"When the breath of stars fades from the sky, even the soul forgets how to shine."
It was late afternoon when Eirion departed but the skies of Aethermoor were already beginning to turn a pale tint of orange.Eirion's visit had given Amara some solace.—and with his receding footsteps, it slipped away, a trifle too soon for her own good, and the shadows crept in once more like old memories. Amara shut her eyes. She ached for sleep. Her body insisted. But sleep, once happily taken for granted, now crawled into her like an alien and malevolent thing.
She floated, for a moment.
And then she was startled awake. Her breathing was stuck in her throat. Her fingers gripped the coarse blanket thrown over her. It had been a dream—or something more sinister. A macabre reenactment of the woods. Of screaming trees and hands that did not bleed when sliced. Something had been present even within her own thoughts. She was trembling, her breath trapped in her throat as she struggled to control herself. She swallowed hard, attempted deep breaths, but all for nothing.
Moments—hours—went by like that. She slept. She awoke. She gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. She did not wish to receive any additional attention than she already was. She bad to get away as soon as she could and shouting and crying will only prolong her time here.
Incidentally, steps had padded quietly into the foom from her struggle abd s
A soft knock at the edge of her cot announced the arrival.
"You're not asleep, are you?"
The voice was low, unhurried, and feminine—older than Vesna's, less clipped than Milena's. The woman moved with ease, experienced hands already unwrapping one of the lighter bandages at Amara's side.
"I keep waking up," Amara murmured, her voice hoarse.
"Yes," the healer replied simply, dipping a clean cloth into a bowl of warm herbal rinse. "The forest tends to leave things behind. Not all of them stay in the skin."
"Are… all of them supposed to be changed?" Amara asked, wincing.
"Only the outer ones. The deeper ones will tear if disturbed." She paused, eyes scanning the bandage. "You're healing, but slowly. Don't force it."
Amara nodded.
She worked quietly to the end and then handed her a wooden platter on which there was a small bowl of barley soup, a slice of hot flatbread, and a goblet of watered berry wine.
"Eat," she said. "You will be needing your strength to sleep."
Amara did not wait for a second invite. The agony still dug at her ribs and temple, but the hunger was more acute. She ate it with trembling hands, shocked at how it tasted, even in her condition.
When she opened her eyes next, the woman had vanished. The door was open by a crack, admitting a thin beam of pale light.
She rolled back onto the bed. Closed her eyes.
But the headache grew, flowered like something cancerous in the back of her head. It was no longer a pain—it was pressure. Pressure that denied sleep, was vicious.
She waited.
Counted her breath.
And then, just after midnight, she surrendered.
Swinging her legs over the side of the cot was like dragging rocks, but she did it. The first step made her side blaze with fire. She gasped. Attempted another. Then collapsed to her knees, her legs shaking with defeat. She couldn't stand—yet. But lying down was like drowning in quicksand.
She crawled back and perched against the cot, panting.
The moonlight was glinting on the small wooden table close by. A shallow bowl of ink lay unused, next to a quill feather and a tiny pile of rough parchment.
She drew herself to it.
Warily, she dipped her fingers into the ink rather than the quill, recalling a long-forgotten method from one of the passing scribes who had once come through her village: finger-inscribing—employed when hands were too battered or when time required haste over beauty. The ink was heavy and black, mixed with crushed bark and soot, and stained uncoloreably.
With two fingers, she started.
Not in words initially. Shapes.
The gnarled trunk of a withering tree. The grotesque, mouthless thing that pursued her in the fog. Ribbons of light. Glyphs—some true, some forged. She wrote descriptions under them in diagonal strokes. Her handwriting was jagged, untamed, hardly legible. But on the page, what had been chaos became form.
She struggled, but on paper, everything was a mess. Ink smudged the corners, ran down her wrist. Some of the pictures bled into the others. But it didn't matter. Because inside, things were getting clearer. The order. The symbols. The fear.
She didn't know how long she wrote. The pain faded as her mind became sharper. Until at last, the ink bowl emptied out, and her body fell forward.
Her cheek brushed the rim of the desk, smudging what she'd drawn.
Sleep did come this time.
Not restful, but profound. Like falling into a space where nothing could find her—not even the forest.