Cinn's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Cinn kept her seat, but the creature of light never left her side. Luminance hung at her shoulder day and night, counting, watching. Her bonded bird followed too, a rare pale wispwing that no other shaman owned. Everywhere she walked, the elders saw the thing they had hidden, now bound to her. They would not trust a shaman tied to it. She needed to break that chain before it broke her seat. So she went looking for the one man who had carried Luminance first. She found him outside a cave warmed by a low fire, bundled in a patched grey robe. Ezra Calloway had seen Luminance long before the shamans did, back when the whole village pretended it wasn't there. His pale eyes glowed faint blue, like the old wisdom tree. He did not stand when Cinn approached. He only looked at the ball of stars drifting behind her. "You carry it now," Ezra said. "It was mine first." Cinn knelt by his fire. "Tell me how the bond works. I need to understand it." Ezra was quiet a long moment. "It bonds to the one who sees it true. You named it. So it anchored to you." He fed a stick to the flames. "You are not the only one hiding a bond." Cinn went still. "Who else." "The highest shamans. The twins." He said it plain, without weight. "Ember and Cinder bonded the rainbow-eyed pandas years ago. Before they took the fire seat. They think no one knows." His glowing eyes lifted to her. "Once you are bonded, you can see other bonds. They forget that. The twins knew I was bonded. I know what they hide." Cinn turned the fact over. The two shamans who judged her hardest hid the same secret she carried. That changed the ground under her feet. She looked at Luminance, then at the bird perched near her braid. Both trailed her like smoke. As long as they followed, the elders would stare at the creature, not her work. "I need room to think," she said. "Room they can't watch." She faced Ezra. "Will you keep Luminance here. Just for a while. It knew you first. It trusted you before anyone." Ezra studied the entity. Luminance drifted toward him, slow, its stars dimming soft. For the first time its counting seemed to pause. "It was lonely with me too," Ezra said. "We can be lonely together." He held out one thin hand. "Leave it. Go." Luminance settled beside the fire, close to its first friend. "I will still feel you," it told Cinn. "The anchor does not break." "I know," Cinn said. "But they won't see you on me now." She left the cave with only her bird. The light stayed behind. For the first time in weeks, no stars watched her back. And she carried a new weapon now, the twins' buried secret, heavier than any tablet.