The fire came before his name.
It came before his first breath, before the warmth of his mother's tongue, before even the dark wetness of the world opened to light. It came crackling and spitting through the tall grass, curling around bone-white acacia trunks and devouring the earth like a hungry god. Above it, the sky was black with smoke and red with rage.
In the still center of that inferno, hidden beneath a shallow den dug under a tilted slab of termite-mound stone, a lioness screamed into the dirt. Her flanks shivered. Blood streaked the dust. And out of her came the first cub.
Siro.
He did not know he had been born. He did not understand the searing heat outside, nor the burnt smell in the air. He only knew hunger. And dark. And the beat of his mother's heart, a drum in the earth that called him forward.
He squirmed toward it with clumsy paws and slick fur, bumping against the wet bodies of his brothers and sister — three others, all born within moments of each other, blind and needy, their world nothing but scent and heat and the throb of need.
They fed. Fought. Squealed.
His sister was stronger. She pushed him aside and took the closest teat. One brother clawed over him, his claws tiny razors. Another rolled onto Siro's head, suffocating him under soft weight.
Already, the fight had begun.
Already, he was behind.
Above the den, the fire hissed and shrieked. Trees snapped. Creatures screamed in the brush and bolted — antelope, warthogs, hyenas with tails ablaze. Ash snowed down like grey petals.
The lioness—Mara—lay trembling, her body coiled over her newborns. Her breath was shallow. She was young to birth, too young. Her mate, the pride's king, had vanished hours before. He had scented the flames and fled to the west, chasing his own survival, as all lions eventually do.
She had called for him. Roared until her throat cracked.
No answer. No help.
Only fire.
Inside the den, the heat crawled deeper.
Siro's first memory came not as a thought, but as a sensation: pain.
The stone floor scalded his belly. He cried out, a tiny rasp of sound. Something primal inside him — older than language, older than pride law — told him: get to the milk or die.
He pushed harder.
He squirmed and shoved until he found a teat and clamped his soft, toothless mouth around it. Warmth flooded his body. Life. Safety. Victory.
But even in triumph, he knew this: it can be taken.
And soon, it would be.
Three nights passed, though Siro did not yet understand time.
One cub was dead.
The smallest brother — the soft, silent one — had grown cold beside the others, his mouth never strong enough to hold the teat. Mara had nudged his body out of the den. When the fire cleared, jackals came.
Siro didn't grieve. He didn't know how. But something inside him stirred when he heard the jackals' giggles in the dark — a pulse of anger. Of fear. He curled tighter against his mother's belly and bit harder at the teat.
Days passed.
The fire faded. The ash lands were silent. No birdsong. No herds.
Siro's eyes opened. First to blur, then to shape. Color came last — pale yellow sky, black trees, red earth.
His world was his den, his mother, and his siblings. His sister still pushed him aside. His brother — the larger one, bolder — bit Siro's tail and fought him for suckling space. Siro fought back, always quieter. Always waiting for the right angle. He didn't challenge first. He waited. Measured. When he bit, it was behind the ear, deep and sharp. When he pushed, he pushed the throat.
He learned pain quickly. He learned where to give it even faster.
Mara watched them sometimes, but her eyes were distant.
She was thinner now.
One morning, she rose suddenly.
Siro panicked. Her warmth vanished, and so did the milk. He cried, as did the others, but Mara only looked back once — her golden eyes hollow.
She vanished into the grass.
The cubs waited. Cried. Slept.
She did not return for a day.
When she did, her muzzle was red. Blood matted her neck. She carried a chunk of raw meat in her teeth — antelope, torn clean from something still fresh. She dropped it beside the cubs but made no sound. Her legs buckled. She collapsed onto her side.
Siro crawled to her, mewling. She did not lick him.
Only when her breathing slowed did she finally pull him close.
Her voice was not words. But Siro heard it in the rhythm of her breath, the twitch of her ears, the press of her paw across his back:
"You live because I say. You feed because I bleed. Don't forget it."
Weeks passed.
They grew teeth. They fought harder. The bolder brother — Tajo — began biting for dominance. The sister, fierce and snarling, nearly blinded him with a swipe across the eye. Siro watched. He did not intervene. He learned.
One night, as rain broke over the deadlands and a thousand frogs screamed into the air, Siro woke to silence.
His mother was gone.
His sister lay still.
Tajo was bleeding.
A shadow loomed at the mouth of the den. Male. Not the king.
Not his father.
The rogue.
The rogue lion had come in silence — an invader drawn by the scent of a broken pride. A challenge. A birthright to steal.
He had found Mara alone and taken her. Fought her. She had run back to the cubs — too late.
He entered the den, eyes burning with hunger.
Siro didn't know what the word "death" meant yet. But he knew terror.
Tajo leapt at the male, a cub's foolish scream in his throat.
The rogue bit his skull and threw him against the stone. His sister ran.
The rogue followed.
Siro remained.
Still. Frozen.
He did not move, did not breathe, did not blink.
The rogue passed over him. Didn't smell him. Or didn't care. Or spared him out of some strange mercy.
Siro lay awake for hours, watching the light return through the cracks in the stone above.
When Mara returned — bleeding, broken, and alone — she found only Siro waiting.
The next night, the fire in the sky returned — but this time, it was not real fire. Just sunset. A sky lit in orange and red.
Siro sat on the rock just outside the den, beside Mara, who watched the horizon in silence.
She looked older now. Too old for how young she was.
Siro leaned into her warmth.
Her voice came, low and guttural — not words, but memories shaped in breath:
"You were born in fire. Not all cubs are. That means something."
Siro looked at the horizon. The red sky. The endless ash sea.
He didn't understand. But he felt something.
Not hope.
Not fear.
Something deeper.
A promise. A hunger. A wound.
And he would carry it forever.