The sun had just begun to rise when Auri awoke, her cheeks damp with dew and dreams. She sat up slowly, the soft moss beneath her body cradling her like a memory. Around her, the glade pulsed with quiet life—birds nesting in the high branches, bees lazily drifting between new blooms, and the air thick with the scent of earth warmed by light.
She wasn't alone.
Hope sat cross-legged nearby, her fingers plucking gently at the grass, weaving a chain of tiny white flowers. Her face was still, but her eyes were watching the sky.
Talon crouched by the fire pit, coaxing flame from yesterday's ashes. He looked tired, but steady. There was something new about him now—something rooted.
Auri smiled. The glade wasn't just remembering anymore. It was growing.
She stood and wandered toward the edge, where new vines curled up the old stones like green fingers reaching for a second chance. The structure they had begun—their home, their haven—was little more than a half-circle of wood and light, but it was enough. It was becoming.
As she touched one of the new beams, she felt it thrum faintly beneath her fingers.
"Do you feel it too?" she asked, without turning.
"Yes," Hope said softly behind her. "It's alive. Like the forest is building with us."
Auri exhaled. "Maybe because it remembers her. Or maybe… because we're doing something right."
Hope stepped closer and placed the flower crown gently onto Auri's head. "You've always been doing something right. Even when it hurt."
Auri looked down. "I didn't always know what I was doing."
"You didn't have to." Hope's hand stayed a moment on Auri's shoulder. "Sometimes pain is a teacher, not a punishment."
They stood like that for a moment, the air quiet and golden between them.
Then Talon cleared his throat behind them. "If either of you want breakfast before the birds do, it's ready."
They sat around the low stones they'd arranged like a circle, warm bread in their hands, honey from Hope's hidden stores, and berries picked from just beyond the path. It wasn't much, but it was real. Shared. Sacred.
After they ate, Auri brushed the crumbs from her lap and looked around. "I want to name it."
Hope tilted her head. "The glade?"
Auri nodded. "It's not just a place anymore. It's us. It's what we're growing."
Talon leaned back on his hands. "What name do you give something that holds so much pain and beauty all at once?"
Auri closed her eyes. She thought of Lyra's voice in the soil. Of firelight dancing between shadows. Of all the ways they had hurt—and healed.
"Amarasyl," she said.
Talon blinked. "What does it mean?"
Auri looked at him, her eyes soft. "It's from the old tongue. 'The sorrow that blooms.'"
Hope's breath caught. "That's perfect."
So it became Amarasyl. And as they spoke the name aloud—together, like a spell—the wind lifted through the glade, rustling leaves, lifting petals, and stirring something deeper.
Something listening.
That day, they carved a small plaque and placed it at the heart of the glade. Not for others. For themselves.
Each of them added something to the space.
Hope created a small herb garden nestled between tree roots—lavender, mint, rosemary. "For healing," she said.
Talon built shelves into the stones, places for storing books, or tools, or whatever came with the days to come. "For remembering," he said.
And Auri dug a circle in the soil at the very center. She filled it with water from the river, petals from Lyra's favorite flower, and a smooth stone shaped like a heart. "For love," she whispered.
As night fell again, they lit candles around the edge of Amarasyl, their flickers like stars mirrored on the forest floor. The trees swayed as if breathing with them.
Auri sat beneath the Firelight Tree, now budding again for the first time in years. Its leaves were redder than before, touched by magic and memory.
Hope leaned against her side.
"You're different now," Hope said quietly.
"So are you," Auri replied.
Hope looked up. "Do you miss her?"
"Every day," Auri said. "But I think… I'm starting to understand what she meant. About being the ache that leads me home."
Hope smiled, though her eyes shimmered. "She was always the beginning. But you—Auri—you're becoming the continuation."
They sat in silence for a while, letting the fireflies drift around them, and the forest hum.
And when Auri finally went to sleep that night, it was with the certainty that something was beginning—not in spite of the pain they had carried, but because of it.
In the heart of the forest.
In the glade they grew.