Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 34

Lumina knelt beside the heart. Its red glow had shrunk to a thin pulse. She pressed both hands to its cracked surface. It was cold. She waited for a sign, some clue of what it needed. Nothing came. "I don't understand," she whispered. "I found you. But I don't know what feeds you." The blue sparks flickered. The beat slowed again. Luminara Tidewhisper floated in her river of water above. Her light poured down, but it could not reach inside the heart. "My light shows the way," she said. "It cannot wake what sleeps within." Then the leaves at the clearing's edge stirred. A small figure stepped out, green as spring. Flowers grew in her hair and along her dress. Her eyes were wide and gold. Lumina had never met her, yet she felt she was part of the forest itself. This was Celsius Heartwood, the forest's own soul. She walked to the heart and touched a crack with one finger. "You are looking for its food," Celsius said. "You will not find it in flowers or water or light. The heart wakes on one thing only." She looked at Lumina. "A living heart, given freely." Lumina's throat went tight. "Mine?" "A piece of yours," Celsius said. "Shared, not spent. It will not empty you. But it will change you." She held out her hand. In her palm sat a silver vessel, shaped like a heart, carved with fine curves. Small jewels shone along its edges. "This will carry the gift. Pour a part of yourself in, and give it to the forest." Lumina looked at the vessel, then at the fading heart. If she waited, the beat would stop. If she gave, she did not know what she would become. She took the vessel. It was warm. She pressed it to her own chest. "I don't know how," she said. "Want it," Celsius said. "Want the forest to live more than you want to stay whole." Lumina closed her eyes. She thought of the dark trees, the dry stream, the long road here. She thought of the heart's slow beat. She let that want fill her. A soft light rose from her chest and flowed into the vessel. It filled with a glow the color of her own wings. Her arms felt lighter. Her legs swayed. She caught herself. Then she lifted the vessel over the heart and tipped it. Her glow poured down into the deepest crack. The heart drank it. The red brightened. The beat quickened, strong and full. The cracks did not close, but they stopped spreading. Warmth spread across the clearing. Lumina fell back, breathing hard. Part of her light was gone. She felt the empty place inside her. "It's beating," she said. "It took my heart, and it's beating." Celsius knelt beside her. "It woke," she said. "But feeding is not waking fully. It will hunger again, and soon it will ask for more than a piece."