The Indifferent Stars Above
They walked until the light faded.
The terrain had grown increasingly steep throughout the day, the rocky slopes giving way to true mountain paths that wound between the towering green oaks.
The air was thinner here and carried the crisp, clean scent of leaves and snowmelt.
Somewhere above them, hidden by the dense canopy, the peaks of the High Greenwood rose toward the sky.
Rion had not spoken since their brief rest that morning.
He moved like a man in a dream, putting one foot in front of the other with lifeless precision, his eyes fixed on some far-off distance that only he could see.
Twice, he stumbled and caught himself on Noctis before Lark could reach him.
Each time, he straightened and kept walking without acknowledging what had happened.
She watched him, distressed, but said nothing. There was nothing to say that would help.
By the time Lark called a halt, the shadows had grown long, and the temperature had dropped.
They had found a small clearing beside a stream, sheltered on three sides by rock formations that would block the wind and hide the light of a fire from anyone watching from below.
It was as good a campsite as they were likely to find.
Darian began unpacking the tents while Pippa gathered stones for a fire ring. Lark helped Rion to a fallen log near the edge of the clearing and pressed a waterskin into his hands.
He took the waterskin but did not drink, just held it loosely in his lap as though he had forgotten what it was for until Lark reached out and guided it toward his mouth. He drank then, small automatic swallows that required no thought.
“I can help,” he said when he had finished. His voice was rough from disuse and fatigue. “With the fire. I can …”
He raised one hand, palm up, in the gesture Lark had seen him make a hundred times before. The gesture that had always summoned fire from nothing, that had warmed her on wintry nights, lit their way through dark forests and reminded her that magic could be gentle as well as deadly.
Nothing happened.
Rion stared at his empty palm. His brow furrowed with effort as he tried again. Still nothing. No spark, no flicker, no flame. Just a hand held out to empty air.
“I can’t,” he said. The words came out flat and strange. “I can’t reach it. The aetheria. It’s there, I can feel it, but when I try to …” He closed his hand slowly into a fist. “It’s like grasping at smoke.”
Lark didn't know what to say. She had never heard of a witch losing their connection to aetheria, had not even known it was possible.
The magic was part of them, woven into the fabric of their being.
To lose it would be like losing a limb. Worse, perhaps.
A limb could be compensated for. Magic was something else entirely.
“It'll come back,” she said, because she had to say something. “Once you’ve rested. Once you’ve healed.”
Rion didn't respond. He lowered his hand to his lap and stared at it as though it belonged to someone else.
Darian appeared beside them, having finished with the tents. He took in the scene with a single glance, reading the despair in Rion’s posture and the helplessness in Lark’s expression.
“I’ll build the fire,” he said quietly. “Rest, Rion.”
He moved away to gather kindling, and Lark was grateful for his presence, for the way he offered help without making it feel like charity. Rion needed that right now. They all did.
The fire was burning steadily by the time full dark settled over the clearing.
They ate a simple meal of travel rations, huddled around the flames while the mountain cold pressed in from all sides.
Rion ate what was put in front of him but did not seem to taste it, chewing and swallowing with the same detachment he had shown all day.
When the meal was finished, Lark retrieved the medical supplies from her pack. She had been putting this off, dreading the conversation she knew she needed to have, but it could not wait any longer. The bandages on Rion’s face were dirty and stained, and infection was a genuine danger.
She moved to sit beside him on the log, keeping her movements slow and cautious.
“I need to change your bandages,” she said quietly. “The wound needs to be cleaned.”
Rion went rigid. His whole body tensed, his shoulders drawing up toward his ears, his hands clenching in his lap. He did not look at her.
“No,” he said.
“Rion …”
“I said no.” The words came out with more of an edge than anything he had said since they found him. “Don’t touch me. Please. Just … don’t.”
Lark pulled back, stung despite herself.
She understood. Or tried to. Whatever had been done to him in that cell, it had left marks that went deeper than the visible wounds.
