Liora Glittering's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Liora Glittering held a lit match over the town's oldest tree, and no one moved to stop her. The tree stood tall, its broad leaves shivering in the wind. Liora wanted every corner of Glitterville to shimmer with her chaos. She had a rule, and the whole realm knew it. She could set fire to anything, because fire was her aesthetic. Ash made the best canvas for glitter. Barefoot in the grass, she grinned. Her toes sparkled. Enchanted glitter clung to her skin and trailed behind her like dust. "Watch," she said to no one. She touched the flame to the trunk. The tree caught fast. But this was no ordinary tree. Its leaves stung the air with poison as they burned. A hot, itching smoke rolled off the branches. Liora felt her arms prickle and blister. She stumbled back, coughing, eyes streaming. The smoke did not drift away. It spread. It rolled across the grass and swallowed the field. Wherever it touched, it stung. A spiral-shelled creature with a duck's bill and octopus legs scrambled from the roots. It fled the poison, tentacles slapping the dirt. Liora tried to scatter glitter over the flames, to make something beautiful from the mess. But the glitter caught in the smoke and turned gray. It fell dead to the ground. Her chaos would not shimmer here. She pressed her stinging hands to her chest. For the first time, her fire had made something ugly. The poison cloud climbed higher. It reached toward the edge of Glitterville, toward the homes and the market. A winged creature burst from the smoke, its spiral shell catching the light. It beat feathered wings hard and rose above the poison, fleeing the same as the other. Liora watched it climb. She understood then. She had not made art. She had made a spreading wound. She could not put the fire out. The tree burned too hot, and the smoke stung too much to approach. The cloud kept growing. It would reach the town by nightfall. Liora backed away from her rule and her flame. Her skin still burned where the smoke had touched it. She looked at her gray, ruined glitter in the grass. "That was not supposed to happen," she whispered. Her rule had a limit now. Some things, when burned, fought back. And this one was still spreading toward everything she wanted to make shine. She turned and ran for the town, blisters throbbing, to warn the others before the poison reached them.