Brighthearts By Teresa Hearn
Romantasy Short Story Challenge 2026
8th Place
Teresa Hearn
Brighthearts
SYNOPSIS: Harlan has mastered the art of vanishing. There’s just one problem; In her haste to escape her father’s plans, she didn’t learn how to undo the spell. Lowell is the only person who can see her. Together, they set off to heal what is broken, relying on each other to recover parts of themselves they didn’t know were missing.
Trigger Warnings: Mild mention of loss/grief, very mild mention of spousal abuse.
“I disappeared ten days ago,” Harlan Grey whispered to the alders as she wound through their slender trunks, delving deeper into the forest away from Covenwood. “I made myself invisible.” The trees bowed toward her magic, though they gave no other acknowledgement of her presence. “I’m not going back,” she said, louder this time in case their rustling leaves carried news of her passage to Father and the man he’d promised her to.
She envisioned what her fate could have been if she hadn’t disappeared. A life dedicated to a stranger, her soul bound to another’s forever. The threat of marriage was a thick rope coiling around her chest, constricting her airways as panic set in. Breathe. You’re free. Though, not free in the way she’d hoped. She tried to braid the frayed edges of her image together, cursing when she remained invisible.
***
The trees dwindled, surrendering to vivid, blue ether and verdant farmland. Covenwood was a city woven into the forest; the sky there was a protective canopy of leaves. Here, the heavens bore down, swallowing her whole.
Squat, alabaster houses peppered the hillside; the coastline sprayed sea salt at their backs. Harlan’s stomach growled at the scent of roasted meat. She crossed the village’s stone entryway on a breeze, delirious from hunger. She fought against the flood of people bustling in the square, worried someone would touch her and see nothing there. She soon realized everyone was too busy to care.
The real struggle was speaking to the merchants. “Excuse me, sir?” An elderly farmer stared straight through her, searching fruitlessly for the source of her voice. “I don’t have money, but–” “No money, no deal!” The man swatted low, assuming the village children were begging for scraps. Harlan retreated, reaching for a morsel at another booth, dismayed to be reduced to stealing.
“Can I help you?” someone said. She looked up to see honey-brown eyes piercing into her own. That’s impossible. He’s talking to someone else. Heart thundering in her chest, Harlan stepped aside, testing the merchant’s perception. His gaze followed, drifting to the fruit clutched between her fingers.
“You can’t see me,” she breathed, stepping back. There was fire in his eyes as his fingers folded around her outstretched wrist. His grip was firm, though painless as he tugged Harlan closer. She dropped the fruit, near enough now to see tiny flecks of silver in his irises.
Dark hair swept across his rugged face. “You’re like a damned firefly,” he rumbled. “How could I not see you?”
“Lowell! Get to work!” He loosened his grip, distracted by the other. She bolted, fleeing without a glance backward.
***
“You aren’t from Rosden,” a velvet voice called as Harlan tucked herself into a barn at the village’s outskirts. “Our blessing is teleportation. Helps us keep up with the cattle.” Lowell stepped out of the shadows.
“How…the blessed hell…can you see me?!” she panted, still breathless from running. “Everyone has an aura. Yours is on fire.” His expression was alarmed, as if Harlan might indeed scorch him. “Where are you from?”
“Coraton,” she lied. Lowell studied her, doubt glimmering in his warm eyes.
“Vanishing isn’t a Coraton blessing,” he noted, brow raised. It wasn’t a Covenwood blessing, either. Theirs was akin to weaving, stitching strands of magic together to heal. Harlan found disappearing to be the opposite. Day by day she had discarded threads of herself, slowly peeling a tapestry of magic apart until she was unobservable. No one had noticed as she faded.
“You might want to get your story straight when you’re visible again.” He examined his fingernails, exuding nonchalance. Harlan bit her lip, cheeks burning.
“You don’t know how.” He laughed, the sound rich and melodic. “I thought maybe you were from the Vanishing Isles, but I’ve never heard of a Vanisher who couldn’t reappear.” True to the name, the spellbinders of the Vanishing Isles were blessed with invisibility. They kept the Isles hidden from outsiders.
“One last question, Firefly,” Lowell’s grin was devilish.
She rolled her eyes. “My name is Harlan.”
“Alright, Harlan,” he purred. “Are you ready for the journey?”
“What journey?”
Lowell shrugged. “To the Vanishing Isles. To fix your…predicament.”
“That’s impossible. I’m not a Vanisher.” Only those born in the Isles could get there. “And teleportation blessings won’t work.” She eyed him, worried he’d try to transport her there and get them both caught in the ether, instead.
“Don’t worry. I know a guy.” Lowell winked. He snapped his fingers, materializing a plate of cured meat. “Eat, rest. Go to the docks tomorrow morning.”
***
“You’re kidding me. You’re the guy?” She stood on the docks, frowning at the azure water stretching across the horizon. Lowell leaned against the gunwale of a small ferry boat. “Excited to ditch me already, Firefly?” he asked, grinning. “Let me help you aboard.” The side of the boat was freshly painted, the name Brightheart glistening in the sunlight. The scent of pomegranate and warm spices spilled over her as he stepped closer, hands hovering over her hips. “May I?”
She nodded. He hoisted her up, planting her feet on deck in one swift motion. His hands rested at her sides. Harlan’s stomach performed somersaults. “Thank you,” she breathed. His smile lost its cockiness, turning genuine. “You’re welcome.”
