Lumara’s breaths come fast as she runs. Leaping over frozen brooks and swerving around boulders, she runs as fast as her feet can carry her through the thick snow covering the ground. Clarity clings to her neck, but she doesn’t notice nor care for the pinpricks of pain where the cat’s claws pierce her skin. The owl cradled in her arms is far, far more important.

From above, the full moon watches Lumara’s frantic journey across the snow-covered field, indifferent to her panic and slowly breaking heart. Stars wink like distant candles through a veil, or a sea of curious onlookers.

Up ahead, the treeline rises as Lumara draws closer. Her legs ache and her heart beats out a dreadful rhythm, but a glimmer of hope stirs within her when vast, open field finally becomes dense forest. The pine trees hang heavy with snow on their branches, shivering in the harsh wind that blows across the field.

But the wind falls away all at once the moment she ducks into the embrace of the trees. It’s dark, almost impossibly so, but she knows the way. She just… never expected to need it, not for this. Not for him. In her arms, Eir hasn’t stirred at all, his beautiful white feathers matted with blood. His eyes, usually so sharp and clear, are only half-open, revealing just a slit of brilliant yellow underneath the lids.

Clenching her jaws, Lumara lowers her heads and keeps running.

Deep inside the forest, hidden away in a valley circled by ancient, gnarled pines, is a shrine. There are no manmade structures; no temple or stone arches, no braziers or hanging tapestries. Instead, a large, flat stone rests in the middle of the open valley, its once rough surface long smoothened by centuries of use, centuries of careful hands and desperate prayers. Fragile white flowers grow in a ring around the stone, sprouting year-round despite the shifting seasons. Even now, in the depths of midwinter, they proudly turn their faces to the sky, silver moonlight shining through the petals. Purple hyacinths, equally immortal, cradle the base of the stone altar.

This is Lumara’s destination.

She bursts through the circle of pines, a shocking change from her usual calm when tasked with healing a creature. But there’s no room for shame, not when time is running out like water trickling between her fingers, impossible to hold back.

Clarity hops off her back the moment she stops before the altar. Leaving tiny footprints in the snow, she climbs onto the flat stone to sit at one end, her three eyes solemn and dulled from their usual glow. Lumara quickly wipes the snow off the stone before ever so gently laying Eir on it.

He looks so small, lying there. Lumara’s eyes well up, and the freezing air quickly turns her tears ice-cold. But she wipes them away with a rough motion and takes a deep, stuttering breath.

She can do this. She’s done it before, dozens of times.

Letting one palm hover over Eirs still chest, she closes her eyes. Envisions Eir’s clever gaze, his silhouette against sunlit skies. The sound of his shrill, piercing call from across the open tundra, always calling Lumara home.

On the altar, Eir’s clawed feet lie limp, half-curled toes tangled together. His wings are stretched out, but what should have made him appear larger now only seems to emphasise the wound in his chest, bloodied and ugly. Lumara had frozen when she’d first seen it, stunned and completely uncomprehending of the broken arrow shaft protruding from the owl’s body. It had taken Clarity’s insistent meowing to shake her out of it.

The familiar warmth of her healing magic reignites inside her, her connection with the Aether thrumming as she calls upon it. Even from behind her closed eyes, she can sense the glow around her hands as it seeks out something to repair. It’s easy to mentally direct it towards Eir, and she feels it narrow from a wider range to something more focused, more intent.

She opens her eyes. Both of her hands are encased in a silvery, dancing light that reaches out for Eir. She brings her hands closer, gently touching the tips of her fingers to Eir’s chest. Like a rippling wave, her magic washes over Eir and wraps around him. Lumara waits for it to connect, to find what it’s looking for. Something to fix, something to heal.

Seconds pass. Then more.

Lumara’s hands tremble, not from the effort of channelling her magic, but from the cold, creeping sense of finality crawling up the back of her neck. New tears fall from her eyes but she barely notices, all of her attention focused solely on Eir and her failing magic. Why is it failing? Why won’t it just work, why–

She sobs and grits her teeth, and lays her hands more fully on Eir. Closing her eyes once more, she reaches for her magic with a far more insistent mental pull. It resists, and she pulls harder, then harder again, a pained whine clawing its way up her throat as she tries and tries and tries, but nothing happens. Nothing at all. There is nothing left in Eir for it to reach.

Lumara rears back with a cry, and her connection with the Aether all but shatters from the force with which she shuts it down. She falls to her knees by the altar and drops her heads onto it, claws digging grooves into the stone from how hard she clutches at the edge. Her breaths come in halting gasps, cold and painful. All she hears over the sound of her own grief is a single, droning tone of emptiness.

A small paw comes to rest on her shoulder after an unknowable length of time, a single point of warmth in the middle of the all-encompassing cold. “Mmmrrr.”

Lumara heaves in a breath and feebly raises one head. She blinks, her eyes stinging from crying, and sees Clarity sitting beside her on the stone. Her brilliant blue coat has dulled to the mournful hues of a stormy sky. She makes a low, sorrowful noise when Lumara meets her gaze, and softly presses her forehead to Lumara’s.

“Why didn’t it work?” Lumara whispers, her voice raspy and raw. “Why–...”

Clarity has no answer for her.

It’s a long time before Lumara can make herself move. Even the simple act of getting to her feet is nearly made impossible when she sees Eir still lying motionless on the altar and her throat closes up with pain. But she manages, in the end. Taking steady, measured breaths, she carefully brings Eir back into her arms. He’s grown cold, and Lumara instinctively holds him closer to her chest.

After a weak nod from Lumara, Clarity climbs onto her back, and the two of them leave the shrine behind to find the final resting spot for their dear friend.