Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 6 of 34

The heart beat inside Lumina now, and it would not stay quiet. Power surged up through her legs and out to her wings. She heard everything at once. A beetle scraped bark far to her left. Wind bent a hundred dry stems. Water dripped somewhere deep in the roots. It all poured into her head with no gap between. She pressed her hands over her ears, but the sounds came from inside her chest. Her wings flared too bright. Sparks jumped off her skin and scorched the grass. "Lumina, your light is too strong," said Celsius Heartwood. The small green fairy, soul of the forest, backed away from the heat. Flowers curled in her hair. "You are burning. If you cannot hold this, the awakening will burn out. It will take you and the heart both." Lumina tried to pull the power back in. It fought her. A vine near her foot caught fire from a stray spark. She stamped it out, but two more lit. "I can't shut it off," she said. "I hear the whole forest screaming." Luminara Tidewhisper drifted close in her ribbon of river water. "You are trying to silence it," she said. "Don't. Pick one sound. Follow only that." Lumina shut her eyes. She reached past the roar for one thread. A stream. She found the drip in the roots and held it. Just that. The other sounds stayed loud, but she stopped fighting them. She let them wash by like water around a stone. Her breath slowed. The sparks stopped leaping. "Now the light," Celsius said. "Send it into the ground, not out." Lumina knelt. She pressed both palms flat to the dirt. She pushed the burning power down through her hands. The glow drained from her wings into the soil. Warmth spread under the grass. A dry root near her knee swelled and turned green. A bud pushed up between her fingers and opened. The heat left her skin. Her wings settled to a steady gold, marked with fine leaf lines. She could still hear every step and every wind in the forest. But the sounds no longer crushed her. She held them the way one holds a full basket, careful and whole. A small creature crept from the trees. Its coat shimmered with stardust, and pale light ran through its veins like tiny rivers. It watched her with a wolf's quiet eyes, then lay at her feet, guarding her. "You mastered it," Celsius breathed. "The power is yours now." Lumina stood. She felt the forest through her whole body, every dry patch and every sleeping root. She had learned to hold the heart without breaking. But holding was not healing. Far off, past the roots she now could feel, whole stretches of the forest still lay cold and asleep. She turned toward them. The awakening had only started, and now she was strong enough to walk into it.