Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 16 of 34

At dawn, Lumina left the sanctuary to meet the elders. The starlit host stayed behind. Only her guard creature came, its veins shimmering with stardust as it padded at her side. The forest called her forward through the roots. She followed the pull, walking toward a grand mansion of wood and marble that rose among the trees. Its walls swirled like the night sky and the sea. The elders waited inside. With every step, power rose from the ground into her body. It flooded her chest and spread to her wings. Her leaf-marked wings widened. New shapes grew from them. She saw butterfly veins, dragonfly panes, and feathered angel edges, all layered together. They kept growing. Soon they stretched past her reach, too large to hold still. Light poured off them and lit the path ahead. The guard creature whined and pressed close. Lumina's knees buckled. The power would not stop. It burned hotter the nearer she got to the mansion. "Too much," she said. She had learned to push power into the soil. She tried now. She knelt and spread her hands on the ground. Some of the fire drained down. But the wings kept spreading, wider and brighter. A door opened. An elder fairy stepped out. Her hair shone like woven starlight. Small firefly wings glowed at her back. This was Luminara Starweaver, the elder who led the others and had first sent Luminara Tidewhisper to guide Lumina long ago. She held a slim wand tipped with a bright star. Moons and tiny stars hung from its handle. "You carry the whole forest now," Starweaver said. "No single body can hold it and stay whole. That is why we called you." She raised the wand. A radiant emblem bloomed in the air between them, gold and pink, spinning with soft light. "Give some of it back to us. We will share the weight." Lumina hesitated. The power was hers. It had cost her so much. But the wings tore wider, and pain shot through her spine. She nodded. Starweaver touched the wand to Lumina's chest. The emblem pulled. Power streamed out of Lumina and into the star tip, then out to the waiting elders inside the mansion. The huge wings shrank. The butterfly and angel shapes faded. Her leaf-marked wings returned, steady and calm. Lumina breathed easy for the first time since dawn. The burning was gone. But Starweaver's face turned grave. "We have taken what your body could not hold," she said. "Yet the forest's true heart still sleeps at its center, past the dark wall. Sharing your power bought you time. It did not wake the center. And now a shadow of that power lives in another." From the mansion doorway stepped a fairy with silver hair. Her wings mixed dragonfly, angel, and fairy, glowing with starlit air. She smiled at Lumina. "I am Celestia Starveil," she said. "Part of your power is mine now."