Lumi Sparklewind's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The troll was gone, but the heart-tree paid for it. Lumi flew to it at dawn with her butterfly trailing behind. The great trunk had gone gray. Its leaves hung dry and curled. She pressed both hands to the bark and pushed her own magic in. The tree drank it, then went still again. She had no more to give. Feed it too fast and she would kill it. Do nothing and it would die anyway. She sank to the roots and did not know which mistake to make. "You're pouring water into a broken cup," a voice said. "It runs right out." Lumi turned. A boy stood among the ferns, dark-haired, a blue cloak clasped at his throat. He was her own height, not a fairy she knew. The air had shifted around him, thick and warm, like the moment before rain. Her breath caught, but she felt no fear. He smiled as if he already knew her. "I'm Gavin Moonbeam," he said. "Sidhe. I felt this forest's magic from under the hills. Then I felt it fading." He crouched by the roots. "You're feeding it your strength. That's the wrong strength." "It's all I have," Lumi said. "No." He nodded at the tree behind her, the old one deeper in the forest, its bark carved with runes that had glowed since before her grandmother was born. "That tree remembers how magic used to move here. Roots talk to roots underground. Bring this dying one what that old one holds, and it won't need your blood." Lumi's heart lifted, then sank. "I can't carry magic between two trees." "You can't." Gavin's eyes went to the butterfly hovering at her shoulder. "But that can. It spread your power once. Let it carry the old tree's power instead." She understood. Her butterfly had flooded the forest before, wild and uncontrolled. This time she would aim it. She flew to the ancient rune-carved tree and set the butterfly on its bark. The runes flared gold. The butterfly's wings filled with that old light, deep and steady, not her own thin spark. "Now," Gavin said. "Slow. Let it drip." Lumi led the butterfly back and touched it to the heart-tree's roots. Light seeped from its wings into the gray bark. She held it there, breathing, keeping the flow thin. The trunk warmed. One branch stirred. A single bud swelled and opened. Its petals glowed with soft orange-gold at the edges. "Almostjoy," Lumi whispered. She had not seen that color since the first brown leaf. The heart-tree lived. But only one bud had opened, and the old rune-tree's light had already dimmed where the butterfly drank. Gavin watched it fade and frowned. "That well isn't bottomless," he said. "You saved the tree tonight. But you're spending the oldest magic in this forest to do it. Something older than me is going to notice."