Echo's Arc

Chapter 2 of 1

Morning light filled the cottage. Echo knelt on the wooden floor and tried again. He had a roof now, and walls, and the quiet he needed. He closed his eyes and pulled at the starlight scattered through his body. The stars under his skin brightened. He reached for them, gathered them, pushed them toward flesh he could keep. It worked. For one breath his hand felt solid, heavy, real. Then the light poured out of him like water from a cracked cup. His stars flared white, too bright, and drained him with them. Cold rushed in behind the glow. His arms shook. He could not hold it. "Slow down," Celestra said from the doorway. Echo tried to answer. His mouth would not form the words. The room tilted. His stars dimmed to almost nothing, and he pitched sideways onto the floor. He woke on her couch. A blanket lay over him. His head rested on something soft. The bitter smell of crushed leaves filled his nose. Celestra sat beside him. In her lap lay a cluster of herbs, thyme and lavender bound with rough string. She worked a few sprigs between her fingers, then pressed the paste to his temples. Her touch was cool and steady. "You burned too fast," she said. "You can't spend everything at once. Breathe with me." Echo breathed. The tightness in his chest loosened. His stars steadied, still faint, but no longer flickering toward dark. He watched her small hands work. She did not flinch at the blue of his skin or the light beneath it. She only frowned in concentration, the way a healer frowns over a wound. "Your light was leaking out," she said. "So I caught it." She lifted a chain from the table. A crystal vial hung from it. Inside, a blue cloud of his starlight swirled with threads of gold and silver, sealed under a small cork. It turned slowly, alive, a piece of him held safe in glass. "How?" Echo asked. His voice came rough. "I have a little magic of my own." She closed his fingers around the vial. "When you spend too much, draw from this. It will hold what you can't. So you don't fall again." Echo stared at the vial in his hand. She had not only sheltered him. She had found the answer he could not find alone. A place to keep his light while he learned to hold his form. He looked up at her. Her white curls fell loose around her face. Her blue eyes waited, patient. A smile broke across his face, and the whole grave weight of him fell away. "Starlight," he said. "That's what you are. My Starlight." Color rose in her pale cheeks. She looked down at the herbs in her lap and said nothing. Echo slipped the chain over his head. The vial settled against his chest, warm. For the first time, he could practice without fear of collapse. But every drop he stored was a piece of himself now hanging at another's throat.