At sunrise, I step onto the glimmer stone. The whole Hallow gathered in the surrounding meadow, hoping for good news…

Every fawn in Aurora Hallow can feel that something must happen today, even if they do not yet know what it is.

Behind me the Veil moves like water beneath moonlight as the sun rises. Ivy stands at the edge of the trees, exactly where she has stood for days now. The silver moss has grown around her hooves, curling gently against her legs as if the Hallow itself is trying to keep her from falling.

Rosemary stands a few paces away from her mother, tucked near the ferns with the younger fawns. Her face is swollen from crying, though she is trying very hard to look angry instead of afraid. Snow, Rosemary’s best friend, stands beside her. Close enough to show she has not left despite their fight. Yesterday, Rosemary yelled at Snow for saying what many were thinking—that Willow may not ever make it out of the Veil.

Snow did not mean to wound her. I know that. Snow has always been sharp when she is scared. She reaches for truth like a blade, believing that if she names the worst thing first, it cannot surprise her later.

Rosemary reaches for feeling like fire, and that’s why they hurt each other. That’s why all of us have begun hurting each other. The Shadow knows how to use fear to grow itself back from the few remaining seeds left of it in the Hallow. It does not need to break through the Veil if it can make us turn on one another.

So I raise my head and speak before the murmurs can grow.

“Last night, I went to Aurora’s Pond. I asked what is happening to Willow.”

A sound moves through the crowd, small and wounded. Rosemary’s ears lift. Ivy does not turn, but I see her shoulders tighten.

“Aurora said Willow must walk it alone, no matter how long it takes.”

Rosemary makes a sound like she has been struck. Snow looks down at the moss.

“But Aurora also told me something else. If Willow must find her way through the Veil alone, then we must make sure she has a Hallow to return to.”

The glimmer stone warms beneath my hooves.

“We are losing the strength of our connections to each other. We have all felt it. The songs forgotten. The tempers rising. The silence between friends. The way fear has begun to make every fawn feel separate from the rest.”

Knowingly, Rosemary and Snow make eye contact.

“The Shadow wants us formless,” I say. “It wants us frightened enough to forget our gifts. It wants our strongest instincts to become wounds. But Aurora has shown me another way.”

At the sound of her name, the fireflies begin to rise. First from the reeds. Then from the ferns. Then from the low branches of the crescent trees.

Hundreds of them lift into the morning air, their lights blinking in slow unison. Above us, a faint ribbon of green and violet appears, almost invisible at first, then stronger, stretching across the pale dawn.

Aurora is listening. The young fawns gasp.

“Today, every fawn in Aurora Hallow will be aligned into groups based on the way your heart responds when conflict arises. Your group will be called your Order and forward you will train with them daily.”

The meadow erupts.

“What if I’m put in the wrong group?”

“What if I’m not aligned with anyone?”

“Why can’t we choose?”

The questions come from every direction, fast and frightened. The Shadow moves in them immediately, slipping into the cracks between identity and fear.

I let the questions quiet before speaking, “your Order is not a sentence. It is a mirror. It will show you one way your heart tries to protect you and align you those . And once you understand that, you can learn how to use it in service of the light.”

The fireflies gather above me and the Glimmer Stone and form a circle.

Inside the circle, four streams of light begin to separate.

One red-gold and restless.

One pale blue and sharp as starlight.

One green and steady as roots.

One silver-white, soft as breath.

“Let the sorting begin”

The words hang over the meadow. No one moves.

The four streams of light circle above the glimmer stone, red-gold, pale blue, green, and silver-white, each one alive with its own rhythm. The fireflies pulse as if waiting for a heart brave enough to step forward. I look across the gathered fawns.

Some stare at the moss. Some press closer to their friends. Some look toward the Veil, as if Willow might return at any moment and spare them from having to face themselves.

“I need the first fawn to volunteer,” I say but still, no one moves. The silence is fear, and I understand it more than I want to. To be sorted is to be seen.

A young fawn near the ferns takes half a step, then quickly steps back. Another lowers their head behind a crescent root. The meadow tightens around itself. The Shadow loves the kind of silence that keeps people feeling alone.

I am about to speak again when Ivy finally moves. Her gaze has not left the Veil in days, but now she turns her head toward Rosemary. Rosemary freezes.

“No,” she whispers before Ivy can say anything.

Ivy’s eyes soften, though exhaustion has hollowed the edges of her face.

“Rosemary,” she says.

“No.”

The word is sharper this time.

A few fawns look away, embarrassed for her. Snow looks at Rosemary, then at Ivy, then down at the moss.

Rosemary shakes her head, backing deeper into the ferns.

“I am not going first.”

Ivy does not step toward her. She only watches her youngest daughter with the kind of quiet love that makes no demands and somehow asks everything.

“You do not have to be ready,” Ivy says. “You only have to be brave enough to begin.”

“That’s easy to say,” she says, though her voice trembles. “Everyone keeps talking about bravery and light and the Hallow needing us, but Willow is still in there.”

Her eyes flash toward the Veil, “and you want me to stand in front of everyone and let Aurora and the fireflies decide what’s wrong with me?”

The meadow goes painfully still. I feel the sentence move through the crowd like a wound. I step down from the glimmer stone as the fireflies drift lower, following me.

“Rosemary,” I say gently, “nothing about this is meant to decide what is wrong with you.”

“Then why does it feel like that?”

Because truth often does at first… but I do not say this. Not yet. Instead, I look toward the Veil.

“Because the Shadow has taught us to fear being known.”

Rosemary’s breathing is quick. Her hooves press into the moss as if she might run.

“Your Order will not tell us what is wrong with you,” I say. “It will show us how your heart tries to protect what it loves.”

Rosemary looks at her mother.

Ivy gives the smallest nod.

Rosemary closes her eyes, mustering strength deep within herself, knowing that the only path is forward. Just like her mother and father, just like her sister Willow, she was raised to be a leader, and there’s no fighting that.

Rosemary exhales, then steps forward.

The entire Hallow watches as she leaves the ferns and walks to the glimmer stone.