The sun rose early over the Dragonspine Mountains, casting its golden light across the forested valleys below. Birds screamed, warnings piercing the trees. Dry wind twisted through the cedars. The sky stretched cloudless.

At the edge of the old world, Artin stood barefoot in the dewy grass, staring at the horizon where darkness should have been. But there was none. Only the sun, brighter than it should be, locked in place as though it had forgotten how to move. The shadows at her feet were wrong—short, unnatural, stunted, as if the day refused to turn.

Something had broken.

“When the sun hangs too long,” Father warned, “the Wyrd have taken notice,” he’d said once, voice low with wine and worry. “The old agreements don’t hold when the sky won’t sleep.”

He was dead now. Had been for five winters. Still, she remembered his face: a grimace like stone, eyes full of secrets, mouth always half-full of prophecy.

Artin turned back to the cabin, the small one tucked in the roots of the hill, moss creeping up its bones. Inside, the air hung thick. Her twin Jandar lay on the cot, breath shallow, skin hot and damp with sweat. He hadn’t woken in a day. She wiped his brow again with the last clean cloth.

Outside, the light did not fade.

Near noon, the birds went quiet.

By mid-afternoon, the flowers closed and refused to open again.

At dusk—though there was no dusk—Artin stepped into the treeline with a satchel on her back, a knife at her belt, and Father’s old bone talisman hanging around her neck. The silence of the woods swallowed her.

The forest didn’t sleep. It watched.

She followed the river upstream, trusting memories of childhood hunts. Her destination, the Wyrd Stone. A standing pillar deep in the wood, carved with symbols and swirls that shimmered with moonlight—when there was moonlight. She hadn’t been there in years, not since the Pact Keepers died or vanished or went mad. But her feet remembered the way.

The Wyrd Stone marked the border between the world of men and the half-place—the space where one took oaths that they mostly kept. Where gods listened. Where one could still bargain with them, if one dared.

She dared. Jandar was dying. The sun would not set. Father’s old stories warned one could bargain for time, but it came with a price.

She found the first signs of wrongness past the fallen elm: moss climbing the wrong side of the bark, insects frozen in webs that hadn’t moved in hours. A stag watched her from the undergrowth, not moving, eyes milky with silver. She didn’t blink. Neither did it.

She walked past.

By the time she reached the Wyrd Stone, the sky hummed—a low pressure behind her ears. The stone still stood, tall and pale in the endless light, its markings pulsing faintly, like something remembering how to breathe.

She fell to her knees before it.

“I am Artin of Staghorn,” she said, voice cracking. “Blood of Kieren the Pact Bound. I call the Wyrd to witness.”

The stone did not respond.

She took the talisman from her neck. Bone, carved with the symbol of an eye within a spiral, strung on a leather thong. Father wore it every day, saying it helped him remember the rules of the world.

She pressed it to the stone.

The air changed. A breeze stirred. The forest hissed.

A shadow peeled itself from the stone, elongated and willowy, its face shifting like smoke caught in a jar. When it spoke, it did so without breath.

“You call us,” it said. “On the Longest Day.”

Artin nodded once. “The sun has stopped. My brother is dying. The world won’t turn.”

“Time has not stopped. Only changed.” The Wyrd tilted its head. “You mortals suffer when the patterns slip.”

“We live by those patterns,” she said. “We need the sun to set.”

“There is a price.”

“There’s always a price,” she snarled.

“You must give what cannot be taken.” The Wyrd’s voice softened.

She felt the weight of her satchel—bread, charm, Father’s old blade. Nothing of value here. Nothing the Wyrd wanted.

“What do you want?” she croaked.

“The gods remember the First Fire.” The Wyrd turned its head toward the endless light. “Before sun and moon, before turning skies. That fire burns still—beneath your heart. Would you give it?”

“My life?” Her chest tightened.

“No. Your day.”

“What does that mean?” Artin frowned.

“Your longest day. One you have not yet lived. A day of joy; day of love; a day of peace. We will take it from your fate, and in return—this one shall end.”

The idea stabbed her. Somewhere in her future, a perfect day waited. And she would never see it. Not know its taste, its scent, its shape. She would wake someday, thinking it might come—and it never would.

But Jandar would live. The world would right itself.

She bowed her head.

“Take it.”

The Wyrd touched her brow with a finger of smoke.

The world blinked.

The sun moved.

It slid, slowly at first, then faster, plunging toward the edge of the world. Shadows lengthened like exhalations. The birds sang again, tentative and strange. Somewhere behind her, a flower opened.

Artin dropped to her knees.

The Wyrd was gone.

She ran back through the forest, each step pounding with unfamiliar weight. The trees seemed softer, the air sweeter. But something inside her had dimmed. A glow, unseen, unspent, was gone.

She found Jandar sitting up when she returned, color in his cheeks, drinking water like a parched man.

He smiled when he saw her.

She smiled back.

She never told him what happened.

That night, the stars returned. The moon rose.

And somewhere far in Ardin’s future, the perfect day dissipated like mist.