The Great Library of Floralis was a towering relic of glass and stone, its arched windows stained with the colors of dawn, its walls humming faintly with the warmth of old stories. The scent of ink, parchment, and dried lavender greeted Zorya as she stepped through the doors.
It was quiet, as always.
She moved between the shelves like a shadow, fingers trailing over leather spines and gold lettering. In a far corner, the familiar creak of a wooden chair and the soft rustle of pages turning welcomed her.
Mara Hollowmere looked up from her desk.
"Zorya," she said with a smile that reached her kind, brown eyes. "Back so soon?"
"I finished the last one," Zorya said, holding up a book wrapped in cloth. "And I needed somewhere…still."
Mara nodded. Her black hair was neatly pinned in a bun, strands of silver glinting under the sunbeams slanting through the high windows. She was dressed in soft grays and dusty browns, like the worn covers of the tomes that surrounded her. A mug of tea sat at her elbow, half-forgotten, steam long gone cold.
She accepted the returned book with gentle hands. "That was one of my favorites when I was your age. Did you like it?"
Zorya gave a hesitant smile. "I think so. It didn't end the way I thought it would. But maybe that's the point."
Mara chuckled. "Books tend to do that. Just like life."
For a moment, they stood in the warm hush of the library, surrounded by thousands of voices waiting to be heard. Then, softly:
"Can I ask you something?" Zorya said, her fingers curling around the hem of her sleeve.
Mara glanced up, her gaze patient. "Of course."
"You…" Zorya hesitated. "You don't have magic, do you?"
There was no sting in the words, only a quiet searching.
Mara leaned back in her chair, her eyes distant for a moment. "No. I never did. Not even a whisper of it. I waited until I was sixteen, just in case the saints had poor timing." She smiled wryly. "But nothing ever came."
Zorya sat down across from her, heart strangely lighter. "I didn't know."
"Most don't. People forget. Or they pretend not to see. But there are more of us than you think—people who walk beside miracles but don't carry any themselves."
Zorya looked down at the scarred table between them. "Do you… regret it?"
Mara was quiet for a moment, then shook her head.
"I won't pretend I didn't once. Especially when I was younger. Watching others fly or breathe fire or sing flowers into bloom... it hurt. But I found my own kind of magic, eventually."
"In books?" Zorya asked softly.
"In people," Mara said. "In words. In the way stories echo. And in quiet things—like being the one who listens. We're not powerless, Zorya. We just wield different tools."
Zorya looked up, her scarlet eyes reflecting the sun. "Do you ever feel like you're waiting for something? Like… something important is trying to happen around you?"
Mara tilted her head. "Yes," she said. "All the time. But maybe that's what stories are, too. The waiting, the quiet between chapters, the turn of the page when you least expect it."
She reached over and placed a new book in Zorya's hands. Its spine was worn, its pages dog-eared.
"The Girl Who Fell Through a Mirror."
"Try this one," Mara said. "She didn't have powers either."
Zorya clutched the book to her chest, something strange and warm flickering in her chest.
"Thank you, Mara."
"Anytime, child. You know where to find me."
Mara Hollowmere was the sort of woman who moved gently through the world, as if her very presence might bruise it. Her dark hair, streaked with soft threads of silver, was always tied in a practical bun, and her kind brown eyes held a quiet knowing—like someone who had walked through storms and learned to smile despite the rain.
She had no powers.
Not then, not now.
And because of that, people whispered. They whispered of bad luck, of shadows clinging to her name. Her parents had died in a carriage fire when she was just eight, leaving her an orphan with soot-stained cheeks and nowhere to go but inward. Later, a husband who once promised the world betrayed her for another—left her with only silence and a ring she never wore again.
Then the light of her life,
Her son,. Bright-eyed and tender-hearted, with the gentlest laugh. He had always been a little too fragile for the world, bones delicate as bird-wing glass. She lost him to a fever that burned too fast. He died in her arms one rain-washed night, and something inside her hollowed out. She buried his little shoes beneath the Mirathiel tree, As a monument.
The town never saw the grace in her sorrow. They called her cursed. Unlucky. A woman to pity, or worse—avoid.
But Zorya saw differently.
As she sat with a book half-open in her lap in the corner of the library, she watched Mara shelve volumes with slow, careful hands, humming a lullaby only the pages could hear.
Zorya wondered if maybe there was something holy in kindness that blooms despite grief.
She closed her book and wandered toward the tall windows, lost in her thoughts.
And there—just outside, by the garden wall—stood a boy.
No more than eight or nine. Pale skin. Barefoot. Clothes a little old-fashioned, like something stitched from memory. He didn't speak. He only looked at her, head tilted, as if he'd been waiting for her to notice.
Zorya's breath caught.
Who is he?.
The light shifted, a petal drifted from the Mirathiel tree nearby, and in that moment the boy was gone—vanished like a sigh on the wind.