Lumina Opalknight's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

The next night, fifteen villagers waited on the moss. Lumina reached for her own crystal chimes and found them gone. She remembered now. She had lent hers to a healer in the village weeks ago. Only a borrowed set hung in the willow branches, cracked prisms she had found on the market floor. She pressed her palm to them and hummed the first notes. The chimes rang flat. The sound came out dull and muddy. A seedling twitched at the bad note, then its leaves curled brown at the edges. Lumina snatched her hand back. One more sour note could kill the bud instead of blooming it. She stared at the cracked prisms. She could not feed a clean melody through broken crystal. Heavy boots scraped up the stones. Atticus climbed into the glade, the huge blue-grey troll who had taught her to plant the seedlings before the drink took his steady hands. Tonight his eyes were clear. He carried a small cloth bundle against his chest. "You're sober," Lumina said. "Two days now." He knelt by the willow and set the bundle down. His thick fingers worked the knot. "Heard your chimes from the path. They sound sick." "They're cracked. I can't tune them. A flat note browns the buds." She showed him the curled leaves. "I don't know how to fix crystal." Atticus grunted. He unrolled the cloth. Inside lay a fistful of dried resin, amber and hard. "Herbalist's trick. We sealed cracked jars with this. It fills the split and hardens clear." He held a piece to the moonlight. "Might close the crystal. Might not. Won't know till you play." Lumina took the resin. She warmed it between her palms until it softened. Then she pressed it into each crack, working it deep with her thumb. Atticus steadied the chimes so they would not swing. His hands did not shake tonight. The resin cooled and set, clear as the crystal around it. She pressed her palm to the prisms and hummed the tune again. This time the chimes rang true. The notes came clear and bright, no muddy edge. The blue hummingbird darted down and joined the melody. Four seedlings shivered. Buds swelled and split. Four opal blossoms opened, pale and glowing. Atticus watched the light with wet eyes. "Four," he said. "Good." Lumina plucked the flowers and passed them to the waiting hands. But eleven villagers still stood empty. The mountain path below was not empty either. Torches moved on it, a long line climbing toward her glade. Word of the cure had spread farther than the town. More sick were coming than she could ever bloom in one night. "Atticus," she said, "how many more can this garden hold?" He looked at the six seedlings, four now spent. "Not enough," he said. "You'll need more soil. More seed. Soon."