Being touched, being examined, being vulnerable to another person’s hands, all of it would carry echoes of what he had endured.
She shouldn’t take his refusal personally.
But it was hard not to. It was hard to sit beside him and feel the distance between them like a physical wall, to remember how he had leaned into her touch once and compare it to the way he flinched from it now.
“The bandages need to be changed,” she said again, keeping her voice gentle. “If an infection sets in …” She stopped, unsure how to finish the sentence.
Rion was silent, considering. The fire crackled before them, sending sparks spiraling up into the darkness. Pippa and Darian had retreated to the other side of the clearing, giving them privacy, though Lark could feel their worried attention from across the flames.
“I know,” Rion said finally. His voice had lost its sting, replaced by resignation, which was worse. “I know it needs to be done. I just …” He stopped. Started again. “They touched me. All the time. Whenever they wanted to. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t do anything.”
His hand drifted up toward the bandaged side of his face, then fell back to his lap.
“Tell me what you need,” Lark said. “Tell me how to make this easier.”
He considered the question with the same serious attention he had always given to problems that were important. Even diminished, even broken, he was still Rion beneath it all, the man who thought carefully about things before he spoke.
“Tell me before you touch me,” he said at last. “Every time. Tell me what you’re going to do before you do it. And if I ask you to stop …”
“I’ll stop. Immediately. No questions.”
He nodded slowly. Then he turned to face her, and she saw the effort it took, the way he had to force his body to comply with what his mind had decided.
“All right,” he said. “Do it.”
Lark gathered her supplies and knelt in front of him, positioning herself so he could see her hands. The fire cast shadows across his face, illuminating the stained bandages, the hollow beneath his visible eye, and the lines of pain and exhaustion etched into his features.
“I’m going to touch your face now,” she said. “Just the edge of the bandage. I need to find where it’s secured.”
She watched him brace himself, saw the way his hands gripped his knees until the knuckles went white. Then she reached up and let her fingers brush against the edge of the cloth.
He flinched but did not pull away.
“I’m going to unwrap it now,” she said. “Slowly. Tell me if you need me to stop.”
She worked carefully, peeling back the layers of dirty cloth one at a time. The bandage had been applied hastily, without skill, and it stuck in places where blood had dried against the fabric. Each time she encountered resistance, she paused and warned him before pulling it free.
The last layer came away, and Lark saw what lay beneath.
The wound was raw and angry, a ragged hollow where his left eye had been.
The flesh around it was swollen and inflamed, seeping fluid that had soaked into the bandages and crusted along the edges.
Someone had cauterized the socket to stop the bleeding, leaving scar tissue that was still pink and new.
The damage extended from just below his eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone, a permanent ruin carved into the face she had grown to know so well.
Lark’s hands began to shake.
She had seen injuries before. She had inflicted injuries before, worse ones than this, in her years with the Order of Blight, and had learned to look at damage with detachment, to assess and move on without letting emotion cloud her judgment.
But this was Rion. This was the face she had memorized without meaning to, noting every detail: his laugh lines, the spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and his eyes in that particular shade of green that had no name she knew.
That face was gone now, taken from him by people who wanted to hurt her.
She must have made some sound, because Rion reached up and caught her wrist. His grip was gentle but firm.
“Lark,” he said. “I need you to finish.”
She blinked and realized her vision had blurred with tears. She took a deep breath, then another, and forced the shaking in her hands to still.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to clean the wound now. It will hurt.”
“I know.”
She cleaned it as gently as she could, using water from the stream and a clean cloth to wipe away the dried blood and accumulated grime. Rion sat perfectly still throughout, his jaw clenched, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. He did not cry out, though she could see how much he wanted to.
When the wound was clean, she applied a healing salve from her kit and covered it with fresh bandages, wrapping them carefully around his head and securing them so they would not slip.
The work took longer than it should have because her hands just would not stop trembling, but eventually it was done.
“Finished,” she said, sitting back on her heels.
Rion let out a breath. “Thank you,” he said quietly.