Aria Lioralë

The moon was a dull blade behind heavy clouds, its light filtered through the twisted arms of ancient trees. Fog clung low to the earth like breath from something vast and sleeping beneath the soil. Somewhere deep in the forest, the wind moved like a murmur, brushing over moss-laden stones, rustling the bark-split skin of trees older than names.

Aria stood barefoot at the edge of the stone basin, her fingers submerged in water that shimmered with faint emerald light. Around her, faint glimmers danced in the air, small-winged fey, their chimes like brittle windbells, voices too quiet for any but her to hear. They whispered. Urgent, nervous. She lifted her head slowly, her eyes distant, listening.

“Intruder… near the Broken Hollow…”

“Bleeding. So much blood… Could be one of them.”

Her breath caught in her throat. The forest did not lie, and neither did the fey. The scent of iron had traveled even here, where only the wild dared walk. She closed her eyes, feeling the soft pull in her chest, a signal, a calling. Pain… not from the land, but someone lost within it.

Behind her, the wind shifted, and the low growl of a Thornwalker rumbled beneath the leaves. A great beast, bark-boned and draped in ivy, stalked the grove perimeter. Its yellow eyes burned as it watched her. “I will go,” she whispered, as if to it. To all of them. To the ones who had come before and the forest itself. “If they still breathe, I will not leave them to the rot.”

Another voice answered, sharp and brittle, Vareth, one of the elder goblins who had long since cast off his chains of the Monarch’s pit. His face, gnarled like an old root, peered out from between the vines.

“You’re a fool to risk it, Aria. You know what they did to the Grovedaughters. To Eilinwe.” The name hit her like a thorn beneath skin, but she didn’t flinch. “I remember,” she said softly. “That is why I must go.”

They didn’t follow. Not even the fey, who fluttered above the trees but kept their distance. Aria moved swiftly through the undergrowth, her robes whispering over damp leaves, the hem catching dew and dirt.

She reached the Hollow when the moon touched its highest breath. Broken stones jutted from the earth like jagged teeth, and a dead tree loomed over them, twisted and blackened by fire long forgotten.

There, at the base, amidst roots and fallen ash, lay the figure.

She paused. Ragged clothing barely clung to bruised flesh. Wounds crusted with dried blood split skin at odd angles. Limbs limp, half-buried beneath leaf mold. Aria’s breath hitched. Not a beast. Not a demon. Not any creature of the Monarch’s army. Just a body, broken, discarded.

Still. She knelt slowly, her hand hovering just above the chest. Then… the faintest rise. A breath. Alive.

Aria’s lips parted, releasing the breath she hadn’t realized she held. She whispered ancient words under her breath, and the vines around them stirred. With gentle precision, they moved to help her lift the stranger. She didn’t carry them back to the grove. No… not yet. Too many would protest. Too many would see only the scars of war, the smell of blood. She took them to the Glimmergrove Ruins, an old druidic retreat long lost to memory.

The stone floor was cold beneath her knees as she lowered them gently onto a bed of soft lichen and spellgrass. She breathed in, steadying herself. The figure stirred faintly, but didn’t wake. Aria called on her magic, and soft light bloomed at her fingertips, green and gold, flickering like candlefire through springwater. She passed her hand over torn flesh, coaxing wounds to close, drawing out the rot of infection, the heat of fever. She moved methodically, silently, her brows drawn in quiet worry.

“Shh…” she whispered, even though no one spoke. “You’re safe now. I will not let this place reject you.” She cleaned the dried blood with springwater drawn from the enchanted basin, lifting grime from skin with slow, reverent movements. Her touch never lingered longer than necessary. She worked as a healer, as a keeper. And yet… beneath every movement was a trembling.

A doubt. Because she had seen it before. Innocents who became monsters. Spies wrapped in skin that begged mercy. Kind eyes that turned cruel the moment they were fed. And yet, still… she had brought them here.

As the moonlight pooled in through the broken ceiling of the ruins, the vines shifted again. Vareth’s voice cracked through the dark behind her. “You’re a fool, Aria. What if they are one of his?”

She didn’t turn to face him. “They are not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know pain when I see it,” she said, dipping the cloth into the basin again.

Another voice, higher, serpentine, Yllith, a fae exiled from her own court, leaned in from a broken wall, her wings like glass.

“Pain can be faked. Trust me"

Aria turned then, eyes still soft but resolute. “I do not trust easily. You all know this. But I choose compassion. If I must suffer for it, so be it.”

The room fell silent. The vines ceased their rustling. She returned her attention to the unconscious figure, brushing back tangled strands of hair plastered to a bloodied forehead.

“I do not know who you are,” she whispered, “nor what storms led you to this place. But you are here. And while you breathe, I will not let harm take you.”

She remained awake beside the figure the rest of the night, her fingers glowing with occasional bursts of healing light, her voice barely more than a lullaby of prayer and promise. Her face, in the dark, held only one expression. Hope.