Lumina Opalknight's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

At dusk Lumina knelt by her seedlings and counted her dew-soil. One jar left, half full. Atticus stood over her, arms crossed. His breath was clear now, no drink on it. "You've got soil for maybe two more pots," he said. "And no seeds to plant when these are spent." He nudged the empty seed pouch with his boot. "Feed the whole town? Not with this. You'll be dry in three nights." Lumina's stomach dropped. Every night the torchlit line below grew longer. Now her supply was ending. "Then I need more," she said. "Where do seeds like these come from?" The silver-bearded dwarf spoke from the willow's shade. He had been her guide through his dead garden's song, a master gardener before ruin drove him up this mountain. "Not from any market stall," Thorin said. "Moon-fed opal seed is old magic. Only one soul near Needlefall still keeps it." His shoulders sagged. "The hedge witch. She lives in the briar hollow. She'll trade, but she trades hard." Lumina packed her last pot with soil and hurried down before full dark. The briar hollow was a tangle of thorns around a low fallen log strung with glowing lights. A woman crouched at the door, sorting dried petals into pouches at her belt. Twigs and small orange flowers snarled her black hair. She did not look up. "You're the one on the mountain," the witch said. "Growing my kind of flower." Her green eyes flicked to Lumina's wings. "Morvenna Briarthorn. And you've come begging seed." "The sick need the blossoms," Lumina said. "My seeds are almost gone. My soil too." Morvenna stood. She pulled a small clay pot from a shelf inside the log. It held dark, wet earth and a handful of pale seeds that caught the light like chips of moon. "Dew-soil and opal seed both," she said. "Enough to fill your glade twice over." She held it back when Lumina reached. "I don't take coin. Coin's useless in a briar." "Then what?" "Your harp." Morvenna nodded toward the mountain. "The mystic one. I heard it can wake the seed to bloom. I've grown these flowers thirty years and never once made them open. Give me the harp, and the soil and seed are yours." Lumina's chest tightened. The harp had bloomed her first flower. But she had the chimes now, and the dwarf's song, and both worked without it. The seeds were the whole garden's future. She thought of the mother's face when color returned to it. "Done," she said. She climbed home, fetched the harp, and carried it back down. Morvenna took it in both hands and pressed the pot into Lumina's arms. The seeds were cold and heavy and real. At dawn Lumina spread fresh dew-soil across her glade and pushed the pale seeds in, one by one. Rows of them now, not six. Enough to grow a true garden. But raw seed took weeks to sprout, and the line below could not wait weeks.