The second day of travel passed without incident, only the steadiness of climbing. Lain’s legs, though sore, had grown used to the difficult terrain, her hooves splaying naturally over rock and ice. She felt good in the mountains, acclimated, even her lungs expanding comfortably as they gained altitude.
Her antlers picked up every shift in the breeze, informing her of the changing weather, the hint of salt from the west, here and there the pollen of some distant early-emerging plant. She attributed these senses to her Heat, which had a week remaining. Atheri had explained to her that satisfying the Heat early shortened its period from four weeks to two; ironic that in the cloisters, had Elder Tanel ever succumbed to her Tuning in the first days of it, they both would have cleared the temptation much sooner. But the evidence would have been clear to anyone who understood it, as her antlers would have emerged in full at their first pairing.
When she imagined a version of herself bonded to Tanel, the idea felt strange, distantly exciting but altogether foreign. After hearing Mallow’s story, she was glad for Tanel. Glad he hadn’t taken advantage of her, when she was so vulnerable and so much younger than he.
That night, Lain and Mallow found a formation that was almost cave-like, and it warmed nicely in their fire, and there they made gentle love, keeping most of their clothing on, laughing sweetly before the orange flames as their breath plumed into the darkness, all the world disappearing as they found each other in the wilds.
The air grew colder as they climbed the next day, the trees thinning until the forest gave way to a world of ice and wind. The snow deepened, crusted over from days of sun and freeze, slick beneath their boots. By noon, even Mallow’s breath came hard, white against the glare of the mountainside.
They followed a narrow trail cut into the ridge, the slope falling away sharply to their left. The wind came in long, howling bursts, throwing sheets of glittering snow into their faces. Lain’s cloak whipped around her legs, but her hooves were sure on the hard ground. Mallow’s boots slipped often on the glare of ice.
By midafternoon, the path narrowed to a ridge no wider than a cart, with sheer drops on both sides. The snow here had hardened into plates of glassy ice, veined blue beneath the surface. Their reflections moved with them, two dark figures crossing the frozen skin of the mountain.
Lain paused to test the next step. The crust cracked faintly under her weight, but held.
“It’s solid enough if you can keep your feet flat,” she said.
“I’ll try,” Mallow muttered, adjusting his pack. The wind caught his cloak, snapping it sideways. He reached for the wall of stone beside them, but his boot slid out from under him and he went down hard, sliding toward the drop.
“Mal!” She lunged. Hooves dug deep, scraping for purchase. She caught his wrist just as the edge gave way under his heel. The world tilted, a spray of snow and ice tumbling into the blue air below. For a heartbeat, all sound vanished except their ragged breathing.
“I’ve got you,” she said through gritted teeth. Her arms strained, the muscles in her shoulders screaming.
He tried to dig his knife into the ice, but the blade skittered uselessly. “Don’t — let —“
“Hush,” she said. Her tail lashed for balance, anchoring her weight. The Heat that lived somewhere deep in her bones surged, not desire this time, but a raw, thrumming power. Her antlers sparked faintly with light, just enough to catch in his wide eyes.
With one heave, she dragged him back onto solid ground.
They collapsed together, tangled and panting. For a long moment, neither spoke. The wind tore over them, carrying glittering dust across the ridge. Then Mallow laughed, breathless and half-crazed.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he said.
She smirked, breath fogging the air. “You’re heavier than I thought.”
When he tried to rise, the path cracked again, spidering under his boot. “Careful,” she warned. “The mountain doesn’t want you.”
“Starting to become mutual,” he grunted.
But she took his hand again, and this time, when they climbed the final stretch, her hooves found every hidden hold. The ice no longer slicked beneath her, as if the mountain itself steadied for her passage.
They crested the ridge just as dusk began to fall. The wind died, replaced by a strange, golden stillness.
Below them, cradled in the hollow of the mountain, was the grove.
The sight stole the air from her lungs.
