Celeste Windwhisper's Arc

Chapter 9 of 14

By morning, the boy was gone. Celeste climbed to the treehouse perched in the oak's high branches and found his blanket folded square. The door swung in the wind. She called his name into the leaves and got only birdsong back. She climbed down to the trunk. There, beside his old carved wings, a new mark glowed bright. Vines of green light wrapped a purple stone, and at its center burned a yellow X. The shape pointed north, past the dome, past every patch of sky she had ever touched with paint. A folded letter sat tucked into the bark below it. His handwriting was loose and happy. "You don't need me to watch anymore. Others do now. Go paint the place I marked. I will see it from wherever I land." He had signed it with a small drawing of himself, arms thrown wide, wings open. Celeste pressed the letter to her chest. The blue-haired stranger stood at the base of the tree, silent, his red eyes on her. He did not ask to come. He only nodded once toward the glowing X. She wiped her face, lifted her wings, and rose. The mark burned behind her like a held breath. She did not know what waited at that unpainted place in the sky. But for the first time in seven years, she flew toward it without being the only one who knew where she was going.