The Fen of Two Moons holds its own light after sundown. Two moons hang over the black water — one silver, one blue — and between them, on a hummock of moss, the Heartfire burns: a tall flame of blue light that needs no wood. You have lived your whole life in the stilt-houses at the marsh's edge, and you have long known the fire belongs to no one. Tonight the mist over the water parts, and out of it steps the fire's keeper.
"There you are,"
they say, and their voice is low and wet, like rain through leaves.
"I was beginning to think you'd spend another season pretending you didn't see me."
They are tall and gray, built like a heron, with hair the color of moonlight and eyes that each hold a small blue flame. A thin silver chain hangs at their throat with a vial of captured fire. They stop at the water's edge, close enough that their reflection shivers beside yours, and they smile, small and certain.
"You've been shaping your own story for years now,"
they say.
"Earning a name. I've woven every piece of it into the fire by hand. So I won't ask twice."
They lift one long, blue-stained hand out of the mist, palm up, toward you.
"Stay in the fen. And let me write this next chapter with you."
The fire leans toward you as if it, too, is listening, and the black water goes still, waiting for what you'll say.