Snow rimmed the outer edges, a perfect white border around an impossible circle of green. Grass shimmered beneath the dim sun, the blades topped with frost that sparkled like glass. And in the center, spreading in waves of living light, grew thousands of Starbloom.
Each flower was a perfect flare of color, deep violet at the center bleeding to amber, and finally pale gold at the edge. The blossoms swayed in a rhythm she could feel but not hear, releasing clouds of golden pollen that shimmered in the air like drifting constellations. The whole valley glowed with warmth, the snow around it lit with reflections that made the world seem both night and day at once.
Mallow stared, awe softening his face. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He reached out automatically to steady her as she stepped forward — and then froze, coughing once, violently.
She turned. “Mallow?”
He waved her back, pressing a hand to his chest. The light around him shimmered strangely, bending the air. The pollen clung to him, then was repelled, as if the grove itself rejected his presence.
“I — can’t —“ he caught his breath. “It’s heavy. Feels like breathing water.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Lain looked at the line between snow and grass. It wasn’t just warmth separating them. It was something deeper, an invisible boundary.
“You can’t go in,” she said quietly.
He tried again, taking a single step. The Starbloom nearest him folded shut in perfect unison, the whole outer ring of flowers sealing like eyes closing.
“Guess that settles it.” His voice was rough but calm. “Go on without me, Little Hooves. I’ll be here.”
She hesitated. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’ll keep watch.” He smiled faintly, though his face was pale. “You're the singer. Just… bring yourself back.”
For a long heartbeat, they just looked at each other — the wind moving her hair, his hand still half-outstretched. Then she nodded and stepped away, crossing the threshold into the golden light.
The air changed instantly, warming, humming with quiet power. Her hooves sank into soft earth. The scent of honey and ozone filled her lungs. Pollen drifted past her face, kissing her lashes, her lips. She took another step, and another. The grove deepened, sound fading until the only thing left was her breathing and the faint murmur beneath her feet. The Starbloom swayed with her every breath, following her like a tide of color.
Lain knelt, pressing palm to soil. It paused, answering her. A wyrm. Ancient. Older than anything she’d ever known.
She could sense it below her, scales moving in the mountainside, older than time.
It sensed her back, stretching its ancient, massive ears to listen.
The song rose in her throat without thought.
Starbloom bright, in shadow grown,
Bind the breath to blood and bone.
At the first note, the blossoms opened. At the second, the air itself began to move. At the third, the pollen rose in great spirals, encircling her.
It filled her lungs like breath, her blood like fire. The world tilted, the horizon folding inward, collapsing to light.
The grove vanished.
She saw her mother’s face first, smiling, her hair silver with dew. There was no reason she should know this was her mother, except that the woman looked so much like her, but a little older; still, it was obvious, the way truths are obvious in dreams.
Then another face appeared behind hers, older, and another — another — a thousand women, each of her blood, standing behind one another like the rings of a great tree. Each held a bell, and each bell sang in a choir. Their mouths were open, and through them came one voice, all together calling her name. Lhainara.
The name shivered through her scales. She saw the wyrms, vast and radiant shapes twisting beneath the earth like rivers of light, each heartbeat echoing in her own. They turned their eyes upon her, and she felt the weight of ages pressing through her chest, not crushing but filling.
Beneath her opened a river. Within she saw movement — a shape immense and sinuous, coiling beneath the current. The wyrm rose through the water, silver-scaled and crowned with light, its eyes violet like hers. When it sang, the sound was beneath hearing.
We remember you.
The world splintered. Fire and snow and shrines burning, the bells of her people thrown into the river. The wyrms diving deep, singing farewell. Her mother’s hands on Lain’s forehead, the smell of smoke, a whisper. Survive.
She fell, her mother’s face at the window. Fire in the rafters. She fell into snow.
Lain gasped. The vision shattered.
She reached upward. Her antlers split and grew, branching and branching again, shedding sparks of blue fire. They brushed the air above her, drawing ribbons of light that bent and swirled like galaxies.
