There was a window in the manor no one ever touched.
It was set high in the east wing, half-shielded by overgrown ivy and tucked between aging stone columns. Unlike the other windows—gilded with colored glass or embroidered curtains—this one was bare. No frame. No glass. Just an empty, arched space that opened directly into the wind.
Elowen first saw it the morning after the stars.
She was following Amara through the hallway, still sleepy, her braid half-undone, when something cold brushed her cheek. Not a draft. Not quite. It felt like… memory. Like the air carried a story it had never finished telling.
"What's that?" she asked, pausing mid-step.
Amara turned and followed her gaze. "The window with no glass."
"Why is it open?"
"No one knows," Amara said, walking toward it slowly. "It's always been that way. Even when the rest of the manor was repaired and sealed up for the winter."
Elowen approached it. The stone around the window was carved with swirls—some faded, some sharp as if time hadn't dared to erode them.
She leaned closer. "It feels like it's watching."
Amara laughed gently. "Everyone says that."
But Elowen wasn't joking.
There was something about the space. The way it framed the trees below and the sky above. It felt like a doorway. Not to another room, but to something deeper. Something half-forgotten.
Amara stepped up beside her, their shoulders brushing.
"My sister used to sit here," she said. "She called it her 'listening place.' Said if you sat still long enough, you could hear what the world wasn't saying out loud."
Elowen glanced sideways. "Did she ever tell you what she heard?"
Amara looked down. "Only once. She said the silence had her name in it."
Elowen's fingers touched the edge of the stone. It was cool and a little rough. She imagined a small girl—barefoot and wild-haired—perched here with wide eyes, trying to understand a world that already seemed too loud.
"I think I'd like to listen too," Elowen said.
Amara smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You can. But be warned. It's not always peaceful. Sometimes it reminds you of things you didn't mean to forget."
So they sat.
Not side by side this time, but close—facing outward. The wind slipped through the window like it belonged there, dancing through their hair and tugging at the edge of their sleeves.
And the silence was... full.
Birds chirped somewhere far below. Leaves rustled. But within that space, Elowen felt something more.
She couldn't explain it, not exactly.
It felt like pages turning in a book she hadn't started yet.
She closed her eyes.
And listened.
She didn't hear words. But she felt things. The ache in Amara's voice. The echo of laughter that didn't belong to her. The pulse of something just outside memory's reach.
She opened her eyes slowly.
"I think," she said quietly, "this place remembers her."
Amara nodded. "I think so too."
They sat a little longer, letting the wind thread through their silence.
Eventually, Amara spoke again, voice low. "I used to be angry. Not just at her. At the world. At myself. I thought if I loved hard enough, people would stay."
Elowen reached for her hand. "That's not a flaw."
"It felt like one," Amara whispered. "Still does, sometimes."
Elowen turned to her. "You stayed. Even after the forgetting. Even after the grief. That's love, Amara. The kind most people run from."
Amara's lips trembled, just a little.
"You see me too clearly," she said.
"No," Elowen replied. "I see you right."
For a while, they didn't speak. But something passed between them. A tenderness, heavy and invisible, that settled like soft moss over broken stone.
When they finally rose, Amara touched the edge of the window one more time. "I don't know why there's no glass," she said.
Elowen smiled gently. "Maybe it was never meant to be closed."
And as they walked back down the corridor—shoulder to shoulder, steps in rhythm—the light from the window stretched behind them, following them like a quiet vow.