Wren looks at the matching suns — one carved in stone, one pressed in tarnished iron on her borrowed breastplate — and arrives at the conclusion a braver person would have reached two minutes ago. She leans forward and presses the sigil flat against the lantern's carving. The stone hums. Once, deep enough to feel in her back teeth. The ember-light floods every groove at once, and with a sound exactly like a held breath finally released, a seam appears around the lantern's middle — clean, deliberate, centuries old. The top half lifts on nothing, guided by nothing, and settles aside. Inside, nested in a hollow of dark stone, is the Ember of Aldermere: a flame no larger than a cupped hand, burning amber-gold without fuel, without smoke, warm in a way that has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with something else entirely. It has been waiting here longer than the village has had a name. Wren stares. The Ember gives her the strong impression — despite having nothing like eyes — that it is staring back. She still has to carry it home. Behind her, at the clearing's edge, the thorns have gone very quiet.