Elara Greenwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The stairs fell away into black. Elara set one foot on the top step and felt cold air rise from below. She could not see the second step, or the third. One wrong move meant a long fall into the dark. She pulled her foot back. Daisy knelt at the edge, both hands still pressed to the parted roots. She would guide anyone through a tangle of roots without a second thought, but even she stared into the shaft with a tight jaw. "We can't climb blind," Daisy said. "No light. No rope." Elara reached for her healing gift, the same green glow she had used on the fawn. It flickered under her palm, then died. It mended wounds. It did not light stone. She let her hand drop. "Then we need light," Elara said. "Something that shines on its own." Daisy's eyes moved to the forest behind them. "The blue ones. They wake at night. They still glow when you hold them." She meant the moonlit butterflies that drifted through the brambles after dark. They searched the vine-wrapped fort at the forest's edge, where the brambles grew thick and old. Elara moved slow among the thorns. Then she saw it, folded on a leaf inside the fort's shadowed arch. A butterfly with wings of deep blue, each spot burning a soft, cold light. She cupped her hands around it. The glow pushed between her fingers. It did not fly. It rested against her skin and pulsed, brighter in the dark of her palms. "It won't stay," Daisy warned. "They never do." "Then we go now." They returned to the shaft. Elara opened her hands near the top step. The blue light spilled down the stone. She could see three steps. Then five. The butterfly clung to her wrist and shone. She went down. Daisy came behind, one hand on the wall. The steps curved. Each one appeared in the blue glow just before Elara's foot found it. The hum from below grew louder, a slow sound she felt in her teeth. The stairs ended. Elara stepped onto flat stone. The butterfly's light spread across a wide, dark space, and touched something ahead. Water. A still black pool stretched into the dark. A single narrow bridge crossed it, old wood with slim rails, arched over the water like a held breath. Across the bridge, the hum came from a shape she could not yet see. The butterfly's wings flared once, then dimmed. Its glow was fading. "Elara," Daisy whispered. "The light's dying. And I don't feel any roots down here. If it goes out, I can't find the way back up." Elara looked at the fading blue in her hands, then at the bridge waiting in the dark. They had reached the bottom. Now the light that carried them was running out.