Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 21 of 34

Lumina healed them all. She knelt by each bed the folk carried to her clearing. She poured her light into every gray spirit until color returned and eyes opened. The line stretched long, but she did not stop. By the time the last spirit walked away well, the sun had crossed the whole sky. Her hands shook. Her wings hung low, their rainbow shimmer gone dull. She had given light to hundreds, and she had none left for herself. Lenora watched from the edge of the grass. Her flower dress trailed petals as she stepped close. "You cannot pour forever," she said. "Even you must rest." "I know," Lumina answered. Her voice came out thin. "I only wanted to finish." The foxes came to her, their glowing marks soft in the dusk. They pressed against her legs and turned toward the woven house behind the trees. Lumina followed them. The home stood low and round, its roof thick with leaves and bright flowers. Vines wound across the doorway like a curtain. Inside, the walls smelled of green wood and moss. A bed of soft leaves waited in the corner. Lumina sank onto it. Her wings folded against her back. The emblem at her chest, once fierce with gold and pink fire, dimmed to a faint glow. She had awakened the whole forest. She had answered every call. Now her body asked for the one thing she had denied it. Lenora knelt by the bed. She set the star-tipped wand against the wall, where its cold light played over the leaves. "Sleep," she said. "The forest holds now. Its heart beats without you tonight." "Wake me if they come again," Lumina murmured. Her eyes were already closing. Lenora did not answer. She only smoothed the leaves and watched Lumina's breath slow. The foxes curled at the foot of the bed. Outside, the flowers on the roof closed for the night. Lumina drifted down into a sleep deeper than any she had known. She did not stir when the moon rose. She did not stir when it set. She did not stir when the first frost of a new season touched the grass and melted by morning. Days passed. Then seasons. Then years. The forest grew tall around the little home. Vines thickened over the door until they sealed it. New trees rose where saplings had stood. The folk who once lined her clearing grew old and passed the story of her to their children, and those children to theirs. Lumina slept through all of it, still and unchanged, her light banked low but never out. One hundred years went by. The forest she had saved lived on without her. And in the quiet house of leaves, the immortal fairy slept on, waiting for something none of them yet knew to wake her.