Lira learned that power did not arrive all at once.
It crept.
Like frost along stone.
Like roots beneath soil.
Quiet, patient, impossible to rush.
She felt it most clearly in the mornings.
When she woke now, the world felt… closer.
Not louder, not brighter, nearer.
She could sense the shape of things before she saw them: the way the stream curved beneath ice, the hollow places in the valley where sound lingered, the subtle wrongness when someone arrived carrying intent they did not name.
Ashen noticed too.
He didn't say anything at first.
He rarely did. But his eyes tracked her more carefully now, as if measuring distance, not to restrain her, but to be ready.
That mattered.
The Spark responded to readiness.
Not command.
It happened on the twelfth day.
The valley was quiet, busy with small work.
Lira helped mend a torn net near the stream while Ashen reinforced the eastern wall.
The sky was low and gray, snow threatening but undecided.
Lira felt it before the sound.
Pressure, not inside her, but around her.
Like air growing thick before a storm.
She stood abruptly.
"Someone's hurt," she said.
Ashen looked up instantly. "Where?"
"South ridge," she replied. "Near the old switchback."
Ashen didn't question how she knew.
He dropped his tools and moved.
They found the boy halfway down the path, bleeding badly from his leg.
He had slipped, struck stone, torn muscle deep enough that walking was no longer an option.
Ashen knelt beside him, assessing quickly.
"We can carry him," he said.
The boy shook his head weakly. "Too far."
Lira crouched on the other side.
She could feel it then—how thin the boy's life was stretched, how the pain narrowed his breathing, how fear pulled him inward.
She reached out without thinking.
The Spark flared.
Not violently, but in reaction to her action.
Warmth flooded her hands, moving into the boy like sunlight through cold water.
The bleeding slowed. The boy gasped and then sagged, unconscious but stable.
Ashen froze.
"Lira," he said quietly.
She pulled back at once. "I didn't mean to..I just—"
"I know," Ashen said.
His voice wasn't angry. It was careful.
"How does it feel?"
She searched herself. "Like holding something fragile. Like if I squeezed, it would break."
Ashen nodded. "Then you did well."
They carried the boy home.
But that night, Lira couldn't sleep.
The warmth lingered in her chest, restless.
It wanted to move.
The Book noticed.Not immediately, but it did.
Lira felt it as a presence at the edge of her thoughts, not speaking, not intruding.
Just Observing, the way someone might watch a fire to see how far it spreads.
| You are learning. It whispered not aloud, but inrecognition.
Lira didn't answer.
She focused instead on Ashen's breathing across the room.
Slow.
Even.
Real.
The Book waited.
Power changed how people looked at her.
Not Maera.
Not Ashen.
But others.
A woman whose arthritis eased when Lira passed too close. A man whose fever broke after Lira sat beside him through the night.
Whispers followed her now. Hopeful whispers.
Hope was heavier than fear.
Lira felt it press against her ribs.
She spoke to Ashen about it by the stream one evening, feet dangling above the water.
"They expect things," she said.
Ashen nodded. "People always do."
"What if I can't help everyone?"
"You won't," Ashen said gently.
"That doesn't bother you?"
"It terrifies me," he admitted. "But it's not your burden alone."
She frowned. "Isn't it?"
Ashen turned to face her fully. "Listen to me. Power that belongs to everyone belongs to no one. And power that answers every call will eventually stop answering at all."
She absorbed that in silence.
The Spark pulsed softly.
Not disagreement.
Consideration.
The test came sooner than Ashen hoped.
A sickness moved through the valley not deadly, but fast. Fever, weakness, coughing that left people trembling.
Lira moved from house to house with Maera, easing pain where she could.
Each time, the Spark answered.
Each time, it asked for a little more.
By the third night, Lira's hands shook.
Her vision blurred.
Ashen caught her when she nearly fell.
"That's enough," he said firmly.
"There are still people—"
"I know," he said. "And they will still be here tomorrow."
She looked up at him, eyes bright with frustration and fear.
"What if I'm not?"
The question landed like a blade.
Ashen pulled her into a careful embrace.
"Then we stop."
The Spark surged—angry, reactive.
For the first time, it pushed back.
Lira gasped as warmth flared painfully through her chest, too much, too fast.
The air around her shimmered.
The stream froze solid in a heartbeat.
Frost raced across stone and wood.
Ashen shielded her instinctively, shouting for space.
Lira cried out in pain and in confusion.
"Stop," she whispered. "Please."
The Spark hesitated.
Not because it was commanded but because it was asked.
The surge collapsed inward, leaving Lira shaking but whole.
Silence followed.
The valley stared.
Lira buried her face in Ashen's chest, ashamed.
"I didn't mean to," she said.
Ashen rested his chin lightly against her hair. "I know."
Later, Maera approached quietly.
"She'll need boundaries," Maera said.
Ashen nodded. "So will they."
That night, the Book spoke more clearly than ever before.
You cannot hold it forever.
Lira sat upright in bed. "I don't want to hold it alone."
| Then let me guide you.
She shook her head. "You don't guide. You shape."
| Efficiency is mercy.
"No," Lira said softly. "Mercy is choice."
The presence recoile in recalculation.
For the first time, Lira understood something vital:
Her power was not growing toward domination.
It was growing toward definition.
And that terrified everything that thrived on control.
Ashen watched her sleep afterward, knowing with a clarity that hurt.
The world would not leave her alone forever.
But as long as he drew breath, it would never take her easily.