I had hoped we would act swiftly to free Halven. Instead, Isa and Professor Veyn insisted we return to the Council Chambers to train, citing our unpreparedness. But only after they had a few days to recover from their own magic use.

The chambers, once silent and cold, transformed during those days. The firelight mingled with the strain of our efforts, magic humming in the air as we learned to confront something none of us fully understood. It felt too full. It pressed in from every direction, crowded out the softer parts of myself that I was trying to hold together.

Veyn taught us Binding. Everything Shara and I had learned about Binding our magic to nature and more. While we both had the basics, everyone else was learning the spell for the first time.

Veyn spoke of it as a practice of anchoring our magic into nature itself. Not through force, but with shared intent. One element weaving with another. Nature responding not to power, but to harmony. A curious idea, considering all magic is born of the natural world. Still, I listened. I practiced. If this spell was the key to Halven’s salvation, I would master it.

Since we passed our midterms and new the theory and practice of Binding magic to nature, Shara and I often found ourselves teaching alongside Veyn. We could give a different perspective since we’d just learned the spell.

Every time I stood in front of that etched map on the floor, every time I demonstrated a Binding sequence, I felt like I was baring a part of myself that still didn’t quite believe it belonged.

Yet it helped. Teaching made the learning feel real.

Neir was also there. Always there. He didn’t sit. He leaned in the shadows, sometimes watching the others, but mostly… me. I could feel it even when I wasn’t looking.

Sometimes he offered insight in his careful way. But mostly he stood near when I taught, when I moved from student to student trying to show them what I had come to understand.

He never interrupted. Never directed. But I felt him the same way I felt the pull of the moon. Being near him did something strange to my magic, though. It steadied, like he was the fulcrum of my quiet. But it also quaked, like my body remembered his betrayal more vividly than my mind allowed.

Then I tried to shut Neir out of my mind and remember that all of this was for Halven.

I partnered with several students. Aster and I drew water up into the veins of a young tree. Lo and I balanced a sharp-edged rock on the lip of stone seat. I answered questions with as much certainty as I could fake.

And Neir watched, moving when I moved. His presence was like a second heartbeat in the room. I could feel it whether I looked at him or not. But I never gave him my attention or spoke to him, even if that felt like cutting off a piece of myself.

On the fifth night, I paused mid-demonstration when Ardorion spoke loudly from the far side of the chamber.

“It just doesn’t work,” he said. “Maybe fire doesn’t bind well with other elements because of where it comes from. Because of Ignis. The Fire God didn’t exactly get along with the others, considering his history. Maybe the other elements hold a grudge.”

I looked over, not because of what he said, but because he said it out loud. Ardorion didn’t usually admit struggle. And rarely in the language of the gods. But I think I understood his frustration, especially since we learned how badly Ignis had destroyed Sygilla, a beloved being to many.

Veyn didn’t flinch listening to Ardorion. He just nodded.

“Fire takes on the qualities of its master,” he said. “Like Ignis, fire consumes, transforms, and rages. But under the right conditions, it could also sustain.”

Then softer, folding his arms, “Start by finding where fire lives in nature without destroying it.”

Ardorion shifted then, his shoulders a little lower. Shara stepped toward him soon after, her voice gentle as she offered to help.

It was always that way with us. Each of us slowly opening, piece by piece. Binding not just our magic, but the broken parts of ourselves.

“We will not train tomorrow,” Veyn said on the ninth of Nonis, barely a week into our training. “Deveil’s Night is not a time for training. You are expected in the ceremonial field by twilight for the Mourning of the Mists. We walk through the mists so the wraiths pass us by on Deveil’s Night as we begin the Descent of the Veil.”

Deveil, the shortened form of the Descent of the Veil.

The words hushed the beating of my heart.

For the Moon Fae, Deveil’s Night was sacred. We did not just honor our dead. We kept their stories all year. But this one night we could see their faces and hear their voices again.

We spoke of them. We remembered them with reverence because so few of us remained. Every loss carved something deeper into our lineage. Every name passed down was a promise that the veil could reconnect us to our heritage before no one remembered it anymore.

I hoped the world would never forget us, even if we did disappear one day.

The next evening, the sky wore mourning.

Twilight draped itself in shades of slate and soft plum as we gathered in silence at the edge of the ceremonial field. Everyone wore the traditional gray veils, sheer enough to see the mist through, but opaque enough to shield us from anything that might look back.

Bare feet brushed cold grass. The air hung heavy with moisture, the scent of damp stone and ash clinging to our cloaks. Somewhere, a flute began to play. Slow. Melancholy. As if echoing a memory only half-remembered.

But it was remembered. A song Ashar, the God of Battle, had played. He was the catalyst for this celebration. His story, the love his parents had for him, created the day where the veil between the living and the dead thinned enough to allow passage.

I didn’t stand with the others on the ceremonial field. I waited until most had already entered the field, then stepped forward alone.

The mists were already rising, curling across the earth like a second skin. They moved strangely, never quite in step with the wind, and shimmered faintly under the light of the first stars.

We were told that on this night, the minor Fire God lovers, Brihiva and Acratius separated after descending into the eight hells, one remaining behind to take the place of their slain son, while the other crossed the veil with Ashar. A soul for a soul.

The story was passed down like scripture, wrapped in fire and sorrow. “The Descent of Brihiva and Acratius.” It was more than myth to the Moon Fae. It was permission to remember. To believe the past could still reach for us.

And tonight, I wanted to be reached.

As I walked deeper into the mist, the chill found my bones. The wind quieted. The world narrowed.

And then, through the thick veil of silver and silence, I saw them.

Figures emerged. Faint. Flickering. Moon Fae, like me. One brushed a hand along my shoulder and smiled. Another cupped their palms in prayer and whispered my name.

I knew none of them. But they knew me.

They celebrated me.

My chest ached.

They remembered, too. Even if our history faded, slipping through the cracks of time, the dead always remembered.

I closed my eyes, let the mist pass over my face, and whispered the names of those I did know. The few I had lost in my short life. When I opened my eyes again, the figures were gone. But the warmth remained.

Not around me. Within me.

I pressed a hand to my chest and took one more step forward into the mists, into the memory, into the promise that we would not been forgotten.

And I promised, quietly, that I would not forget them either.