I stayed on high alert the rest of the day, quite literally watching my back. I made it through the evening without being seized by guards, or even another summoning from Nal m'se. When night finally doused the sunlight, I lay awake in bed for hours on end. Physically, I was exhausted, but a niggling worry burrowed into my brain and kept a buzz of energy going. The relaxation techniques I've been taught didn't help. Eventually, I succumbed to sleep, but woke even more tired than the previous day. No surprise there, as I had two bad nights in a row.

By evening, my frayed nerves began to knit back together. Surely if someone did see me, they would have revealed themselves, their intentions. It doesn't benefit them to taunt me from afar, unless their goal is to drive me mad.

I snap out of my thoughts as a gust of wind tousles my hair. I rub my arms to generate heat. It's a particularly chilly summer night. The fire in the center of the fractured cliff should warm me up, but I'm not sitting close enough to it. Instead, the rest of the tribe members huddle around it, wrapped in blankets and sipping warm teas.

Orange flames lick the darkness. The trees behind me cast shadows over the fractured cliff. A woman's voice rings through the clearing over the crooning crickets in the background.

"The healer should've smelled the acrid odor in the water," Ellna, the tribe's storyteller, says. She hunches over a cane, her face angled toward the sky. "But a recent illness numbed her senses. But she knew the river had been tainted the moment the sour liquid touched her lips. She tried to spit it out, but it was too late. The poison was already coursing through her veins, turning her blood against her."

A few children whimper, yet most stare at the old woman with rapt attention, regardless of whether they've heard the tale before.

"Her beau ran to the lady of the forest," Ellna continues. "He begged her, saying 'surely you have something to help her.' The lady of her forest, true to her word, came to the healer's side. It was horrendous seeing the healer passing to the other world, the color draining from her rosy cheeks, the life ebbing from her hands — the same hands that had saved so many. Her healing touch was leaching away, moment by moment."

"What happened?" a boy murmurs. A series of shushes silence further comments.

"The lady of the forest shook her head, telling the healer's beau that it was too late. Her beau sank to his knees and pleaded with her." Ellna somehow manages to drop her voice an octave. "'Surely there's something you can do.'"

"Please let there be something," a child wails. More shushes ensue.

"'Perhaps there's one thing,' the lady of the forest says. 'I may have a cure for this poison that has contaminated your water.' The problem was that she didn't have enough for the healer and the river. Come spring, rocks and the earth would filter out the poison. But the tribe might die of thirst, especially once most of their water sources froze for the winter. On the other hand, the healer would die if she didn't receive the cure.

"But the healer—" Ellna, the tribe's storyteller, raises a shaky, withered finger, her shadow mimicking her on the ground. "The healer couldn't choose both. She could either save her life or the tribe's. Her beau begged her to not succumb to the poison, to choose life, to choose him. But the healer shook her head." Ellna pitches her voice up, taking on a sweet quality uncharacteristic of most elderly I know. "'My duty is to the health of my tribe. Let this be my last act to care for them.' The lady of the forest used the only drops of the cure on the river."

The healer pauses, her eyes returning to those gathered around the fire. "However, the healer's sacrifice did not go unnoticed. Because of her sacrifice, she was granted a place to live in the stars. She may not have her same healing touch, yet she still nourishes us with light on the darkest nights, when no moon shines upon us and when no fire can expel the shadows. Most importantly, the healer, who we now call Ae, will live on forever in our memory, in our hearts, and in the tribe."

The tribe applauds the story's conclusion. The sound reverberates off the rocks and trees, until it feels like nature has joined in, celebrating the life of this legendary healer. I clap too, as loud as I can. I always liked the story of Ae, and not only because her name is part of mine. It's a story of sacrifice, how anyone can earn the title of a legend. I hope one day my name will be repeated as admiringly as hers. Perhaps my weaving skills can polish my family's tarnished name.

"Let's have some music!" a voice calls out as the voices settle down. A chorus of agreement follows. I glance at the shape of my laivo resting in my lap, ready to be used. I can't tell if I want to play or not. Nervous energy roils in my gut, partly due to the strange markings I came across in the forest. Mixed in, there's anticipation and a hint of longing.

I don't get a chance to decide which side wins out. Audrel appears before me, her hand planting on my shoulder.

"Come join us," she insists. I stumble after her, a cloud of fatigue blurring my head. "Celisae is going to play for us!"

Voices murmur, though I catch some good things mingled with my mother's name.

Best weaver in the tribe.

Beautiful songs. A true gift.

Talented musician, just like her mother.

I'm lucky that the dark conceals my heating cheeks. Audrel brings me to the center of the square, where two other musicians sit on large stones. I sit beside them on the ground, clutching my laivo in front of my chest. A hush falls over the crowd. Anticipation hangs thick in the air.

