She was thirteen when it happened.
The harvest festival had come; the village danced beneath paper lanterns strung like stars. Wine flowed freely. Laughter echoed through the fields. Children chased fireflies while the elders sang, but Luxia-dressed in a plain grey dress that clung too tightly to her frame- sat alone by the wall, watching the sky with distant eyes.
She did not dance. She didn't speak.
She only watched.
That's when Gerren, the blacksmith's eldest son, approached. Seventeen, tall, thick-armed, cruel behind the grin he wore. He'd looked at her for years, sometimes whistling when she passed, sometimes whispering filth to his friends when she bends to pick herbs by the riverbank,
"You think you're better than us?" he said, half drunk, the smell of ale sour in the air.
Luxia did not answer. She never did.
He stepped closer." You think you're pure? You think silence makes you holy?"
Still, she didn't move.
Then his hands were on her.
It happened fast, too fast for anyone to see in the dark corner behind the grain shed, He pushed her against the wooden wall and presses his mouth against hers. She struggled, but he was too strong. Her fingers clawed at his arm. Her eyes were wide, not with fear, but rage. The kind of rage that sinks into bone.
She made no sound.
And somehow, that only seemed to excite him more.
He lifted her dress.
And then a lantern shattered somewhere nearby. The air turned cold.
Luxia's eyes glowed silver in the moonlight, for a moment, Gerren froze, his breath caught in his throat.
Then the crow screamed.
From above, it drove-talons slashing across his cheek, beak pecking, features blinding.
He roared and fell back, hands to his face, blood dripping from his cheeks.
Luxia ran, barefoot, tears stinging her eyes though she made no noise. The crow followed behind her, wingbeats like the rush of vengeance.
She didn't tell Mira. She couln.t.
But Mira knew. She saw her the torn dress. The bruises on her thighs, The blood on her hands from where she'd clawed to bark to stay upright.
That night, Mira wept alone by the fire, Luxia sat beside her, staring into the flames,
She still hasn't spoken.
But something inside her has changed.
Not broken- hardened.
The next day, Gerren claimed he'd fallen into brambles. That a wild bird had startled him. No one questioned it.
No one asked why Luxia walked barefoot through the market with dried blood on her hem.
They looked away.
They always did.
But the crow perched on the chapel roof that day, glaring down at every man who stared too long.
and Luxia???
She began visiting the forest's edge.
She was not afraid anymore.
she was waiting.