The village seldom knew excitement beyond the change of seasons. But once a year, when summer gave way to autumn, the people held the Festival of Lanterns.
It was not a grand affair—no parades, no bards with lutes, no markets sprawling with exotic wares. The village was too small for that. Instead, the festival was a humble gathering, a way to honor the harvest, to thank the sky for sun and rain, and to send lanterns into the night, carrying silent wishes.
For Ayra, it was the first real festival she had ever attended—both in this life and the one before.
The days leading up to the festival were filled with bustle. Men and women repaired the wooden frames of lanterns stored away from the previous year, while children were tasked with painting them anew. Some bore simple flowers, others stars, others still crude drawings of animals.
Ayra's mother handed her a brush and a lantern of her own. "Here, love. Paint whatever your heart desires."
Ayra stared at the pale paper stretched across its frame. Her fingers curled around the brush, but for a long while she did not paint.
She remembered the sterile hospital rooms of her past life—white walls, white sheets, the faint hum of machines. There had been no festivals there, no lanterns glowing like captured stars. Only silence, and waiting.
Slowly, she dipped her brush into the ink. Her strokes were careful, almost reverent. She painted a night sky—black background, with dots of silver stars scattered unevenly across it. In the center, she painted a single, pale-blue streak, like a falling star cutting across the heavens.
Her mother leaned over her shoulder. "That's beautiful," she whispered, pressing a kiss to Ayra's hair.
Ayra said nothing. But as she stared at the lantern, a strange ache stirred in her chest. It looked like longing made visible.
When evening came, the village gathered in the square. Torches were lit, tables were laid with bread, roasted meats, and fruit from the harvest. Music drifted from a pair of fiddlers, clumsy but cheerful, and children darted between the adults with shrill laughter.
Ayra stayed close to her mother at first, clutching her lantern, her wide blue eyes absorbing every detail. The smell of roasted apples, the sound of clapping hands keeping time with the fiddles, the glow of firelight painting familiar faces gold.
It was overwhelming and beautiful all at once.
"Go on," her mother urged gently. "Play with the others."
Ayra hesitated, then nodded. She walked slowly toward the cluster of children near the fountain. Mira spotted her first, waving eagerly.
"You made one too!" Mira said, pointing at Ayra's lantern.
Ayra held it up shyly. The other children crowded closer, some admiring, some shrugging indifferently. Loran, of course, smirked. "Stars? That's boring."
Ayra didn't answer. She had learned by now that silence was often sharper than any retort.
As night deepened, the fiddles ceased. The villagers gathered at the edge of the square where a long trough of water had been set. Each person placed their lantern inside, and as the priest lit the first one with a taper, flames caught slowly, spreading lantern by lantern.
The square filled with a soft glow, the lanterns trembling like stars reborn on earth.
Then, with careful hands, the villagers lifted them skyward. A hundred small flames rose into the night, their light swaying in the cool breeze. Children gasped and pointed, adults whispered prayers, and the air itself seemed to hush.
Ayra watched her lantern rise, the falling star she had painted glowing faintly. Something in her chest tightened—a longing so deep it almost hurt.
It wasn't just beautiful. It was familiar.
As the lanterns drifted higher, Ayra's gaze locked on her own. She could swear, just for a heartbeat, that the painted star glimmered—not from the flame, not from the paper, but as though something within had answered her longing.
Her breath caught.
The world hushed around her, fading into a muffled silence. She felt her skin prickle, her hair stir as though a breeze touched her alone. Her heartbeat slowed, then quickened, then slowed again.
And then, just as suddenly, it was gone.
The laughter of children rushed back, the fiddlers struck another tune, and her mother was beside her again, smiling gently.
"Ayra?" her mother asked. "You looked far away."
Ayra shook her head quickly. "I'm fine."
But she wasn't. Something had brushed against her soul—something she could not name.
Later, when the feast had dwindled and many of the children dozed in their mothers' laps, the village gathered around the storyteller.
He was an old man with a crooked back and a voice like gravel, but every year he spoke tales passed down through generations—of wandering heroes, of storms that walked like men, of the first fire stolen from the heavens.
Ayra sat cross-legged among the children, listening intently.
That night, the story was of the Star-Blessed, wanderers said to be chosen by the heavens. They bore eyes like fragments of the night sky and were destined to walk paths unseen by others.
The children gasped and whispered, their faces lit by the flickering fire. Ayra, however, grew very still.
She had not spoken of it to anyone, but sometimes—just sometimes—her reflection in water seemed too bright, her eyes catching light they should not.
Star-Blessed…
She shook the thought away. It was only a story.
And yet, she could not forget the way her lantern had seemed to shimmer in the sky, nor the strange weight in her chest when she saw it.
The festival ended with weary joy. Lanterns had long vanished into the heavens, food had been eaten, songs had been sung. The villagers dispersed slowly, carrying children half-asleep, laughing softly to one another.
Ayra walked beside her mother, her bare feet brushing against the cool earth. The village felt different now—warmer, more alive, filled with a thousand small lights that would never be seen again.
But inside her, something lingered. A whisper. A question.
She did not know it yet, but tonight had marked the first faint stirring of a path far beyond lanterns and laughter.
A path that, in time, would demand everything she had.