Lucien Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The merchant hall stood old and quiet above them, its stone walls thick with age. Lucien and Kieran climbed down the cellar stairs together. At the bottom, the dark waited like water. Lucien lifted his palm and called his light. A white orb bloomed, then shrank. Something in this room drank it. He fed it more. The glow held only a small ring around them. "That's not right," Kieran whispered. He struck a blue spark on his fingers. The dark ate that too. "Stay close." Lucien pushed harder. Sweat cooled on his neck. Beyond the ring, tall storage shelves loomed, packed with chests and hanging cloths. The cloths swayed though no air moved. Then he saw it. A small shape crouched between two shelves. It had a sly, hunched silhouette, and the darkness poured off it like smoke. When it turned, its pale eyes caught his light and swallowed it. His orb guttered to a coal. "There," Lucien breathed. His voice barely worked. The goblin darted left, then right, feeding on every flicker. Kieran spun. "Which way? Talk to me!" His spark flared and died. Panic edged his grin. The dark closed in until Lucien could not see Kieran's face, only feel his shoulder shaking against his own. Lucien's throat locked. He could not shout directions. He could not name the goblin's moves fast enough. Words failed him, as they always did. But light did not. He remembered the guild hall. Kieran had spoken to him in light when speech was too much. Lucien could answer the same way now. He stopped fighting the dark. He let his glow drop to almost nothing, one thin thread in his cupped hand. Then he flicked it. A bright pulse shot right, toward the shelves. Kieran's head snapped that way. Lucien pulsed again, sharp and clear. A signal. There. Kieran understood. "Got it," he said. Lucien flared the thread wide, a sudden burst that made the goblin flinch and freeze in the open. In that half second, Kieran threw both hands forward. Lightning cracked across the cellar. Blue light forked into the frozen shape. The goblin shrieked. Its darkness burst apart like torn cloth. The pressure lifted all at once. Lucien's light surged back, filling the room, spilling over the crates and the swaying cloths that now hung still. They stood blinking in the sudden brightness. Kieran laughed, breathless. "You told me exactly where. Without a single word." Lucien's chest heaved. He looked at his own steady glow, then at Kieran's face, lit and grinning close to his. Heat rose in his cheeks. Then his light caught something the goblin had guarded. Behind the shelves, a dark flower grew from the stone. Its petals drank the glow the same way the creature had. It was not alone here. Something had planted it. And whatever wanted this darkness would notice its little guardian was gone.