The woman beside me, Hannei, holds a ciwien pipe to her lips. She blows out a long wisp of a note that encircles us like smoke. Her husband, Yefto, joins in with his deep bass voice. My fingers move up and down the strings before settling upon the first note to complete the chord. I pluck the string lightly, a pebble plinking in water.

Hannei's sustained melody climbs a half step up while Yefto creeps to a lower note. Dissonance pulses through the clearing, and I bridge the gap with a string of chromatics. Together, we land in harmony. While the couple transition into a two-part melody, I pluck an accompaniment, favoring the offbeats. The two voices, one deep and vibrating, the other feather-light and sweet, weave between each other. One dips while the other rises, then the other defers to the first.

Slowly, the harmonies build, and my fingers pull the strings taut with more insistence. Sound swarms the clearing, echoing off trees and rocks. I feel the anticipation all around me. People hold their breaths as we pass through dissonance and consonance.

Hannei hits the highest note on the ciwien pipe, and Yefto and I drop out. It whistles through the air, the power in its perfectly pitched shrillness, not its volume. Yefto hums, his voice growing more rich as he descends in pitch. My fingers brush the strings in a final chain of notes, using less pressure on each one so the song lifts into the air, floating up to the night sky.

The clearing remains still a minute after finishing. Then, cheering and applause shatters the moment. I beam, feeling a new energy course through me. When it dies down, Hannei inhales a deep breath and jumps into a new jig. She blows puffs of air into the ciwien pipe in a fast tempo. Melancholic notes dance through the clearing, dipping over each other while Yefto drones a long, dissonant note underneath.

My fingers buzz to life, plucking the accompanying chords on the laivo with vivacious energy. One-two-three, one-two-three. And-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. They propel the melody forward to the height of the phrase, where we end on an emphatic chord.

Without a spare beat, Hannei rolls into the next phrase. I keep the base going, jumping octaves just for fun. People stand and dance along to the tune. Others clap or stomp their feet along. Yefto sings an improvised countermelody to Hannei. Then we return to the first phrase, culminating in wistful unison, somewhere between sorrow and revelry, perhaps finding joy in spite of exterior circumstances.

Cheers erupt in the clearing, and the night goes on. By the end, the strings have branded divots into my fingers. The bones at the base of my fingertips ache, both from this morning's labor and now from overdoing the music. But I don't care. I haven't had such a wonderful evening in a long time.

Our crowd shrinks as the night wears on. At last, Hannei breathes her last note in the pipe, and her husband's drone fades from earshot, though songs from the night still play in my head.

"What a fun night!" Hannei says. She squeezes my spare hand, the one not clutching the laivo. "Thank you for playing with us."

"You really completed the band," Yefto says jovially.

I grin, as radiant as the sun. For the first time in months, it really feels that I'm part of the tribe. My playing fostered a time of festivity and joy. It brought people together, brought me closer to them.

"We really ought to do this more often on half-moons," Hannei says. "I don't know why we don't." She elbows her husband, and he chuckles.

"Not all of us can stay up so late," Yefto reminds her, light but with an unignorable emphasis. Yefto and his wife are hunters. They have one of the hardest jobs in the tribe since they must scavenge for wild game all day every day in order to feed the tribe, often waking up before dawn to catch fresh meat for our second meal.

"That's true." Hannei shoots me an apologetic smile. "I hope to hear you again. Really, I don't know why you aren't part of..." She trails off. Then, realizing that I probably already know what she was going to say, she weakly finishes, "one of the tribe's bands."

The light inside me dies down. "I, uh, am very busy. You know, with the robes."

"I'm sure." She pulls at the fabric draped around her now. "I'm wearing one of yours right now. It keeps me extra warm in winter. Really, Celisae, I don't know how you do it."

I swallow. A chill sweeps away the happiness I grasped only moments ago. "Lots of practice." I force a smile. "Anyway, I should be going to sleep now, too. Good night."

"Good night." Hannei's face seems to deflate. She and her husband exchange a glance, most likely perplexed by my rushed exit.

My lack of sleep sneaks up on me going back to my cave. I trip over my feet several times and must stabilize myself on the cliff beside me. My left hand clutches my laivo extra tight to ensure it doesn't smash to the ground. The only instrument maker for the tribe has too shaky hands to continue making them, and her apprentice works very, very slowly. There's no telling how long it'd take to get a replacement.

My eyelids droop so low, they almost cover my eyes by the time I reach my cave. I collapse onto my cot with enough sense to shove my laivo away from my bed, just in case I absentmindedly step on it in the morning. Sleep moves at lightning speed to take me under.