“Mama, come quick!” Tutt cried, slipping in the dust near the front of the hut and nearly colliding with the doorframe in his haste to get to her. Her head jerked up from pestling as a spike of fear coursed through her.

“What is it, child?” she demanded, already dusting powdered herbs off of her hands with the front of her apron.

“It’s Navia,” he managed between sharp intakes of breath while dancing back and forth on each foot, “She’s making her monument!”

She sucked in a breath and grasped for her Hani, which dangled as it always did from the thong between her breasts. She froze then, considering.

“Come on, Mama!” Tutt shrieked at her. She knelt to seize his small shoulders, shaking him a little.

“Tell me why, Tutt,” she said as he tried to blink away tears.

“She found him,” he said, gulping for air around the lump in his throat. “He’s not Narni, he – he -” he stuttered, tears truly streaming now. She took a deep breath, nodding at him. He matched her breathing pattern, calming down

“Try again,” she told him, wiping away his tears.

“Navia found her match, but he’s not Narni. He didn’t understand, and he rejected her. So she’s building her monument right now mama,” he blurted out. Her hands trembled as she thought about the implications of this. Never before had one of their people found their match beyond their own kind.

For generations, the Narni alone understood the sacred bond between mated pairs. When they found their match, a sensation would bloom in their midsection, a warmth that spread like roots, binding them together. Through this connection, they shared emotions—joy, sorrow, fear— the echo of each other’s hearts. As the bond matured, it transcended mere feeling. Thoughts would begin to pass between them, whispered across the ether of their souls, until they became as one mind in two bodies.

This bond guided the Narni through their lives and, when the time came, to their resting place. Paired Narni would take their Hani to the monument ground, the place their ancestors had chosen when they first arrived on this world. When their time came, a Narni would place their Hani at their feet. As they entered a trancelike state, the Hani would begin to grow, encasing them in stone, forming a cocoon that reflected their lives and spirits.

Her job as Luminar to her people was to guide, maintain the sacred elements of her people —and to be there to assist in this sacred rite. It was from these monuments that she would summon a new Hani when a Narni child was born, ensuring the continuation of their kind. But the balance had shifted over the generations. Today, there were more monuments than living Narni. Each loss was a weight on her heart, and the presence of these silent stone guardians was a constant reminder of how fragile their existence had become.

And now, the thought of Navia forging a bond with a native—someone not of their kind—brought a flood of uncertainty. If the bond could extend beyond the Narni, what did that mean for their traditions, their rituals? What did it mean for their future?

“Do you know this person?” Tutt nodded. “Do you know where to find him?”

“Yes, he’s -” she shushed him with a shake of her head.

“No time, Tutt. Go and fetch him at once,” she said. “And make him understand!” She didn’t wait to watch him go, already turning away to gather up a stone pot nearby.

Named the Eldarion, the pot was one of the Narni’s most sacred objects. It had journeyed with their ancestors across the ocean of stars to their new home. As the Luminar, she was entrusted with its care. The cauldron’s surface was threaded with veins of luminescent marbling that seemed to shift and flow like molten silver under the dim light. These veins glowed softly, echoing the same ethereal light found in the Hani stones and monuments of the Narni people, as if the Eldarion itself held the whispers of magic within its depths. When paired with the spoken glyphs from the Asteril, it would summon heat and enable her to perform the sacred workings of her people.

She steadied her breathing as she pulled the Asteril from its shelf, feeling the weight of its knowledge in her hands. The tome was ancient, its pages filled with alien-like glyphs that she had painstakingly learned to decipher as a child. The previous Luminar, Galyndra, had guided her through those early, arduous lessons. The glyphs had seemed to twist and shift beneath her gaze, their meanings eluding her grasp. But with persistence, she had come to understand them, memorizing much of the Asteril’s contents over the years.

There were sections within it—advanced passages—that she had never needed, untested during her lifetime. Tutt knew this well. He had been under her tutelage since his Hani had taken the shape of the glyph that marked him as the next Luminar. She had been training him from a young age, guiding him through the foundational knowledge of their people, but she had never allowed him to attempt to decipher these advanced sections.

Tutt hesitated at the door, glancing back to see her reaching for the tome. He gasped softly, eyes wide. He knew the significance of this moment. She rarely needed to reference the Asteril. The fact that she was pulling it down now meant that she was about to attempt something very rare, possibly untested within living memory.

“Go!” she snapped at him, and with a final look, Tutt sprinted away toward the village.

As she flipped open the tome to search for the lone passage that would offer her hope, she couldn’t help but think of Navia. For the Narni, the bond was usually instantaneous—both parties recognizing their connection within moments of meeting. Rarely, one might feel it before the other, but even then, the delay was brief. What did it mean if one of the pair was not Narni? Would they feel the bond at all?

Her heart ached with sudden realization. Navia had been moody lately, withdrawn and distant, yet she had said nothing of this to her mother. How had she missed the signs? She, the Luminar, whose role was not only to tend to the sacred objects and rites but also to understand the hearts of her people, had overlooked what was happening within her own home. The disappointment cut deep, a sting sharper than any blade.

She flipped feverishly through the Asteril, its pages whispering as they turned. In the unfamiliar passages, the glyphs twisted and shifted. She forced herself to slow, to decipher their meaning.

Finally, her gaze settled on what she sought—the lone working that could halt the building of a monument once begun. Her breath hitched. It was possible—but the cost…

The air around her seemed to still as the gravity of it settled over her. She shut her eyes for a brief moment, swallowing the fear that rose like bile in her throat.

“So be it,” she whispered, resolve hardening in her chest. “For Navia.”