The wind was still humming red.
It brushed along the forest floor, dragging the memory of fire with it. Trees that once whispered softly in green now stood charred at the edges, their trunks bearing the scars of the magic that had burned too fiercely. Elara walked with bare feet through the ashes, the hem of her dress stained with soot and sorrow. Her hands were still trembling.
She hadn't seen her—not fully. Just a glimpse. A flicker of silver hair vanishing between the trees. The fire had bloomed from her own hands, out of fear, out of heartbreak, out of something she couldn't name. And then… she was gone. The girl with the pine-scented voice. The one Elara had loved like a secret too big for words.
Now the forest was quiet.
But Elara heard something.
She paused by a blackened pine, its needles singed to curls, and tilted her head. It was faint—like the rustle of memory or the echo of a lullaby carried through mist.
"Elara…"
Her breath caught. The voice.
She turned sharply, her gaze sweeping through the fogged woods. Her pulse quickened. "Lira?"
No answer. Just the hush of the pines and the brittle crack of burned twigs under her feet.
But that voice had been real.
She clutched the stone pendant around her neck—the one Lira had given her in Chapter 14, the night of the Blooming Bond. The one that glowed softest when she was near. Now it pulsed against her skin, a slow, warm rhythm.
Elara followed the feeling.
The deeper she went into the pines, the more the color returned. The char faded to mossy green. Birds started to murmur again, tentatively, like they were unsure if the storm had passed. A single patch of forget-me-nots trembled underfoot.
And there—by a twisted old tree whose trunk had split long ago—Elara found the clearing.
It wasn't large. Just enough for two to sit shoulder to shoulder. A hollow stump sat in the middle, filled with soft pine needles and tiny yellow mushrooms. The scent of sap was rich and thick, and above, the wind sang through the trees not in howls—but in hums.
She knelt slowly and whispered, "Lira, if you're here, if you can hear me… I didn't mean to hurt you."
A hush.
Then: "I know."
The voice was behind her.
Elara turned, heart leaping. And there she was.
Lira stood between the trees, not entirely solid—flickering at the edges like mist caught in sunlight. Her silver eyes glowed, and her voice wrapped around Elara like a winter shawl. "I'm here," she said again.
Tears sprang to Elara's eyes. "I thought I lost you. When the fire came—when I couldn't control—"
Lira stepped forward. "You didn't lose me. You called to me. And I came."
"But you're not—" Elara swallowed. "You're not… whole."
"I'm healing," Lira said softly. "When magic breaks, something old has to mend it. Sometimes that means waiting. Sometimes it means remembering."
Elara reached out, and her fingers passed through Lira's form—but the cold turned warm for just a second. Enough to feel her.
"I've missed you," Elara whispered.
"I know," Lira said. "I missed you, too."
They sat—Elara on the stump, Lira beside her in spirit-form, the air slightly warmer where she shimmered. The woods listened.
"I don't know who I am anymore," Elara confessed. "Not after what I did. After the lie I told. After I tried to stop loving you."
"You never stopped," Lira murmured. "Love doesn't vanish. It turns. It softens. It becomes pain sometimes. But it doesn't die."
Elara's hands folded into her lap. "You were always the brave one."
"No," Lira said. "I was just afraid in a different way. But I never stopped believing in the girl who followed fireflies."
Elara smiled faintly. "That girl burned the forest."
"That girl is learning," Lira said. "And she's still the reason I find my way back."
The pendant pulsed warmer. Elara touched it gently.
"I want to fix it," she said. "The trees. The magic. The pain. Us."
"You don't need to fix everything at once," Lira replied. "Start here. Start with listening."
Elara listened.
To the wind. To the pines. To the way her heart steadied in the presence of the girl she loved—even if that girl was part memory, part spirit, part magic unhealed.
Then Lira sang.
It was soft, like lullabies made of fog and pinecones and things that only forest girls would understand. A song with no words, only feelings. The melody rose and fell, threading through Elara's ribs and into the soil.
When it ended, Lira faded slightly.
"Elara," she said gently, "you'll have to let me go again. Just for a while."
"No," Elara whispered. "Please. Stay."
"I'm always staying," Lira said. "Even when you can't see me. Even when the magic turns red again."
Elara clutched her hands. "Then promise me you'll return. When the clearing grows again. When the forest remembers."
"I promise."
And with that, Lira vanished into the wind, leaving behind the scent of pine and the warmth of a memory gently mending.
Elara stayed in the clearing long after the sky darkened. She sang Lira's song again and again until the stars blinked awake above her. And the wind—no longer red, no longer furious—sang with her.