The wyrm’s voice returned, and it gave her another name. Sing, daughter of ash and antler. Remember us, and wake our lost brother wyrm.
The song burst from her throat, no longer the lyrics of the Dagorlind, something in an older tongue, no longer her own. It was theirs, her mothers, sung through her. The grove blazed until she ran out of breath, until the tines of her antlers burned.
When the glow dimmed, she was kneeling. The pollen drifted down like rain. The grove was still. Her breath came in trembling gasps. Her antlers were heavy, their edges faintly luminous.
She bowed her head and whispered to the ground. “I remember.”
Then she rose, slow and shaking, her skin still lit faintly from within. At the edge of the grove she could see Mallow’s distant figure, a dark shape against the snow.
He lifted a hand.
Lain smiled faintly, tears drying on her cheeks. The wind carried the last of the pollen past her face. She closed her eyes, feeling the echo of the wyrm still thrumming in her heart.
For the first time, she understood the song she had been born to sing.
She looked about her hooves, marking the blooms that leaned toward her. She bowed to them, antler-first, before bending once more to gather a few of the precious blossoms. She collected four, rolling them carefully into a velvet pouch and tucking it into the pack her aunt had gifted her.
When she turned back to the ridge, Mallow was waiting.
She turned back one last time, reaching her Tuning to the wyrm beneath her feet.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She climbed, ready to face whatever came next.
When she reached Mallow at the ridge, the mountain wind caught the gold from her hair and scattered it into the air like sunlight broken into dust. The last warmth of the grove still pulsed inside her, steady and luminous.
Mallow looked at her as if seeing something more than flesh. “Lain?” he whispered.
She met his gaze and that pulse moved through them both, something older than speech, turning like stars turned, slow and burning. The wyrm’s song still lived in her, and as she took Mallow’s hands the note passed between them, through skin and breath and blood.
The snow melted away in a perfect circle where they stood. The wyrm’s memory unfurled inside her, rivers forming, seeds splitting, the first breath of every living thing drawn into being. Some purity of recognition met Lain’s every touch, every bond a thread in the same vast loom.
Mallow drew her close and in the stillness she drew him to the warming earth, and this time when she kissed him it was in shared breath, a taste chemical and ancient, a surge like lightning striking water and bringing matter to life. She was hardly aware of anything at all but their movement as their bond expanded between them, hands parting just long enough to pull their clothing free, the cold no deterrent to their need to be close, to become makers. When he found his place inside her the sound that left her mouth was not prayer and it was not passion, but something that contained both, and brought him closer, closer. The stars seemed to bend near as if to listen, as if to remember their creative acts as they spanned all of the universe.
Lain rose above him, the blue of her antlers shining, filling the space that held them with so much tender love.
This pairing seemed to go on for a long time, the world turning for them, the stars’ constant winking gazes expanding with growing praise. Mallow’s hands buried in her wool, twined in her antlers, stroked her ears and scales and tail, finding no end to the pleasure of touch. She buried fingers in his hair and the soft flesh of his hips and wrapped her legs about him and no amount of touching could ever bring them close enough for the oneness everything she’d seen had made her feel.
When at last he filled her with a cry and she took him in, she rested her brow against his and exhaled in a trembling laugh. “Do you feel it?” she murmured.
He nodded, his voice rough. “Like the world starting over.”
She smiled, brushed her thumb against his jaw. “You’re a poet.”
“Only when I’m exhausted,” he whispered, bringing his hands to her ears, to caress the velvet. “But I think you’ve raised my standards.”
Above them, the aurora of the Starbloom faded into the night sky, leaving only the quiet pulse of life returning to silence.
They curled about each other and watched the stars for a long time, sleeping, waking, holding each other with wonder. This was right. This was right.
Somewhere far below, in the dark of the world, the wyrm of the Starbloom grove turned in its sleep.