Celestia Moonweaver's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Celestia Moonweaver had one night to catch the full moon, and her ceiling stole every ray. She knelt on the plank floor of her tree-grown home, chalk in hand, and drew the spell circle her mother had forbidden. The spell bound moonlight into a blade. A blade sharp enough to cut a curse. Celestia needed that blade. But the spell fed on raw moonlight, and moonlight could not reach her here. She looked up. Thick branches wove across the roof beams. Leaves choked the single window. The moon hung somewhere above, swollen and full, and not one beam touched her circle. On the sill, her owl shifted its weight. Its plumage glittered like a scrap of night sky torn loose. It watched her with bright, patient eyes. "I know," Celestia told it. "There's no room. There's never any room." She tried to open the window wider. The frame stuck fast. Roots had swallowed the latch years ago. She shoved with both palms until her arms shook. The window gave a finger's width, then jammed. A thin bar of moonlight fell across the floorboards, far from the circle. Useless. Celestia sat back and pressed her hands to her eyes. The full moon came once. Miss it, and she waited a month. A month her cursed sister did not have. The owl launched from the sill. It struck the leafy window with both talons. Leaves tore. It struck again, ripping a gap in the green. Celestia stared, then understood. The problem was not the window. The problem was the roof. She grabbed the ladder and climbed to the loft. Above her, branches knotted tight as a fist. But between two thick limbs ran a seam of younger growth. A living vine threaded through it, pale blossoms glowing along its length like small moons. The vine had grown where sunlight and moonlight leaked through. Where the vine grew, the roof was thin. Celestia pulled her knife. She cut the vine free and eased the loosened branches apart with her shoulder. They groaned, then swung wide. The full moon poured down, cold and white, straight through the gap. The blossoms in her hand drank the light and burned brighter. She carried the glowing vine down the ladder. She laid it in a ring around her chalk circle. Now moonlight fell clean onto the lines, and the blossoms held it there. Celestia raised her hands and spoke the forbidden words. Light rose from the circle. It thickened, thinned, and drew itself into a slim blade of white fire hovering above her palms. The blade was real. She had done it. Then the fire flared too hot. The blade twisted, wild in her grip, and the chalk lines began to smoke. The owl screamed. Celestia realized she knew how to call the blade. She did not know how to hold it, and now it was loose in her home.