Lunaria Silverhorn's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Lunaria took the goddess's warm hand and helped her rise. Together they climbed out of the basin. The fox led the way, and the moonfawn's antlers lit the broken ice. At the top, the storm hit them full. Snow tore sideways. Wind screamed through the dead trees. Nevelune stood against it, no longer a flicker but a woman of frost and light. She looked at the ruined wood her sleep had killed. Her face crumpled like a child's. "I let them freeze," she said. "All my little ones." "You slept," Lunaria said. "You did not choose this. Now you are awake." Nevelune wiped her eyes and nodded. "Then I must reach the center. Come. Hold to me." She wrapped a feathered sleeve around Lunaria's shoulders. The cold could not touch her through it. The two creatures pressed close, and the goddess walked them straight into the blizzard, parting the snow as she went. They climbed a long slope. At its crown stood a single tree, bare and gray, its branches crusted with ice. Lunaria had passed such trees all week, dead and silent. But Nevelune knelt before this one and pressed both palms to its trunk. "This is the oldest root in Hoarfrost," she said. "Every frozen thing is tied to it. If it wakes, they all wake." She closed her eyes. "But I am still weak. The gift you gave me only warmed one goddess. This needs more." Lunaria had no magic left. Her antlers were dark. She had spent her last shard in the basin. She pressed her bare hand beside Nevelune's anyway. "Then take whatever is in me," she said. "I came here to wake this forest. I will not stop now." Nevelune's eyes opened wide. "You have nothing left to give, and still you offer." A slow smile broke across her face. "That is the gift, Lunaria. Not power. The will to share it." She drew a long breath and pushed her own light into the tree. The bark groaned. Frost cracked and fell in sheets. Green veins woke beneath the gray, winding up the trunk and out along every branch. The ice did not melt away. It changed. It began to shimmer and shift, catching color like the lights that dance over the north. The whole crown blazed with pale blues and greens. Lunaria stared up at the living tree, its branches glowing like captured sky. The wind died. The snow slowed, then stopped. For the first time in Lunaria's long journey, the air held still. Nevelune sagged against the trunk, spent but smiling. "The storm will fade now," she breathed. "My people can come out of the dark." The tree glowed above them. Below, the dark forest waited, silent and white, as far as Lunaria could see.