unnaturally severed from our pack, but always on our minds. I'd learned words, enough to speak at least, and I'd taken to working at the side of a blacksmith, growing more human to better understand Nokomi's world. We'd done our best at growing and learning until we happened across her once more in the Bazaar, the city's great market. She had grown and changed as we had, but we knew her immediately. The bond between us had not broken or faded, even if we had been apart. Our second meeting was one that Dog and I hadn't been able to escape from. Instead, we'd been taken away as captives to work in the Kennel - a school for special boys like me with an affinity for beasts. You see, Dog and I were special. We weren't just a kid and a dog living in the streets together. We were a pack in more than just the social sense. We shared everything, from scents and feelings to food. I could taste what he tasted, feel what he felt, and hear what he heard. We shared pain, the excitement of the hunt, and thoughts. We were two creatures with one soul, and the bond made each of us more than what we would have been alone. There was no truer thing than that. Without Dog, I would've died in those alleys as a small child. Without me, Dog would have been caged and killed in the fighting pits, made to fight animals until he finally lost a match and his life. Together, we survived, grew, and connected to each other on a level that went beyond thought and life. So it was that the two of us, a wild dog and an even wilder boy of the streets, came to that special school. We changed things there, too. Changes have always swirled about us, intentional or not. We created a single pack out of the dozens of boys and dogs there, taking the splintered pieces and forging them as a whole. After all, that was what the Emperor had wanted... All I'd done, I'd done in the hope of returning to Nokomi's side. We were pack, after all.