Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 14 of 34

The gentle fire bowed low against the frozen tree and nearly died. Lumina looked at Iven Frostbark, the frost spirit standing in the ice. Antlers of bare branch rose from her small head. Blue eyes stared, hard and cold. Behind Lumina, the starlit host waited. Their glowing bodies dimmed in the cold. Lumina raised her hands to the crystal tree. She pushed her inner light into the ice. The frost drank it and gave nothing back. "You cannot melt me," Iven said. Her voice cracked like breaking ice. "Others tried. The cold only grew." She stepped closer to the split trunk. Its glowing crack pulsed like a dying heart. "This tree was mine. Now the cold owns us both. Leave, or freeze here too." Heart Solia knelt and pressed her palm to the frozen ground. Leaves trailed from her hair. "Lumina," she said. "Feel the tree through the roots. It is not only cold. There is a spirit under the frost, still alive." Lumina reached down with her senses. She felt two things twisted together. A living spirit. And a cold, aching thing wrapped around it like a fist. Then Lumina understood. She could not burn the frost away. She could not split the two apart from outside. She had to take them both into herself. She would hold the spirit and the cold inside her own heart, then release only the pain, the frozen love turned bitter. "That will hurt you," Iven said, watching her face. "You will carry my cold." "I carry the forest already," Lumina said. "I can carry you too." She reached into the glowing crack with both hands. The ice bit her skin. She pulled. The spirit and the frost poured out of the tree and into her chest at once. Cold flooded her. It reached for her heart like a claw. Lumina cried out and dropped to her knees. "Hold on," Heart Solia said. She took Lumina's hand. Their love bond flared warm between them. "Send the cold out. Keep the spirit. Love stays. The bitter part goes." Lumina focused on the warmth in her chest. She let it fill the frozen spirit inside her. She wrapped the ice in love until it softened. Then she breathed out. The cold left her in a long grey cloud and faded into nothing. Warmth stayed where the frost had been. The crystal tree cracked. Sheets of ice slid from its bark and shattered. Green vines climbed the trunk. The frozen antlers on Iven's head melted into soft leaves. Her blue eyes warmed to a gentle grey. Frost gave way to bark and moss along her arms. "I am free," Iven whispered. She touched her own healed face. "You took my cold and kept my heart." Lumina rose, changed. New leaf and crystal markings glowed on her skin. The host cheered around her. But she felt the truth in her bones. The frost was gone from this grove, yet the forest heart still slept beyond it.