As a dryad sleep was a different experience compared to other Fae. Aster was one with the tree in every way and trees did not rest their boughs at the end of a day, nor did they shy away from the sun once morning broke. There were times in which she was less present, more tree than dryad, but she was always aware of everything on her island. That was why she was able to hear the rapid labored breathing from the stone house built snugly against her trunk and roots.

With the help of a nearby vine she lowers herself into the grove below the EverTree. The Faemins nestled in sleep in her roots turn at her arrival blinking eyes up at her as she passes, with a dismissive wave and soft smile they fold themselves back into the ancient tree's roots. They murmur and chitter amongst themselves as sleep finds them once again. With the assurance that the Faemins were not the ones causing the disturbance so late at night that only leaves one another guest among her grove.

But the sound she had been following has changed, a strange violent whistling hiss has filled the quiet night where the rough breaths once were.

Aster picks up her pace, towards the vine-covered brick house, rounding the far corner of the building where a small garden grows.

"Is everything-," she cuts herself off once she makes eye contact with the fellow Fae. Pyre is kneeling at the edge of the island, his left hand totally submerged in the lake. Angry steam hisses up from the water, the nearby fish swim away in a hurry as the lake around his hand begins to boil at his natural heat. And for a creature of fire she's never seen eyes so cold, so empty.

It's barely a thought and a root rips itself out of the ground, knocking Pyre back away from the shore.

"Pyre! Are you okay!?"

Aster leans over her friend, hands hovering over his form. Even as cold as his eyes seem and the impromptu bath, he still radiates heat like a furnace. Aster has never met an Infernit before Pyre, but she's heard plenty of stories about his kind. Infernit are known as one of the most violent of all Fae, born with veins filled with molten metals and hearts of smoldering coal. Creatures of war and mischief, who hoarded their true names even more aggressively than other Fae. Though all Fae hold such tenancies for pranks and conflict, a side effect of their existence as creatures born from the primordial chaos of creation.

Pyre barley glances up at her, there's a look in his eyes that feels like despair and guilt. Aster takes a shaking steading breath of her own before she reaches forward. Pyre jolts as her fingers carefully trace over his injured hand. His skin has turned a dark shinning black, an obsidian scar, caused from too long exposure to water. If not treated soon his hand would solidify into obsidian permanently and he would lose the ability to move his fingers. A spark of something flashes in his eyes and he jerks his hand out of her reach as though she just cooled him again with a bucket of water.

"I'm an Infernit." He spits, sounding disgusted at the term. Aster had heard that "Infernit" was not the name his people gave themselves, but she lacks the true answers to know the correct words.

"I know," Aster says softly, keeping the shaking in her voice down, and reminding herself to never call Pyre by the term he so obviously hates, "but you're hurt."

"It's fine."

Aster has to bite her lip to stop her bubbling protest, she had been wondering why Pyre was covered in old obsidian scars, most Infernits-those like him rather, were overly cautious around any source of water as they were creatures born of fire themselves. Pyre had been extremely weary of the water his first few days, always keeping at least ten feet from the lake shore, watching as though he was afraid the water would rise on its own and douse him. She hates to think that all of the countless black scars littering his skin are from whatever he was running from, she hates, even more, to imagine they are from his own hands. "Is there anything I can do?"

Pyre flinches, pulling his hand closer to himself and hiding the dark stone scar covering his skin, "No."

Another long breath in and Aster refocuses her gaze to Pyre's face. His eyes are still unlit coals, but she can feel that the spark hasn't completely left him. This was an intentional hurt, but it wasn't a complete surrender. But Aster knows she's not the one who holds the match. Pyre has been very close-chested about how and why he came to be in her care, but she's seen enough wayward souls to recognize the longing of a man separated from their love.

"I have some candles inside."

Pyre looks up at her, confusion is clear on his face along with the sharp edge of distrust. Aster just smiles and slowly gets up, dusting out her skirt even though no dirt ever clings to her. "I've heard that candles can help a water burn?" she offers.

Pyre pauses, and Aster tries not to flinch at the sound of crackling obsidian as Pyre grips his left hand to tight. He flinches and hisses out a cruse as he looks down at the cracked black slowly spreading over his red skin. "I would appreciate that."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I'll place them in the house for you to use when you want."

Aster pretends she doesn't see how Pyre's shoulders unclench at that. She does not hold the match to relight his dying flame, but she can be the shelter to stop any further damage to his light.

Aster goes and fetches the candles left by some lost traveler a few dozen years ago. She doesn't think candles can go bad, hopefully, these will work just fine. It takes Pyre about ten minutes before he re-enters the small building. He stiffens at the sight of her lingering at the small wooden table, an array of candles spread in front of her as a peace offering.

"I'm afraid I don't have a match."

