Dusk folded itself around the Temple like a silver shawl. Lanterns were lit one by one along the colonnades, their glass panes etched with moons and leaves, and the harbor took the light and made it softer. Families gathered in little eddies—mothers smoothing cuffs, fathers straightening ribbons, children standing a half-step taller than they had that morning because tonight mattered.
High Priestess Dejahna moved to the stone dais with the quiet weight of tide. When she lifted her hands, the murmurs fell away until only the evening birds and the soft ripple of water remained.
"On this night," she said, her voice carrying without strain, "we honor the threshold. Childhood does not end—it ripens. Each of you carries a spark given at birth. Tonight you step forward so the world may see its glow. May Elune's light meet the light within you, and may your steps find the silver path prepared for them."
Parents lifted the lanterns they had been given—simple things of oiled paper and thin wood, each fitted with a small, steady flame. Zoya's hand was warm around Lytavis's as she pressed their lantern into her daughter's palms, and kiss to her temple. Lucien's touch lingered at Lytavis's shoulder a heartbeat longer than usual, pride tucked neatly beneath a scholar's composure. Across the stones, Tyrande's parents did the same, her mother whispering something that made Tyrande's grin tremble and sharpen all at once.
At Dejahna's nod, the children walked to the harbor's edge. Together, they lowered their lanterns to the water. The little flames took to their reflections and drifted away like tame stars.
A prayer rose, familiar now that they had practiced it at home until it felt like breathing:
"White Lady of the Long Night,
keep watch while we learn.
Give us courage for the path,
and gentleness for those we meet."
When it ended, Dejahna bowed to the families. "Thank you for bringing them this far," she said. "From here, we will keep watch together." There was warmth in it, and something that felt like benediction. The parents kissed brows, smoothed hair, whispered the last of their good advice, and—reluctantly, proudly—departed.
As the courtyard settled into its second life, lamps were lit along the garden paths. Older novices and young apprentices—some wearing Temple greys, others marked with the sigils of Magisters and trades—fanned gently through the gathering. They were ostensibly chaperones; in truth, they were translators between worlds, answering nervous questions, pointing out which tables held the good cakes, laughing softly when a first-time bow slipped into a bounce.
"Promise you won't laugh," Tyrande hissed, tugging Lytavis behind a flowering laurel as the last of the parents filed through the archway.
"I cannot promise that," Lytavis said, already prepared to laugh.
"I'm going to kiss someone tonight."
Lytavis blinked. Skye shifted on her shoulder with an inquisitive caw. "Who?"
Tyrande's chin angled toward the shadow under the far arcade, where a quiet boy sat with a book like a shield. "Jace Tisserand."
"Magister Quintas's apprentice?" Lytavis tilted her head. "He's reading at a party."
"Exactly," Tyrande breathed, cheeks pink with conviction.
"Reading seems wise," Lytavis mused.
"You're supposed to encourage me, not join his side."
"I am encouraging you. To consider not terrifying him."
Tyrande swatted her arm, then smoothed her hair and tied her ribbon as if that settled several important matters. "Wish me grace."
"Moon's first and second," Lytavis said, because she knew when a moon wish was the only proper tool.
The festivities unspooled like ribbon. Someone conjured soft music from a cluster of silver chimes; a novice with a clear voice taught a new song and forgot the second verse, which made everyone laugh and sing the first one twice. Tables appeared as if they had grown there—bowls of sugared nuts, little cakes glazed pale as dawn, cups of spiced berry juice sweating in the warm air. The older guides drifted among them with practiced ease, coaxing shy shoulders into conversation, answering wide-eyed questions about schedules and teachers and how hard it really was to rise before the moon set.
Tyrande, meanwhile, invented gravity near Jace. She lingered by the urn to refill a cup that was not empty. She complimented his shoes (plain leather, scuffed at the toes). She dropped her ribbon, which he knelt to retrieve with the solemnity of a knight returning a lost standard. Each attempt was met with polite bewilderment—the kind reserved for younger cousins and unwanted attention.
From the edge of a shallow basin where moonlilies floated like small luminescent boats, Lytavis watched, building a flower crown from scattered clippings with the ruthless devotion of a field surgeon. If Tyrande believed her antics subtle, she was mistaken. "You are hopeless," Lytavis murmured under her breath, but she smiled anyway.
By the time the moon had climbed high enough to pour itself across the courtyard stones, the music began in earnest. Laughing pairs tried steps they'd seen older dancers do without falling over their own feet. The silver lamps painted everyone beautiful.
Tyrande saw her chance. She slid between two clusters of chattering apprentices and intercepted Jace at the edge of the arcade. He looked up from his book as if surfacing from deep water.
"Tyrande?" he asked, as though she were a riddle he ought to know.
She did not give herself time to think. She leaned in and kissed him.
It was brief, clumsy—more enthusiasm than precision—but it was a kiss. Jace froze, golden eyes wide, book clutched like a shield. He said nothing, did nothing; he simply stood there, undone by the small storm that had collided with him.
Tyrande pulled back, scarlet to her ears. For a heartbeat her bravado wavered. Then her mouth curved into an irrepressible grin. "Victory," she whispered, and fled before syllables could catch him.
Lytavis met her halfway, crown cocked at a victorious angle. "Hopeless," she said, laughing.
"Hopelessly charming," Tyrande corrected, radiant.
"Did he breathe?"
"Eventually."
They fell into the river of the night, carried along by it. Questions and answers braided under the trees—what is it like to keep Temple hours? how long did it take your hands to stop shaking around the sick? do Magisters truly make you copy the same sentence a hundred times if you miss a stroke? A girl with ink-stained fingers confessed she sometimes dreamed of being a bard before she woke and remembered she loved numbers. A novice admitted she had been terrified until she wasn't. An apprentice woodcarver showed a tiny moon carved from scrap and pressed it into a boy's palm with a shy look that said more than her words could.
The night thinned by degrees. Laughter softened to murmurs. Lanterns on the pools eased toward the far stones and turned ash-pale. Somewhere in the garden, a glowmoth tangled briefly in a girl's sleeve and then released itself, leaving a faint dusting of light that made her gasp and smile as if she'd been touched by a secret.
When the first gray threaded the eastern sky and the moon slid toward its meeting with dawn, the guides called gently, and the young gathered again by the water. They were tired now, and happy in the precise way that comes of being seen.
High Priestess Dejahna returned, her presence like the calm that comes after rain. "You have kept the watch," she said. "Now receive the morning."
They lifted their faces. Together, they spoke the dawn prayer the Sisters had taught them only this week and which already felt like it had always lived in their mouths:
"Mother Moon, greet Sister Dawn.
We rise with what we learned in darkness.
Keep our steps,
and make our light useful."
As the sun broke and met the full moon's last bright edge, the courtyard shone in a color that did not have a name—silver becoming gold, night becoming morning, children becoming something else that would take time to say.
Tyrande's hand found Lytavis's, fingers warm, pulse bright. "Next year," she whispered, eyes on the horizon, "I want to be one of the ones who stays to answer the questions."
"You already act like one," Lytavis said, which made Tyrande preen, which made Lytavis laugh.
The lanterns drifted, the prayers settled, and the Rite of the Silver Dawn ended the way all true beginnings do—without fanfare, with the simple promise that what had started here would keep unfolding, morning after morning, under a patient moon.