Celeste Windwhisper's Arc

Chapter 13 of 14

Celeste rose from the stone, wings stiff, eyes fixed on the burning bloom above. The center still held, a deep red heart pulsing like a gem set into the sky. But the outer petals were already curling loose, drifting down in slow flakes of dark crimson. She had no time to fly for a crowd. The witnesses had to come to her, now. She turned to the red-winged girl. "Call them," Celeste said. "Anyone. However you can." The girl ran to a small vine-arched pavilion at the edge of the rise and struck a hanging chime. The sound spread out across the woods below, clear and long. Celeste lifted off again. She caught a falling petal in her hands — a wide, dissolving shape of black-edged red, breaking apart at her touch. She could not save it. She climbed higher and shielded the bloom's heart with her own body, sweeping her wings to push the loose air away from the center. Below, shapes appeared on the slope. The blue-haired stranger was already there, pointing upward, and behind him others climbed the bridge of light before it could fade. Ten, then twenty faces tilted up. A woman dropped to her knees. A child cried out. Celeste heard the sound she had waited seven years to hear — not praise, but the sharp, soft gasp of someone seeing. The outer petals were gone. Only the burning heart remained, fixed and bright above them. It would hold. She had not saved the whole painting. But she was no longer the only one who had seen it.