Lumina Opalknight's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

By the next dusk, the new sprouts had opened. A dozen rooted opal plants glowed in the wet soil beneath the willow. Their petals held a steady light. Lumina knelt and pressed one leaf. Warmth answered her hand. The garden lived. But the plants could not leave the soil, and each could heal only one person at a time. The sick still waited far below. "They have to come up here," she told Kofer. "Every one of them. And press a petal while it grows." "Some can't walk," the rabbit said. "The worst of them can't even stand." He was right. Word of the living cure spread fast, and by night the first climbers reached the glade. They came slow, leaning on sticks and each other. One by one, Lumina guided them to a rooted plant. A woman pressed a petal and felt her fever break. A man's cough eased. But then a message came from below. A group at the base could not climb at all. Their families begged. Among them was Roslin's mother, too weak to rise from her bed. Thorin came from the willow's shade, leaning on his stick. The old gardener's shoulders sagged, as they always did. "You can't carry a mountain of sick folk," he said. "And you can't move the plants. Cut petals die in hours." He had taught her that himself, and grief still sat in his eyes. Heavy boots crushed the moss behind them. Atticus climbed into the glade, sober and grim, a wide sled of woven branches strapped to his back. The reformed troll had once been her drunk, sharp-tongued teacher. Now he set the sled down and wiped his brow. "I built this to haul soil," he said. "It'll haul people just as well." Lumina understood. They could not bring the sick to the plants. So they would bring the strong to carry the sick. Atticus loaded the weakest onto his sled. Roslin arrived, breathless, guiding her mother's litter up the last stretch with two neighbors. The child's ruby wings trembled with the effort. "You said you'd have a cure," Roslin said. "Is it true this time?" "Press the petal yourself," Lumina said. "Hold your mother's hand to it." Roslin knelt her mother beside a glowing plant. The sick woman's fingers touched a petal. The light pulsed once, warm and gold. Color returned to her face. She drew a full breath and sat up on her own. Roslin sobbed and buried her face in her mother's shoulder. One by one, through the night, the carried sick reached the plants and healed. Atticus made trip after trip down the mountain and back. By dawn, the line at the base was gone. Every patient had climbed or been carried, and every one had pressed a living petal. But the glade told a new truth. Twelve plants had glowed at dusk. Now their light dimmed. Each healing spent a petal, and the crowds coming tomorrow would find the garden already fading.