Stellan’s grip was unyielding, a band of warmth and fear around her wrist. His fingers, calloused from years spent in the wilds, trembled with an intensity that belied his earlier composed silence. His gaze, usually a steady, deep forest green, was now a storm of disbelief and suspicion, boring into her. Liska stared back, her throat tight with unuttered explanations, her eyes pleading for mercy he had little reason to grant. The silence stretched, heavy with silent queries and the faint, sweet scent of newly blossomed frost-petals from the patch where her tear had fallen. Then, with a brusque yank, Stellan pulled her into the cabin. The heavy door swung shut behind them with a solid thud that reverberated through the small space, silencing the rustle of the pines. He swiftly slid a thick timber bar across it, the click of the lock echoing with finality. The room, lit by the warm, flickering glow of the hearth, suddenly felt smaller, charged with a potent, unsettling energy. He released her wrist, stepping back only enough to fix her with another piercing stare. “Speak,” he commanded, his voice a low rumble, devoid of its earlier gentleness. “Tell me what you are. What did you do to my leg?” Liska swallowed, her mouth dry. She parted her lips, a desperate rasp escaping, but no sound formed. Only a faint, strained whimper. Her eyes welled, not with the magical tears, but with the familiar, helpless frustration of her silence. She shook her head, clutching her hands to her chest, her shoulders hunching. Stellan’s broad shoulders rose and fell with a sharp intake of breath. “Don’t play games,” he growled, the patience he’d shown earlier entirely gone. He gestured sharply to his now unblemished leg. “That was no ordinary healing. No herbalist, no healer I’ve ever known, could do that.” Her gaze darted around the cabin, searching for anything to bridge the chasm of her muteness. Her eyes landed on a piece of charred wood near the hearth, a remnant of a past fire, and a small, smooth plank of pale birch, likely for kindling. An idea, wild and desperate, sparked within her. She pointed at the charcoal, then at the wood. Stellan, still rigid with suspicion, merely raised a dark brow. Grit, however, who had scurried to a shadowed corner, let out a curious, questioning squeak, tilting its mossy head. Liska snatched the charcoal and the wood, turning the plank over until its surface was clean and light. Her fingers, surprisingly steady despite her inner turmoil, began to move. First, she drew the delicate, six-petaled star-flower, its frost-patterned center unmistakable. Then, with swift, stark strokes, she sketched her family: her mother, her father, their faces etched with the gentle wisdom of those who tended the land. Next, the familiar, monstrous silhouettes of Chimeric Legionnaires, their forms distorted by fused beast-parts, their weapons unmistakable. Finally, a single, small silhouette fleeing into the night, her own wild hair streaming behind her. The last image was a crude but unmistakable depiction of a tear falling from her drawn cheek, landing on the ground. Stellan watched, his posture slowly softening from rigid anger to a terrible, dawning comprehension. His gaze lingered on the winterbloom symbol, then on the fleeing figure. “Winterbloom Herbalists,” he murmured, the harshness draining from his voice, replaced by grim realization. He looked at her, his eyes now holding a profound pity. “The massacre in the Vale of Murmurs. They said no one survived. You… you are the last.” Liska nodded, her eyes overflowing with unshed tears, the charcoal smudging under her thumb as she pressed it tighter. She was seen. He knew her roots. A fragile thread of hope, cold as mountain air and bright as morning frost, began to weave itself through her desolation. Stellan let out a slow, deliberate breath. “This Glade,” he began, his voice dropping low, “is shielded. My family, the Wardens of Vorya, wove its protections centuries ago. It’s why you survived the drone, why they won’t easily find you here. It’s a sanctuary. For those the Empire hunts.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over her small, trembling form. “But your tears… that magic is beyond anything I’ve ever known.” Grit, having crept closer during Liska’s frantic sketching, now began a series of agitated, high-pitched chirps and frantic arm-waving. It scurried towards a small, carved chest by the hearth, struggling to push open its heavy lid. Stellan, seeming to understand the golem’s urgency, knelt, opening the chest to reveal a stack of ancient, leather-bound tomes. Grit, with surprising strength, nudged one, thick and heavy, with a shimmering, iridescent cover, towards him. Stellan’s brow furrowed as he carefully opened the tome. Its pages, brittle and yellowed, were filled with intricate script and delicate illustrations. He ran a finger down a page, his eyes scanning. “The Sylvan Archives… tales of forgotten bloodlines, their gifts and burdens. Ah, here.” He pointed to a passage, then read aloud, his voice resonating softly in the quiet cabin. “’The Daughters of the Glacial Bloom, keepers of the Glade-Mother's Heart. Their sorrow, a balm. A tear shed in purest empathy, imbued with the life force of the weeping, shall mend all wounds, seal all ruptures, restore all that is broken. A Gift of Sorrow, bestowed by the eldest spirits of the Voryan Peaks.’” Liska gasped, a silent, tremulous sound. Her Gift. It wasn’t a curse. It was a power, a purpose. Relief, so profound it bordered on pain, washed over her. Tears, pure and bright, streamed down her cheeks, glinting like scattered diamonds in the firelight. One such tear, full of her overwhelming joy and the ache of sudden release, slipped from her chin and fell, splashing lightly onto Stellan’s hand, which still rested on the open page of the tome. Where the tear touched, a faint, starlit glow erupted, tracing a path up his forearm. Stellan cried out, a sharp, sudden gasp of pain. He clutched his chest, his face twisting. “My… my chest,” he choked out, his eyes wide with alarm. He doubled over, gasping, a hand pressed hard against his ribs. Outside the cabin, through the small, paned window by the writing desk, Liska watched in horror as the patch of luminescent star-blossoms, where her first tear had fallen, suddenly shimmered. Their delicate petals, once vibrant and glowing, began to curl, to blacken at the edges, and then, with a faint rasp, they crumbled into fine, grey dust, carried away by an unseen current of air. Stellan, still gasping, pushed himself upright, his gaze frantic as he stared at his hand where the tear had fallen, then back at the withering flowers. His eyes fell back to the tome. Grit, its small body quivering, pointed a mossy arm at the next page, its squeaks sharp with urgency. Stellan’s gaze dropped, his jaw tightening as he read the centuries-old script. “’Yet, such power demands its due. The Gift of Sorrow is a paradox, a life-for-life exchange. For every wound mended, for every life sustained, the Starlight consumes. A portion of the recipient’s own life force shall be offered in return, a slow, inexorable drain. The Curse of Starlight, a price exacted by the deepest magic, binding healer and healed in a dance of light and shadow, until one is extinguished by the other.’” Far beyond the Glade’s shifting magical borders, where the primeval trees began to thin into crags and barren rock, a lone hunter stood silhouetted against the bruised twilight sky. He wore the dark, armored uniform of the Chimeric Legion, but his face was obscured by a helm fashioned in the snarling visage of a great timberwolf. His every sense was attuned to the wild, his ears twitching, his nose flaring. His eyes, glowing faintly yellow in the dim light, narrowed, fixed on a spot deep within the tree line, a place no ordinary man could perceive. He took a deep, deliberate breath, the scent of crushed pine needles and damp earth filling his enhanced senses, then, overriding it all, a faint, impossible sweetness. He muttered in a low growl, “I smell starlight.”

A Price in Starlight