A smile fleetingly tries to grace Pyre's face, but it's gone before it ever truly forms. He nods and moves forward, with barely a wave of his hand all 20 something candles ignite a bright scarlet flame. He hesitates a moment before slowly lowering his hand. A pleased sigh rumbles out of his chest as he lowers his hand further, barely skimming the growing melted wax puddles below the flickering wicks. The crackled black stone slowly starts to re-heat to a dark red-gray. He would probably have a mismatched patch of skin the rest of his days, but at least it wouldn't be immobile from the obsidian scaring.

"Well," and Aster raises to her feet, sending Pyre a reassuring smile as she does, "I'll let you get your sleep. I'm planning on baking a breakfast bread with some nuts the Feamins brought me, so I'll bring some of it down for you." She pauses to search Pyre's face, not sure what she's looking for, but Pyre keeps his attention on the flickering candles slowly warming his skin, "Good night."

She makes it to the heavy driftwood door and pushes it open out into the flower filled yard, just as-, "Wait-,"

Worry clouds her thoughts as she turns back around, "Do you-,"

"Don't!" Aster freezes in the doorway, keeping herself very still, afraid to even move her eyes from the doorframe in front of her.

"Don't- just stay-, just stay there."

Aster eases her stance but keeps herself where she stands, focusing her gaze back to the dark sky behind the door. She can see the constellation of the Great King Oberon. She does not recall the story of his greatness nor the story of why he was placed into the sky, but she remembers the stars being carefully mapped out to her with a laugh and sparking eyes too blue to belong to any common Fae.

"I just need-," Pyre cuts himself off with a frustrated sigh. Aster ponders saying something to assure him, but maybe he needs to voice this on his own.

"Can you listen for a bit?"

"Anything you need, you are a guest in my domain, and I will keep my promise of keeping you well."

"You really-," Pyre cuts himself off before he finishes. "How much do you know about the war?"

Oh, they were talking about this. Aster fully believed Pyre would never say anything about his actions before he was here. Not many talked about their befores. And the ones that did bleed regret easier than their own lifeblood.

"Not much. Only what Peral has told me."

"So, nothing," Pyre sighs, Aster can hear him shuffling around behind her, the creaking of wood and the soft crackle of flames. "Every nation has been pulled into the fighting. They plan to unite the whole realm and their going to do it because a false angel told them to." The word *angel* is spit with such venom the temperature in the room jumps a few degrees.

Aster has to force herself not to flinch at the heat spike, an ingrained defensive response to the fear of fire, "Are they the ones..." Aster can't find it in her to finish but by how the temperature jumps a few degrees higher Pyre hears the, "-who did this to you?" that hangs unsaid.

"Yes." And with a wavering sigh from Pyre the simmering heat building in the room re-cools to a more normal temperature, "they did everything."

Aster does not speak to that, this is not the moment for her, this is for Pyre to say what he needs someone else to hear. If that is all he has or if he wishes for her to forget then she shall. The EverTree is for all.

"They stole his name." It's barely whispered into the air, but Aster is the ground below their feet and the tree above their heads and the flower on the table covered in melting candles. It rings clear and broken in her heart. A true name. The most precious gift and binding shackle. Aster needs not ask who the 'his' is, it is the one who holds his match of course, the person he has given his everything too.

"He gave it for me." He hisses and the temperature spikes once again, "and then he had the balls to turn around and use my own name against me. To order me away!"

The heat in the room is suffocating now, a near-boiling choking haze. "He made me leave him. I would have stayed! I would have done anything to keep him safe. Why did he send me away?! I can't- I need him and he- why?" There's a hissing noise echoing in the empty night once more, but it is much softer than the whistling scream of the lake boiling. Aster closes her own eyes and pretends she can't feel the salt watering her roots. Aster is always the one sending her friends away. For this is all she is, an old tree, forgotten to all but the most curious and desperate. Always the one left, never the one leaving.

Aster waits another few breaths to see if Pyre has anything else to say. She does not know if her opinion is wanted or needed here, so she chooses her words carefully. "He made you leave for the same reason you gave him your name."

There's a sharp hitch in breath, for the words unspoken ring with a painful echoing vastness. There's only ever one reason a name is given fully willingly, the thing most dangerous to creatures of chaos as there are.

"No, he-that's-,"

"You wanted him safe from this war, sending you away keeps you out of it."

"No." It's a whispered desperate thing, Pyre denying the truth he knows too intimately to be true.

Aster hesitates on her next words, but something compels her to speak them, some deep long forgotten regret of her own, "If the angel never fell, that name would have been yours."

A broken gasping cry rips itself free from Pyre. A wrecked sobbing thing. Full of deep heartbreak and regret. The sorrow so strong it's almost heavy in the air. Aster closes her eyes at the sound, unable to look at the peaceful night with the sound of pure grief behind her. A shudder runs down her own frame, a wave of empathy and a dull pang of her own echoed regret. There was a young boy she once wished to give her own name to, but she never will now.

She says nothing else as she leaves, just closes the door softly on the broken cries. The night is empty and cold, a stark contrast to the mimicry of a home behind her. Even the stars, which were the only thing ever present in her life of forever, only glitter with the bittersweet starlight of broken childhood dreams.