Astral Chroma's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Astral woke before first bell and reached for her vial of dawn colors. The glass felt too light in her hand. She held it up to the window and her stomach dropped. Only a few drops remained at the bottom, barely enough to coat her brush once. The council demonstration was at sunrise, and she'd need enough dawn color to paint an entire sky. She grabbed her coat and ran to the viewing platform at the edge of the compound where she caught the dawn every morning. The sky was still dark, but she had maybe an hour before first light. Her collection shed sat behind the platform, its roof thick with ice. Inside, wooden crates held rows of glass vials—sunset oranges, midnight blues, storm grays—but the section for dawn colors showed only empty spaces. She'd used the last of her supply finishing her mother's portrait and hadn't collected more in three days. Astral pulled out the frosted bowl she used to trap the colors. It still held faint rainbow streaks from the last harvest, but the frost patterns were cracked and thin. She'd need to rebuild the capturing spell from scratch, and she only had one chance. If she missed the exact moment when the first light broke over the horizon, the colors would scatter and she'd have nothing for the demonstration. She sat on the platform and began painting containment runes directly onto the bowl's surface with her fingertip, using the last drops from her vial. The pre-dawn cold bit through her coat, but she kept working. When the sky finally shifted from black to deep purple, she held the bowl high and whispered the activation phrase. Gold and rose light poured into the glass like liquid, swirling and pooling at the bottom. She sealed it with a frost crystal before the colors could escape. The bowl felt warm in her hands now, heavy with enough dawn to paint a dozen skies. She'd done it—but her fingers were numb and the first bell would ring in minutes. She had no time left to practice before the council arrived.