Luna Brightwell's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

By morning Stella had not woken. Luna knelt beside her friend on the cold floor. Stella's fire hair had gone dark. Her skin burned hot, then turned clammy. Luna pressed two fingers to her neck and counted the pulse, too fast, then too slow. She knew this pattern from the field. Magic burnout, deep and worsening. If it dragged Stella down, Luna lost her only warmth-caster before winter closed in. She had patched wounds without a healer for years. But she could not patch a burned-out soul. Luna needed a healer, and there was none among the survivors. She wrapped Stella in every blanket she could find, then set the glowing flowers close to warm her. She left the old man in charge and ran into the frozen town below the ridge. She asked at three doors before someone pointed her toward a doctor who treated the strange and the wounded both. The woman opened her door and Luna stepped back. Her hair hung in solid sheets of ice. Cold rolled off her like an open cellar. This was Dr. Elena Frozendale, the healer who worked on people no other doctor would touch. "My friend collapsed," Luna said. "Fire-caster. She burned herself out over two nights." "Then she's dying slow," Elena said. No softness. "Take me to her." They climbed to the mansion. Elena knelt by Stella and reached out. Then she stopped. She stared at her own hands. "My hands are too cold," Elena said. "A patient bled out last week rather than let me touch him. A fire-caster in burnout could seize if I put ice on her skin." Luna looked at the bowl of glowing flowers beside Stella. The heat held steady, soft and even. "Warm your hands first," she said. She pushed the bowl toward Elena. "These don't burn out. They just glow." Elena held her hands over the blooms. Frost dripped from her fingers. She flexed them, waited, held them longer. The stiff blue faded from her knuckles. When her hands moved easily, she pressed them to Stella's chest. Light passed from Elena into Stella. Elena's shoulders shook with the cold cost of it. Stella drew a long breath. Her hair flickered, one thin thread of flame, then steadied. Her eyes opened. "You stopped me," Stella said to Luna. Flat. "Good." Elena sat back, breathing hard. She looked at her own thawed fingers, then at the flowers. "I could work," she said quietly. "With these, I could reach patients I can't reach now." Luna understood the trade in an instant. The flowers healed Stella. But they were also the one thing that could warm Elena's hands. And Luna had only one bowl for three rooms of freezing people. Now a doctor needed them too. Stella sat up against the wall. "You saved me," she said. "But you just gave away your only heat."