The old light was dying, and Alexandra Starweaver had one night to reach it before the dark reached her first. She stood on the porch of her flower-covered home, its climbing vines already curling gray at the edges. For a hundred years her family had fed the deep light that kept shadow out of Eclipse Forest. Now the light guttered like a spent candle. Only Alexandra remained to relight it. Her pale hair caught the last glow. Her light blue eyes fixed on the path ahead. She stepped off the porch and stopped cold. Something wrong had crept into the trees. The shadow had sent a hunter. It moved between the trunks, black and low, with eyes like two pinholes of red. It had no face she could name. It knew she meant to cross, and it would not let her. Alexandra had no sword. She had only her hands and the fading magic in them. She lifted one palm and called the light. A weak spark answered, then died. The creature slid closer. It would strike her down long before she reached the old light. She backed toward a field she knew well. White lilacs grew there, brushed with blue, their leaves dusted in snow that never melted. Cold light lived in that field. Her family had planted it long ago, in gentler years. Alexandra ran to it. The creature followed, silent on the frost. She knelt in the blooms and pressed both hands into the snow. The old warmth in the flowers stirred. She did not pull the light into herself. Instead she poured her last spark into the roots. The field drank it. Then the blue glow rose through every stem at once. The shadow-creature shrieked and shrank from the brightness. But it did not flee. It circled the field's edge, hunting a way in. Alexandra knew the glow would fade. She needed a shape that could carry light and fight. She gathered the brightest cold light into her cupped hands and threw it forward. The light struck the frost and took form. Crystal grew fast, facet by facet. Legs, then a broad back, then a long head with translucent fangs. A great tiger of living crystal stood before her, its edges scattering blue fire, one violet eye turned toward the beast. "Go," Alexandra said. The crystal tiger sprang. It hit the shadow-creature and drove it into the snow. Fangs of clear crystal tore through darkness. The beast fought, then broke apart like smoke and blew away between the trees. The path lay open. Alexandra rose, shaking. The tiger returned and stood at her side, warm with borrowed light. But the field behind her had dimmed to almost nothing. She had spent the last of the cold reserve to make her guardian. The old light still waited, far ahead in the dark. Now she had no spark left to feed it, and the road there ran long and black.