A Tale from Long Ago

As Selene's palms touched Lyra's arm, the same blinding flare of silvery-white light glowed from her palm.

Just like before, it felt cool and gentle, and yet a radiating warmth spread outward from the gash at the same time, seeping deep into her muscles and bones. In a matter of seconds, the jagged edge of sliced flesh knit itself back together without leaving even a faint trace of a scar.

Selene looked up into Lyra's eyes, her own filled with a deep, silent gratitude. "Thank you," she whispered softly, her voice barely audible over the night wind.

It was a thank you not just for the healing, but for the protection—for the fierce, bloody fight and the unspoken kindness that had brought Lyra across the mountains to save her.

The intimate quiet was suddenly shattered by a breathless voice behind them.

"It's true..." Shawn gasped, his eyes wide as saucers as he stared at Lyra's pristine, unblemished forearm. "You can heal. You... you really have power."

The sudden realization clicked in Shawn's mind. In a flash, he finally understood why Lyra had been so adamant about silencing the Valerian patrol and the deserter. Raising both hands in an immediate, solemn gesture of loyalty, he looked at his commander. "I swear on my life, Lyra... I won't tell a soul." He turned his gaze to Selene, his tone softening. "I promise you. No one will ever hear it from me."

Lyra let out a long, heavy sigh, her shoulders dropping slightly. She knew she could trust Shawn—that was precisely why she hadn't truly objected when he insisted on riding with her.

"I won't tell," Shawn repeated quietly. The lingering suspicion he had harbored since meeting Selene dissolved entirely, replaced by a profound sense of awe and quiet reverence. He stepped closer to the campfire's dying embers. "You have magic... real healing magic."

Then, his eyes lit with intense curiosity, he added, "My grandmother used to tell me a story when I was small. A tale from long ago, before the grand mages ever walked the realm. She spoke of people favored by the moon—endowed with an ancient light capable of mending even the most incurable wounds."

The statement caught both Lyra and Selene's immediate attention.

"Any wound?" Lyra asked softly.

Shawn nodded firmly. "A hundred years ago, there was a plague in a village out east, in the Kingdom of Estoria. People were dying of some unknown cause. Days passed, and folk grew so thin they looked like sticks and bone. Then one morning, they all woke up better. No one wanted to say how it happened, but one villager swore he'd seen people in white, moving through the sick-houses at night. He called them Moon Weavers."

Selene repeated the word in a breathless whisper, her heart giving a strange, resonant thud. "Moon Weavers."

For the first time since waking up in the dirt of a battlefield with no past, she knew what she was.

Shawn paused, letting the ancient title hang softly in the night air. "Unlike mages and witches—who walked openly among the courts, and guided kings—the Moon Weavers were rarely, if ever, seen. They were treated like ghosts. They left behind no tombs or monuments... only a handful of impossible stories about people who were mysteriously cured."

A tender flicker of hope ignited in Selene's green eyes. She reached for those words as if they were something tangible—a fragile anchor she could finally hold onto in the vast emptiness of her missing memories.

Lyra, ever the pragmatist, brushed the idea aside with a low murmur. "It's just a bedtime story, Shawn."

She turned and knelt beside the fallen Valerian scouts, her hands cold and professional as she moved from body to body, confirming what her instincts already told her. Even now, even here—the General in her didn't rest. A battlefield, however small, still needed to be accounted for before it could be left behind.

"Is it?" Shawn countered, his voice steady and unwavering. "Look at her, Lyra."

Lyra rose to her feet, taking a cloth to wipe a stray fleck of blood from her cheek. "My father would call it a myth. A dangerous one." Her tone was clipped and stern, yet a faint shadow of doubt lingered in her eyes.

Selene stepped toward her softly. "But Lyra... it sounds closer to what I am than anything else."

"We cannot know for certain without concrete proof," Lyra replied, turning her back to adjust her horse's saddle.

Yet, deep within herself, Lyra couldn't deny the evidence in front of her. Selene said she'd brought a dead soldier back to breathe; she had just felt her own severed flesh sew itself together in seconds. Beneath her hardened military logic, she believed.

Shawn looked at Selene with a gentle smile. "Well... I believe it."

"We're not staying here," Lyra commanded, her sharp tone softening just a fraction as she met Selene's gaze. "We need to get back on the trail before another Valerian patrol stumbles upon this clearing."

They rode back through the mountain pass in heavy, rhythmic silence. Shawn trailed behind at a respectful distance, keeping a watchful eye on their rear flank while leaving the two women to their thoughts.

The mountain air was freezing, but the silence between Lyra and Selene was heavier still—weighted with the immense truth that had just been dragged into the light.

Lyra kept her eyes fixed on the winding path ahead, her face an unreadable mask. Her mind, built like a fortress of tactical logic and cold military facts, was under siege. It was one thing to witness Selene's impossible abilities in secret; it was another entirely to give them a name rooted in ancient mythology. The hard-won victory against the patrol felt hollow, overshadowed by the realization of just how dangerous Selene's existence truly was.

Selene, however, felt as though she was breathing for the first time. The title Moon Weaver echoed softly in her thoughts like a forgotten melody. For the first time, she felt a faint glimmer of belonging—a sense of purpose beyond her empty past. Shawn's story had given a name to the warm light in her palms and a home to a soul she had feared was lost.

As the quiet stretch of road began to feel unbearable, Selene turned her head slightly toward Lyra.

"Moon Weaver," she whispered, the title feeling simultaneously foreign and deeply natural on her tongue. "Do you believe him?"

Lyra slowly turned her head. She didn't answer right away, her dark eyes searching Selene's face in the cool moonlight.

"I know that you healed me," Lyra murmured, her voice low, carrying just far enough over the crunch of gravel underfoot. "I know that you are... special."

For the first time, in the clear night air, Lyra noticed how Selene's eyes seemed to shine like brilliant emeralds, reflecting the moonlight with a soft, almost ethereal glow.

Selene's fingers instinctively reached out, brushing lightly against the spot on Lyra's forearm where the deep cut had been moments before. "Does that... change anything?"

Lyra looked back toward the dark horizon, the weight of her duty pressing down on her shoulders. Her answer was low, grave, and absolute.

"It changes everything."

She didn't need to elaborate. Selene understood. Lyra wasn't talking about their growing bond—she was talking about a world where ancient legends were real, and where holding one in your arms meant waging war against the entire continent.

The frantic rescue in the mountains was over, but a far more perilous journey had begun. Their destination was still the capital of Oakhart, but the nature of their march had forever transformed.