The years slipped past like water over stone, carrying the girls from toddlers to children with opinions, secrets, and the beginnings of purpose.
At the Temple, Tyrande leaned toward the devotions with a seriousness that startled her teachers. She lifted her face to every hymn, lips shaping words as though each were a promise. Her questions came steady as firelight: Why does Elune light some paths and not others? Do the stars hear us when we call their names? The novices answered as best they could, but more often they watched her with quiet wonder, exchanging whispers that this child would walk farther than most.
Yet for all her reverence, mischief still lived in her bones. Tyrande was the first to sneak honeycakes from the temple kitchens, sticky-fingered and unapologetic. She was the first to dare a climb up the trees in the Temple gardens, her laugh echoing high among the boughs until Sister Tyratha's sharp voice called her down. Once, when the children knelt in prayer, she leaned close and breathed a joke into Lytavis's ear, leaving them both choking on stifled laughter until stern eyes silenced them.
While Tyrande tested the patience of novices beneath vaulted arches, Lytavis's lessons often strayed beyond the Temple walls. In the gardens she could name nearly every herb, her small hands gentle as she traced leaf-veins and whispered their uses. She remembered which flower soothed fevers, which root made a bitter but useful tea. When another child scraped a knee or bloodied a palm, she was there first, her hands warm, her words soft, a faint glow spilling from her palms like hidden starlight.
At home, her wandering widened. She roamed the woods around the Ariakan estate, Ginger padding faithfully at her heels, crooked leg and all. Birds with bent wings, hares limping from snares, fawns tangled in brambles—Lytavis tended each with stubborn care. Some left whole. Others bore scars. But all turned to her with the same unshaken trust.
Once, deep in the trees, she found a raven with its wing broken badly, bone crooked beyond any true healing. The bird's eyes were sharp, defiant even through pain. Lytavis knelt, whispering comfort, her palms shimmering faintly, like moonlight caught on feathers. The wing would never be perfect, never unmarked—but when the raven stretched it again, it was strong enough for flight. With a rough caw she launched skyward, circled once, then landed on Lytavis's shoulder with fierce certainty.
The raven followed her home. No coaxing could drive her away, but no cage could contain her. Lytavis named her Skye, for the way her wings shifted light and shadow as she moved. From then on, Skye roosted above her window, a watchful sentinel, fierce and loyal, the counterpoint to Ginger's quiet, earthbound shadow.
Trouble, of course, still found her. More than once Zoya scolded her for returning at dusk with burrs in her hair, thorns in her skirts, and arms full of creatures she swore must stay just a little while. Ginger would shake herself in the doorway, scattering leaves and twigs across the floor, while muddy prints trailed behind them. Lucien pretended sternness, but his journals filled with longer and longer notes: observations of her affinity, quiet speculations he never voiced aloud.
Through it all, Tyrande remained her balance. At the Temple, they knelt side by side. In the gardens, they played until dusk. They whispered secrets into each other's ears—silly dreams, solemn vows only children could make and believe entirely. One day, Tyrande swore they would walk the stars together; another, Lytavis promised no wound would ever defeat them if they faced it side by side.
By the time the city's bells marked another year, Tyrande's gaze tilted ever more heavenward, Lytavis's ever more earthbound. One looked to the stars, the other to the wounded and the weary. Yet their paths wove together like threads on the same loom, neither complete without the other.
Notes in the Margin - Lucien Ariakan
The raven will not leave her. At first I thought it simple instinct, a wounded thing bound to its healer. Yet I see how it circles above her, how it clicks at the window when she lingers too long indoors, and I begin to wonder if there is more at work. She does not only tend the wounded—she gathers them, binds them to her, as if the broken recognize something of themselves in her small hands. I pretend sternness when she comes home with thorns in her skirts, but my quill betrays me. I write longer and longer notes, and none of them explain what I see.