Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 13 of 34

Ember Flameheart stepped ahead of the host and lifted one hand. Fire poured from her palm and hung in the air. Lumina braced for heat. She had seen fire burn the healthy forest before. But this flame did not scorch. It floated soft and gold, and the cold air around it grew still. Lumina reached toward the flame. Her fingers passed close, and she felt no sting. "It's warm," she said, "but it doesn't hurt." The fire touched her skin like sunlight through leaves. Her fear loosened. Around her, the starlit creatures stopped shivering. Their glowing bodies steadied under the light. Heart Solia knelt and pressed her palm to the ground. Leaves and yellow flowers trailed from her hair. "The fire knows where to go," she said. "Feel it, Lumina. It leans toward the deep." Lumina looked. The flame did lean. It bent low toward the frozen path, pointing the way like a finger through the dark. "Then we follow it," Lumina said. She raised her inner light to join Ember's flame. The two lights braided together, star and fire, and the darkness ahead pulled back. The host rose behind her. She heard their voices in her mind, calm now. We can walk this path. The fire lights what your stars could not. Ember smiled and walked forward. Her hair swept the frost and left a warm trail behind. "Stay close to me," she said. "The fire shows the road, but the road is long." Lumina and the host followed the gentle flame between the frozen trees. The path opened at last into a clearing of ice. Frozen branches clawed the air. In the center stood a dead tree wrapped in crystal, its bark split by a glowing crack. The cold poured from it in waves. This was the source Lumina had traced through the roots. The fire's light flickered here, thin and low, as if the place drank it. A shape moved inside the ice. A small figure stepped from the trunk. Frost coated her skin and antlers of bare branches rose from her head. Her blue eyes fixed on Lumina. "You brought fire to my grove," she said. Her voice cracked like breaking ice. "I am Iven Frostbark. This tree was mine once. Now the cold owns it, and it owns me." Lumina stopped. The gentle flame that had led her all this way bowed low and nearly went out against the frozen tree. Ember stepped back, her fire dim. "I can light the way here," Ember said, "but I cannot break that." Lumina understood. The fire had done its work. It had guided them true to the cold's heart. But the flame that soothed and led could not thaw this frozen tree, or free the spirit trapped inside it. She would need her own light, and a new plan, to face what waited in the ice.