Lumina Opalknight's Arc

Chapter 5 of 11

The next night, twelve villagers waited on the moss. Lumina held the moon-harp and watched the path below. She needed the dwarf's music and the troll's hands to guide the notes right. Only the troll knew the seedlings well enough to steady her fingers when the melody slipped. Without him, the crowd would leave empty and angry. Atticus came up the stones late. He was the retired herbalist who had taught her to plant the seedlings, a huge blue-grey troll with a stubbled jaw. Tonight he swayed. He gripped a root to keep from falling. A sour smell came off him. He had been drinking again, hard. "Start playing," he slurred. "I'll tell you the notes." Lumina's chest went tight. "You can't even stand." "I taught you. I can count." He leaned over the sheet music the dwarf had lent her. His finger dragged across the faded notes. "There. That one. No. That one." His hand shook. He named a note, then took it back. The seedlings sat closed and dark. She played what he said. The tune came out crooked. A seedling twitched and went still. The crowd stirred. The old man coughed into his sleeve. "You're pointing at the wrong line," Lumina said. "Am not." Atticus swayed and knocked the harp with his elbow. A string wailed. He caught himself on the willow trunk and slid down to sit. His eyes drooped shut. "Just... give me a moment, elf." He had a soft spot for these sick people. She knew that. It was why he climbed the mountain at all. But tonight the drink had beaten him, and the flowers would die closed if she waited for his hands. Lumina looked at the crystal chimes hanging in the willow branches. Faceted prisms, seven of them, catching the moonlight. An idea struck her. She could not lean on his hands anymore. She had the page. She had the tune inside her now. She pressed her palm to the chimes and hummed the first bars of the song. She fed the melody into the crystals, note by note, the way the dwarf had named them for her. The prisms began to ring on their own. They picked up the tune and held it, steady and clear, no shaking hands to spoil it. The blue hummingbird darted down and hummed along. Lumina played the harp beside the ringing chimes. Two instruments now, one that never faltered. Three seedlings shivered. Buds swelled and split. Three opal blossoms opened, pale and glowing. Atticus blinked awake at the light. "Three," he mumbled. "You did three." "Without you," Lumina said. She was not cruel about it. But it was true. She plucked the flowers for the waiting hands. The chimes still rang softly, holding the song alone. She no longer needed the troll to bloom them. But the drink had shown her something worse. Atticus was failing. And the crowd below had grown to fifteen.