Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 22 of 34

Lumina opened her eyes. Green light moved on the ceiling of leaves. She lay still and listened. The house of woven wood held her, its walls thick with moss, its roof heavy with flowers. But the light was wrong. It came thin and far, filtered through something tall and dark. She sat up. Her wings unfolded behind her, still bright with rainbow shimmer. Her power had not faded. It hummed in her chest, whole and strong, exactly as she had left it a hundred years ago. She pushed through the vines at the door. They had sealed the entrance shut, and she tore them loose with her hands. Outside, she stopped. The forest she knew was gone. The trees had grown so tall she could not see their tops. Their trunks stood wide as towers. Shadows filled the spaces between them, deep and cool. Flowers still bloomed on the dark bark, and streams still threaded the moss, but nothing looked the way it had. She turned in a slow circle. She did not know this place, and she had made it. A soft padding came through the ferns. A creature stepped into the clearing, then two more behind it. Their fur carried glowing marks, blue and pink, curling like written words. Lumina caught her breath. These were her foxes, the ones who had curled at the foot of her bed. But they had changed. They stood taller now, their marks deeper, their eyes calm and old. Their children's children, she understood, grown into something new while she slept. The first creature came close and pressed its head to her knee. She knelt and touched its neck. Warmth passed between them. Through the bond she felt the forest open around her, root and branch, water and stone. It was all still here. It had only grown while she was gone. The strangeness was not ruin. It was a hundred years of life she had not watched. Lumina rose. She lifted her hand toward the nearest tower of a tree. Her emblem woke at her chest, gold and pink light spreading in a slow ring. She sent her senses down through the roots the way she once had. The forest answered at once. Healthy groves. Full streams. Sleeping folk in their homes. But far off, past the tall dark trees, she felt a cold flat place. No pulse rose from it. The forest's true heart, still asleep behind the wall of shadow, its glow thinner than she remembered. She let her hand fall. The tree line no longer frightened her. She knew what it hid. The creatures gathered at her feet, waiting for her to move. "It grew without me," she told them. "But its heart never woke all the way." She looked toward the dark trees. "That is where we go." She stepped into the shadow, and the glowing creatures followed.