***
Lowell navigated while Harlan tried again to undo the vanishing spell. She gave in to hopelessness by the dying light of sunset, joining him as he scanned the burnt orange horizon. “What’s Brightheart?” she asked.
His eyes flicked toward her, sending her heart skittering. “Brighthearts are those with exceptionally vivid auras. Most can’t see them.”
“How can you?” According to him, her aura was on fire. Did he think she was a Brightheart? “I don’t know.” He winced, as if there was something more he wanted to say but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t? He spoke again before she could ask. “Why did you perform the vanishing spell if you’re not from the Isles?”
The soft plunk of ocean water lapping at the boat was the only sound between them for a moment. “I had to escape,” she said at last.
“I spent my childhood watching my mother submit to my father. The laws of marriage kept her trapped even when he grew violent. I’ll never tie myself to another person like that. It terrifies me.” Her voice became ragged as anxiety took her by the throat. “When my father agreed to marry me to a suitor, I thought if I could just disappear, I’d be safe.”
“The spell demanded payment. I loved to paint, so I sacrificed the skill. I could sing; that went next. My final offering was the memory of my mother’s death.” She couldn’t breathe past the awful truth of it. It crouched inside her ribcage, stretching the tears in her soul.
“I erased myself,” her voice cracked. Passion, joy, pain, grief; she’d robbed herself of it all, dismantling pillars of her existence without realizing it.
“You’re still here, Harlan.” Her name was brilliant on his lips. “You are a painting, a song, a memory that can be found again. You are all of it and more.”
“How do you know?” She looked at the speckles of silver gleaming in his eyes, wondering if she could count each one. Perhaps, if she had time.
He swept tears from her cheeks. “Because I see you, Firefly.”
***
Lowell hadn’t told Harlan the whole truth. The truth was that Brighthearts were kindred spirits blessed with sight. Only true soulmates could see each other’s auras. Hers was nearly blinding to him. He didn’t know how to tell her without scaring her away.
She was so terrified of binding herself to another that she couldn’t see his aura. It blazed white hot, roaring in the hearth of his chest for her alone. The gaps in her soul echoed his own. He knew what it was like to destroy oneself to survive.
Fog rolled across the surface of the ocean as he held her close. Their auras rippled in the mist, dancing together, enveloping the Brightheart in an incandescent, golden haze. “We’re here,” he said. I’m home.
***
“Keep very still,” he whispered, “don’t panic.” She stiffened in his arms.
“What do you mean don’t pan–” A great serpent rose from the parting water ahead. The color in Harlan’s face drained as it stretched above them.
“Outsiders may not pass,” the ophidian said, its melodic voice resounding through Lowell’s skull. “Who approaches the Vanishing Isles?”
“My name is Lowell Vane,” he said, voice slicing through the mist.
The serpent hissed. “Lost child of the Isles, why have you returned?”
“We’ve come to make Harlan visible again,” he said. “To restore her memories and gifts.” “She has performed magic outside of her blessing. The cost for such things is steep,” the serpent replied. “She has nothing left to offer.”
“No,” he said, gritting his teeth, “But I do.”
Harlan whirled. “You can’t,” she pleaded.
“Don’t worry,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Whatever it takes, it can be undone.” “She cannot give you what you seek,” the serpent interrupted. He bared his teeth. It assumed he wanted a bride. He sought more than that.
“Take what you must,” he said.
“No!” Harlan yelled, reaching for him.
The silver flecks in his eyes began to expand, devouring the brown. The world dimmed, black clouds invaded his vision as he tried to blink them away. The glow of her aura was a flare in the darkness, the last wisps of her image fading into nothingness with the rest.
***
Harlan stayed by Lowell’s side, helping him learn to navigate the world unseeing. It took a long time to forgive him for what he’d done without her approval, to forgive herself for letting it happen. It was unfair that the only person who had been able to see her was now the one person who couldn’t. Try as she might, she was unable to clear the clouds shrouding his irises.
At first, the resurfaced memory of her mother’s death was a vibrant, gushing wound. It demanded attention. Lowell held her through the tears, the guilt. I still see you, Firefly. As the years unraveled, the grief became a thread stitched carefully throughout the fabric of her story. Always there, always vital. Though she regained her ability to paint and sing, she was a different person. She pitied the girl who had shattered herself to be free.
Lowell told her the story of how he’d come to Rosden, searching for a life beyond the mists of the Vanishing Isles. He’d been stripped of his blessing as punishment for leaving. Slowly, he learned the teleportation blessing and rebuilt himself.
She watched now as he rocked in a chair next to hers. His face was aged, though he glowed more fiercely than the hottest flames in their chimney. His light had grown throughout the years. It started as an ember; now it was a blaze in the night, a beacon she followed home when she was lost.
Harlan was whole with Lowell. She would stand with him against all forces, and he would her. Isn’t that what marriage should be? She smiled ruefully. After all these years, here was another thing she’d taken from herself without realizing it. Her fear seemed so small in the warmth of his light. “Lowell?”
“Hmm?” He turned, searching for her. Harlan recalled wanting to count the flecks in his eyes. Now that she had time to do so, silver was the only color there.
“Did you ever think of marrying?” she asked.
“Every second since meeting you,” his smile was as brilliant as ever.
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“I knew you’d say no,” he chuckled.
She took his wrinkled hand into her own. “Will you marry me, Lowell Vane?” “Yes, Firefly,” he said, “I will marry you.”
The milky gray of his irises began to fade, yielding to honey-brown for the first time in decades. “There you are,” he beamed, seeing her again at last.
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