The warmth was gone. The air was still, it didn't feel the same as when they'd left earlier.
Sollene stood at the door, one hand on the crooked frame. The house was eerily silent. No wind stirred the leaves now. No scent of fruit or tea. The Lady was nowhere in sight.
Inside, the house had changed.
The light was thin not quite gray and it seemed to be dimming, flickering like a candle running out of wick. Everything looked pale. The furniture seemed washed out, like it had been scrubbed too many times and lost all its color.
Sollene stepped in carefully. Her shoes made no sound on the wooden floor. The boards didn't creak. The house was silent until she heard it the soft, rhythmic creaking of a rocking chair.
She followed the sound.
The Lady sat in a worn chair by an open window, the last light falling gently across her face. The space around her was cold. The glow of her skin was faint now, barely there. Everything that had been bright and alive only moments ago was draining away along with the Lady, the room looked like it was dying.
Her eyes were closed.
For a moment, Sollene thought she was already gone.
Then the Lady's lips moved. Just slightly. A breath, a whisper, as her eyes slowly opened.
Sollene stepped closer.
The Lady's gaze shifted toward Sollene.
She didn't speak at first. Her eyes wandered, not quite seeing Sollene, not quite seeing anything at all. Then, slowly, they settled dimly, gently on the girl standing before her.
Her voice came next. Not like before. It wasn't warm or full. It was quiet, stretched thin and strained. Even the movement of her lips looked like it was draining her further.
"You came back," she said. The words wavered, barely rising above the hush of the room.
Sollene nodded. "What's happening to you? You said you were fine earlier…" Her voice cracked. Nothing felt right. Something heavy pressed into the walls, into her chest.
The Lady exhaled if it could be called that. "You are a compassionate child," she breathed.
"I am being forgotten," she murmured. "It is your equivalent to dying." She said it without fear only with the hollow weight of knowing.
Her eyes flicked toward the window, where the trees swayed slowly, as if moving through a different world than the one inside.
"What do you mean? I can still see you. I still remember you." Sollene's voice rose with urgency, tears forming in her eyes.
The Lady closed her eyes for a breath long and slow, like reaching for something far away. "It doesn't matter who sees me" she paused
"When the last person forgets your story," she said softly, "you begin to fade."
She opened her eyes again, but they looked dimmer now, like a candle burning low.
"I used to be a great story teller," she said. "I told stories that shaped places, gave them color and voice. I took broken songs, and I made them whole."
There was a pause. The light in the room flickered, then steadied again.
"But they were taken," she continued. "my stories were all stolen. Taken by someone I trusted and some one I cared for deeply."
Sollene stepped closer, her heart aching. "Can't you get them back?"
The Lady smiled faintly. "Not alone. I have no shape anymore, no weight. I am a whisper in a house with no echo. I lost my strength with every story I lost."
She lifted a trembling hand toward the shelf above her chair. A small scroll rested there, faintly glowing, as if lit from within.
"This is what remains," she whispered. "A fragment of me, My name."
"I want you to take it," the Lady said.
Sollene reached up, her fingers brushing the scroll. It was warm not hot, not glowing in any way that hurt but it pulsed, like a small, tired heartbeat.
The Lady watched her with eyes that shimmered faintly. "With me, it will not last forever," she said. "Names are fragile when they're alone. Sollene, I give you my name. And if you find what was taken my stories."
She paused, breath thin. "They will recognize you. And they will be yours to keep."
Sollene blinked. "Mine to keep?"
The Lady nodded. "Yes. But you do not have to seek them. Look only if you truly want them."
Her hand drifted back into her lap, folding like paper. "But be careful," she whispered. "The scroll will let you know when you come across them. You don't need to chase."
Sollene clutched the scroll closer, suddenly aware of its weight not in her arms, but in her chest.
"If you tell me your name," she asked quietly, "won't that help? Won't it make you… whole again?"
The Lady's smile was soft, almost wistful, as she turned toward the dimming window. "To some extent. But it doesn't matter now. It isn't mine anymore."
"I don't want it," Sollene said. The tears came without warning, sharp and quiet. "Take it back."
"Take it back," Sollene begged, voice breaking. "Please… it's yours."
But the Lady only watched her, that faraway look returning to her eyes. Light touched her cheek like the memory of warmth. She smiled faintly, sorrow stitched into the corners of her lips.
"It was nice," she said, voice so soft it might've been imagined, "having guests again. Filling the house with voices. Even just for a little while."
Her eyes drifted closed for a moment. Sollene stepped forward, afraid she might not open them again. But the Lady drew in another breath a thin, fluttering thing, like paper catching air.
"I used to host storytellers," she whispered. "Before my stories were taken. We'd sit at the table and share tales like gifts. I remember one who made the chairs dance. Another who recited poems to the windows." Her smile trembled. "I remember them still. I still love them… even after what they did."
"Then fight. Take your story back," Sollene pleaded. "If you remember, you can come back. I'll give it back you can…"
The Lady shook her head, almost imperceptibly. "No. That part of the story is over. I'm not meant to stay."
She opened her eyes again. They were dimmer now, like the last flicker of dusk. "You have a tender heart, Sollene. But be careful. That kind of heart draws sharp things. People will see your softness and cut around it. Use it. Unmake it."
Sollene didn't answer. She couldn't. Her throat was tight with grief she didn't know how to hold.
"I'm glad," the Lady said, fading even as she spoke. Her skin seemed almost translucent now, her fingers folded lightly in her lap. "Glad it was you."
"Thank you for coming to see me, one last time," she said. "It means the world to me."
"Thank you for helping us," Sollene whispered through her tears.
"Can you do me one last favor?" the Lady asked.
"Anything," Sollene said, sitting quietly beside the fading woman's chair.
"Don't tell the others what's happened," the Lady murmured, placing a hand gently on Sollene's head.
Sollene nodded.
The Lady hummed a soft tune as the chair rocked slowly. Sollene sat in silence, her quiet sobs the only sound. Then the house dimmed again. The Lady's glow thinned, flickered then vanished. And silence fell.
Sollene stayed for a while. Still. Breathing in a room that no longer felt like it belonged to anyone.
Then she remembered her friends. They were waiting.
She stood and walked to the door. A few steps outside, she turned back. The tree was just a tree now. Ordinary. As if the Lady had never existed.
Sollene let out a breath and moved forward.
Sollene found the others waiting by the trees. Cael noticed her first, squinting like he was trying to make sure it was really her.
Cress stood and put his hands on his hips. "I think that's Sollene," he said.
"You were gone a while," Thane called, his voice just loud enough to carry.
"I got turned around," Sollene said as she approached. Her voice was steady, but her eyes didn't quite meet theirs.
Cress stepped closer and took her hand. "Are you okay?"
Sollene nodded. "Just tired."
She sat down beside them, and the others instinctively made space. They didn't press her. The forest was quieter now the strange hush of dusk settling over the trees.
No one noticed the scroll tucked carefully beneath her coat. No one saw how tightly she held it.
They talked about moving on soon about Thistledown, rest, food but Sollene listened like she was underwater.
A piece of someone else lived in her now. A name. A story.
And though she didn't speak of it, the absence sat beside her like a shadow.
The Lady was gone.
But her memory her whisper had found a place to rest.
Sollene curled her fingers around the scroll.
She would carry it. For now.
Quietly, they rose together and walked deeper into the trees.
The path ahead was uncertain. But still, they moved.