Before following Lyra Terran, Zaric never imagined that "home" would look like this.
The hut squatted at the edge of a scrubby field, its walls a patchwork of sun-baked mud and stone, the roof a quilt of reeds tied with twine. Inside: two narrow beds, a wobbling table, a pair of stools, a clay stove, and little else. Wind slipped through the seams and set the hanging bundles of dried weeds whispering.
Lyra piggybacked him through the doorway and set him gently on a bed. He'd tried to walk; his legs had trembled like wet branches. The miles from the ridge had wrung him dry.
"Zac, you must be starving," Lyra said, brushing damp hair from his brow. She smiled—tired, bright, unbreakable—and propped a thin pillow behind him.
He watched her lift a nearly empty grain sack and coax a stingy handful into the pot. When the porridge came, it was thin enough to reflect the rafters. Two wild fruits and a bowl of boiled greens completed the feast.
Hunger clawed at him. He shoveled two mouthfuls, then stopped. The greens were bitter. The porridge calmed his stomach only long enough to remind him how empty it was.
Lyra hadn't touched a bite.
"Why aren't you eating?" Zaric asked.
"I ate before I found you," she said too quickly, eyes sliding away.
He turned toward the grain sack in the corner. Empty. The porridge was thicker than it should have been—she'd stretched everything for him.
Zaric pushed the bowl toward her. "I'm full. You have some."
Lyra's fingers hovered over the rim, then withdrew. "Tomorrow is allotment day," she said, cheeks coloring. "They'll give us a strip of meat. I'll cook it for you."
He said nothing. The image of the rider on the field returned to him: a man calm as a cliff, seated on a beast like a moving hill, aura heavy as stone. In a world where such people existed, his sister was trading hand-fletched arrows for grain.
When Lyra went to tend the stove, Zaric's palm drifted to his chest. Coolness pulsed there like a slow, steady heartbeat.
He drew out the stone: the yellow amethyst.
Its surface was flawless, warm gold under the lamplight. As he watched, tiny yellow dots—no bigger than sparks—seemed to gather from the dim corners of the room, drifting like fireflies toward the gem. They touched, sank, and vanished. With each mote, the amethyst brightened a hair's breadth and a whisper of chill slid from his palm up his forearm, washing fatigue from his bones.
This was the same coolness that had kept him digging under the ridge, the breath of strength that kept returning when his lungs had burned and his muscles had failed.
You're feeding me, he thought, pulse quickening. And something is feeding you.
He pinched the wick low and peered closer. The motes formed a faint stream angled toward the shutter slats—toward the slice of night sky beyond.
Starlight?
He needed to know. When Lyra stepped into the yard to fetch water, he eased to the stove, raked out a few coals, and nursed a handful of dry grass into flame. The lamplight fluttered; the little fire danced.
He held the yellow amethyst above the blaze. Nothing changed. He lowered it into the coals. The heat licked his skin; the stone remained cool. He waited until the grass burned to ash. Still nothing—no brighter glow, no greedy tug at the fire's warmth.
Zaric let the embers die and breathed out, half-laughing. "Not fire, then."
He slid the amethyst back against his chest, eased the door open, and stepped into the small yard.
Moonlight washed the packed earth silver. Crickets rasped. At the base of a crooked tree, a girl in green sat with her knees drawn up, polishing arrowheads. The metal caught the moon and scattered it across her cheeks like frost.
"Lyra?" he whispered.
She looked up and rose at once. "Zac, it's damp. Your fever only just broke—back to bed."
Zaric's gaze fell to the neat stack of arrows beside her boot. "Why so many?"
"For tomorrow's exchange," she said, matter-of-fact. "Points for grain. Same as always." Her eyes softened. "We'll be fine."
The bow leaned against the tree was old and carefully mended. Zaric remembered her steady steps, the strength in her arms when she carried him, and felt a knot form in his throat.
Back inside, Lyra saw him settled and doused the lamp. Moonlight took its place, cool and pale. He lay awake listening to the frogs in the ditch and the slow creak of cooling timbers, the yellow amethyst rolling in his palm, smoothing the jagged edge of hunger.
If I were to become an expert… The thought came unbidden, solid as stone. I wouldn't starve. I could keep her safe.
He pictured the rider again—the way the world seemed to bend around that man, as if weight itself obeyed him. The gap between that life and this bed felt like the height of a mountain.
The amethyst pulsed.
Zaric sat up, heart thudding. The yellow dots thickened, drifting through the window in a thread of light so faint he might have missed it if not for the way his skin prickled when they touched the gem. The stone brightened—barely, but undeniably. Another cool wave slid through him, chased by a clarity that lifted the fog from his thoughts.
He grinned in the dark. "You do drink starlight."
A floorboard creaked. Lyra's quiet voice came from the next room. "Zac?"
"I'm fine," he said quickly, slipping the gem under his shirt. He hesitated, then added, "Sis… I—some things are… different. I can't remember everything."
Silence. Then her bare feet crossed the floor. She stood in the doorway, a shadow against the paler dark. "You hit your head when you fell," she said softly. "You were gone for days. When you woke… it's a blessing. If you can't remember some things, it's all right."
He swallowed. The excuse he'd prepared felt brittle and cheap in the face of her relief.
"Tell me about this place," he said. "About the man on the beast. About… the people who can do that."
Lyra leaned against the frame. "They're from the Stone Court—the city to the south. Their riders keep the roads and take the best from the villages. We give what they ask and keep our heads down." A bitter note crept in and vanished. "There are sects, too. They don't come here. We have nothing they want."
"And becoming… like them?"
Her laugh was small. "We're Terrans, Zac. Earth-blooded. Stubborn, hard to break. Not fast. Not flashy. No one picks us."
Zaric pressed a hand flat to the mattress, feeling the grain of the wood through thin cloth, the packed earth beneath. The hut, the field, the whole weight of the land—it all pressed back. The sensation was faint, but it was there.
Weight. Stillness. Compression. Resonance.
Four words surfaced in his mind like carved marks on old stone. They felt true.
Lyra straightened. "Sleep. Tomorrow we go to the square for rations. Don't wander. And if you feel faint, call me." She hesitated. "I'm… glad you're back, Zac."
"Me too," he said, and meant it.
She withdrew. Moonlight returned.
Zaric lay with the yellow amethyst cupped in both hands, watching the yellow dots thread the room toward him, one by one, patient as dew. Strength gathered in him by measures too small to see.
If he could learn what this stone was—why it fed him, how it drank the night—then maybe the mountain between him and that rider was not so high after all.
Maybe a boy from a mud hut could climb.
He closed his fingers around the gem. It answered with a steady, quiet pulse—like the heartbeat of the earth.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to the rafters. "We start."