Lumina Opalknight's Arc

Chapter 1 of 11

Lumina Opalknight knelt in the dark under the old willow tree and watched her first seedlings die. She had planted them at moonrise, six pale sprouts meant to grow into opal blossoms. The old stories said such blooms cured any sickness laid against their petals. That was why she had come to this overgrown glade, where colorful flowers already crowded the mossy roots. But her sprouts drooped now, their leaves curling gray. She did not know why. Her rabbit sat beside her on the moss, ears twitching. "You're overwatering them," Kofer said. "Or underwatering. I honestly can't tell. I'm a rabbit." "You're supposed to help," Lumina said. She cupped a wilting stem in her fingers. Her opal wings hung still against her back. She had raised these from seed for weeks, and one cold night had undone all of it. "I can't watch them every hour. They bloom at night. They fade by dawn. I don't know their care, and there's no one to teach me." "There's one," Kofer said. "The troll who grew herbs before he quit. He knows every plant in Needlefall." "He drinks all day and yells at children." "He also kept this town alive through two fevers. Ask him." Lumina found the troll at the edge of the glade at first light. Atticus Bridgerton sat on a flat stone, a bottle loose in one huge blue-gray hand. Stubble covered his jaw. He did not look up. "Go home, fairy," he said. "Whatever you want, I'm retired." "My seedlings are dying." She held out a browned sprout. "They only wake under moonlight. By morning they're like this." He glanced at the stem. Then he glanced again, and set the bottle down. He took the sprout in fingers thick as roots and turned it to the light. "Moon-fed roots," he muttered. "Haven't seen these in forty years." He crushed a leaf and sniffed it. "You planted them in daytime soil. They drink the dew, not the rain. You've been drowning them." Lumina's chest tightened. "Then teach me. Please. I can't tend them alone and I can't lose the whole crop." Atticus stared at the glade a long moment. Something in his face softened, then hardened again. "I come by day. Only by day. I check the roots, I tell you what to do, and you do the night work yourself." He pointed the bottle at her. "And I don't do this for thanks. This town's sick people need those flowers. That's the only reason." "Yes," she said quickly. "Anything." "Then dig them up. All six. Now, before the sun's full." He pushed himself to his feet, swaying. "We replant in dew-soil today. Miss the timing and they're dead by noon." Lumina dropped to her knees and began to dig. She had her teacher. But the sun was already climbing the willow's leaves, and six fragile roots hung on the edge of the hour.