Venya Nightwing's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Venya Nightwing wanted one thing: to know where she came from. She had no memory of parents, no birth record, not even the name of the town that raised her. She only had her wings. They hung dark blue behind her, veined with gold, nothing like the glowing butterfly wings of the other healers. She folded them tight and climbed the steps into the academy. Inside, the halls glowed with light through tall windows. Students drifted past in pairs, their slender wings shimmering. They looked at Venya, then looked away. One girl whispered. Another laughed. Venya kept her eyes on the book in her hands and found an empty seat at the back of the lecture. No one sat near her. They never did. She did not mind the quiet. She minded the not knowing. Every healer here could name their mother's house and their grandmother's craft. Venya could name nothing. She turned a page and tried to study, but the question circled her again. Where do I begin when I have no first thread to pull? After class she walked home alone. Her shelter waited beneath the trees, woven from layered branches and draped with leaves. It was small and hers. She had lived there as long as she could remember, left there as a child by someone she never saw. Venya lit a candle and knelt by her sleeping mat. She had searched this place a hundred times. Tonight she searched again, because she had nowhere else to look. She pried up the loose floorboard where she kept her few coins. Her fingers struck something cold beneath them. She pulled it free. An amulet, dark blue and gold, shaped like a shield. At its center, carved into the stone, a blue flame flickered without burning. She had never seen it before. It had been hidden under her own floor, in her own home, for all her life. Venya turned it in the candlelight. The gold edges were worn smooth, as if someone had held it often. On the back, scratched into the metal, she found three letters. They were not her name. They were not any name she knew. Her heart pounded. For the first time, she held proof that she had come from somewhere. Someone had owned this. Someone had left it for her. The amulet was her first thread, and now she had a place to pull. She closed her fingers around it. Tomorrow she would find out who those three letters belonged to. The quiet shelter felt different now, no longer the whole of her world but the start of a trail. Venya blew out the candle and lay awake, holding the flame that did not burn.