They stayed at the well until the sky began to blush.
The stars had started to fade, but Elowen couldn't take her eyes off them—not yet. Something in her chest pulled tighter the longer she stared upward. Not pain. Not fear. Something else.
Wonder.
It wasn't the kind that made you gasp.
It was the quiet kind.
The kind that wrapped itself around your heart and whispered, This is where she belongs.
Beside her, Amara sat cross-legged, her chin resting on her knees, the ends of her cloak damp with dew. Her eyes were glassy, reflecting the silver dust scattered across the sky.
"Did you know," Amara said suddenly, "that the stars used to whisper names to us?"
Elowen glanced at her, brow raised in gentle curiosity. "To you and your sister?"
Amara nodded slowly. "When we were little, she'd sneak out with me. We weren't supposed to, but she never cared about rules. We'd climb onto the greenhouse roof—our feet slipping over the glass tiles—and lie there like we owned the sky."
She smiled, but there was sadness in it.
"She swore she could hear the stars humming. She said they were ancient memory-keepers. That they sang names—names of people who loved deeply and were never forgotten."
Elowen tilted her head back and looked at the sky with new eyes. "And what name did they sing?"
Amara didn't answer right away.
Finally, she whispered, "Her name. Caelia."
Elowen let the name settle on her tongue. "It's beautiful."
"She was," Amara murmured. "And after she forgot me, I'd still go back. Lie there alone. Some nights… I think the stars changed their song. It wasn't her name anymore. It was mine. Like they were singing it back to me, trying to hold me together."
The quiet stretched.
Elowen reached out and gently took Amara's hand, lacing their fingers together.
"Do you think," she said softly, "they'll ever sing our names?"
Amara turned to her, warmth blooming slowly in her face. "They already are."
Elowen smiled faintly, her heart fluttering like a bird against a windowpane. She leaned back until her shoulders touched the earth, and Amara followed suit, their arms pressed together.
Above them, the stars hung like freckles on the night's skin.
"Let's listen," Elowen said. "Really listen."
And so they did.
They lay there without speaking, just breathing. Just being. Their hands remained linked, and the space between them became less of a gap and more of a bond.
The wind stirred gently, brushing their cheeks like a lullaby. The sky darkened just a little more before it began to bloom.
A single star flared bright in the west—just above the ridge of the trees.
"There," Amara said softly. "That one. That's hers."
Elowen followed her gaze. "How do you know?"
"Because when I see it, I don't feel alone."
The air was cold, but Elowen felt warm. Like something eternal had curled around her and decided to stay.
Amara turned onto her side, propping her head up with her hand.
"I want to give you a star too," she said.
Elowen blinked. "What?"
"I want something up there to say your name long after we're gone. Not because I lost you—but because I loved you."
The words hung between them like suspended firelight.
Elowen's breath caught. She didn't know what to say—not because she didn't feel the same, but because she felt too much.
"I've never been anyone's star," she whispered.
Amara reached up and brushed a curl from Elowen's forehead. "You're already mine."
The quiet broke gently. Not into noise, but into closeness. Elowen felt the words settle somewhere deep in her chest—beneath old doubts, beneath memories that once told her she wasn't enough.
She looked back up at the sky.
"I want the stars to remember me for staying," she said.
Amara's gaze softened. "They already do."
They lay in silence a while longer, until the stars began to fade one by one, washed out by the coming dawn. But it didn't matter. What they'd shared—what had opened between them—was not tied to what could be seen.
It had been felt. Named.
Carved into the sky in silence.
Amara rolled onto her back again, staring upward. "Want to hear something else about Caelia?"
Elowen nodded.
"She used to dance when she was alone. Not just spin in circles, but dance—like the wind was music. Like she was part of some secret ballet the rest of us didn't understand."
Elowen chuckled. "I like her already."
"She was the bravest person I knew. And the softest. She believed names had weight—she once told me that every time someone said your name with love, a star was born."
Elowen's smile widened. "Then the sky must be full of hers."
Amara's eyes shimmered, not with sadness, but with memory.
They both sat up, brushing the dew from their clothes. The world was waking now, and the birds had begun their morning chorus.
The star—the one Amara swore was Caelia—had vanished into the light.
But that didn't mean it was gone.
"I want to remember her," Elowen said.
"You already do," Amara whispered.
They stood, hands still linked.
And as they turned toward the path back to the garden, Elowen looked back one last time—at the sky, the well, the place where love had once been lost but now was slowly being found.