Lovely CareFree's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The bats came back screaming. Lovely stood in her entry room and watched them streak over the water. Behind them, low on the waves, rolled a wall of orange fire. The rival's flames had followed her messengers home. They reached her sand. They climbed toward her willow, the one tree that held her power. Its glass leaves ticked and hissed in the heat. Lovely ran to the tree. She threw her arms around the trunk. The nearest leaves already glowed red at the edges. If they melted, her voice melted with them. She had no way to fight fire. Her hands made love and light, not war. The flames crawled up the sand and licked the lowest branches. Out of the surf rose a long, shining body. A sea guardian lifted its dragon face above the flames. Scales flashed blue and rose and gold. On its back clung small hatchlings, and it spread wide fins to shield them. It had carried a passenger across the water. A slight woman leapt down onto the burning sand. Flowers and leaves made her dress. Her ears came to points, and her golden eyes found Lovely at once. "You're the goddess whose leaves we hang over our doors," she said. Her feet pressed the smoking sand without fear. "My people carried your words village to village. I came to carry you." "I can't cross," Lovely said. "The shore pulls me back." "You can't cross alone." Lyra Petalwind reached into her dress and drew out two glass wands shaped like candles. One burned warm gold, one soft violet. "A mortal made these. She wanted you to have light that fights back. Take one. I'll hold the other." Lovely took the gold wand. Warmth ran up her arm, steady and kind. The rival's fire was hungry and cruel. This fire was not. It was the small flame people light for someone they love. Lovely understood then. The rival stole mortals with fear. Lovely could not beat fear with more fear. She could only offer the other thing. She faced the flames climbing her willow. She did not push them back. She raised the wand and let its light spread. The gold flame touched the rival's fire, and the red went soft. Beside her, Lyra lifted the violet wand. Two calm lights met one angry one. The rival's fire did not die. It changed. The orange cooled to a gentle glow that no longer burned. A voice rolled off the water, furious, a woman's voice Lovely had never heard. "They are mine. They forgot you." The flames surged one last time. "They remember now," Lovely said. She stepped forward. Her foot left her own sand and pressed the wet line where water met shore. The pull came. It always came. But Lyra's hand closed around hers, part mortal, and held her steady. For the first time Lovely crossed her own tide line. She did not fall back. A mortal's touch anchored her where her power alone never could. The rival's fire broke apart on the waves. The angry voice thinned and was gone. The sea guardian dipped its head. Its hatchlings chirped. Lovely looked back at her willow. The glass leaves hung whole, only warm now, ringing softly in the wind. They did not stop at the shore. Lyra led her across the water on the guardian's back, and Lovely let herself be carried. In the village the burned doorframes still stood bare. Lovely walked among the mortals and hung new leaves with her own hands. Villagers reached out and touched her blue skin, her braided hair, her tail, and did not turn away. A child asked her name. She gave it. The child said it back. Verdis found her there at dusk, green and grinning, and did not have to swim to reach her. "You crossed," he said. She only smiled and took his hand across the sand she could finally stand on. In the seasons after, Lovely never sat alone again. She built a wide hearth ring of glass stools and warm blankets, and it was always full. Mortals and gods came to sit by her fire. Lyra's people carried her leaves to every village that would hang them. Verdis stayed. Children ran between the palace and the mortal shore, some hers, some come to be hers. The rival's name faded from mortal mouths, and Lovely's rose in its place, spoken not from fear but from love. She had wanted the throne her mother lost, and a full house, and a world that made happiness ordinary. She sat on that throne now with a child on her knee and the sea guardian's hatchlings sleeping at her feet, and it was ordinary at last.