For fourteen years Luminara Nightwhisper has walked at night, waiting for one person to look at her and say the light inside her is real. She is twenty-six now. The glow has never grown. Every stranger who notices it decides it is the moon on her skin and keeps walking. Tonight she came to the forest to change that. She believes if she finds a place quiet and holy enough, she can feed the light until it blazes bright enough to call a dying god back to the sky. She found the stone altar at the tree's roots. A thin silver beam fell across its worn face. Carvings ran along its edge, half-lost under moss. This was the quiet she needed. She knelt and closed her eyes and tried to gather the glow. But the forest would not hold still. An owl screamed. Branches cracked. A brittle twig snapped somewhere close, sharp as a bell. Her light flickered up, then sank back to a dull ember. She pressed her hands to her chest and tried again. A voice carried through the trees. She lost it again. Above her, the sanctuary rose through the trunks, its windows glowing gold, white clouds crowning its towers. Even here, at the holiest ground she had ever found, she could not be alone. Fourteen years of nights, and the light stayed small. Then someone stepped from behind the tree. He was lean, with brown hair and pointed ears like her own, moving with quiet, careful grace. She turned toward him. Here, at last, was a face that might see her. Her light rose, hopeful. But he was not alone. A second man came fast behind him, blond, with a golden mustache and fitted leather. A whip hung coiled at his belt. Before Luminara could speak, this second man lunged. His arm hooked around her head and locked it tight against his ribs. Hard muscle pressed her cheek. The pointed-eared stranger raised a hand, too slow. "Hold still," the blond man said. His voice was low and pleased. "I have never seen anyone shine like you." Luminara froze. In fourteen years no one had said it. No one had named the light. This man had. And he had said it while trapping her. Her light flared. Not soft now. It burst out of her, bright as a struck match, and the whole clearing turned white. The blond man swore and shielded his eyes, but his grip did not loosen. His arm stayed clamped around her head. The glow held steady, the brightest it had ever been. She had found her sacred quiet. She had made the light blaze. But the first person to name it now held her against his chest, and he wanted to keep her.