House of Winter

Chapter 27, Part 1

The footsteps of the men echoed as they left the room, leaving Lumi alone to her thoughts. She sat on a thin cushion in the middle of the room and tried to focus on her breathing.

Quelling was difficult now because of her own fear. If she could face and remove that fear she would be able to quell. But if she could quell, she might kill someone again. What if she killed Tai? Despite everything, she had no desire to kill her brother.

Lumi snapped herself out of her spiralling thoughts and tried to breathe again.

She remembered the horror in Tom's face when he had realised what she had done. She had quelled Meiliu's life from her with magic. It was an awful form of magic and Lumi didn't want to use it again. She didn't want to see that horror in Tom's eyes. She didn't want to scare him away.

He was the only real friend she'd ever had.

Her thoughts were spiralling again. She couldn't do this. She couldn't sit in silence for an entire day. It had barely been one hour and she was already panicking and driving herself mad.

She took another breath and tried again. She focused on the feeling of magic around her. She'd never noticed it before she quelled but now she could feel magic around her. She knew that if she pulled, she could tug it from the very air. Was that what quelling was? She was certain that no one should have that ability. No one should take power.

She considered kinnlings, and their strange relationship with starrlings. Each starrling had a kinnling, and the starrling pulled magic from the creature to improve their own magic. Was that quelling? Was that fair? Lumi had hardly considered it before. It had always been the way of the world. And the kinnlings had never complained, had they? Kinnlings loved their starrlings; they were devoted to them. Was it cruel to steal another creature's power? Or was it freely given from kinnling to starrling?

Lumi found herself standing up. She couldn't sit here anymore. She raced from the cavernous room at the top of the pyramid and found her way to the library.

"Lumi, are you okay?" Tom asked her when he saw her. "You look terrified."

"The first day is always the hardest," Doctor Hart said sagely.

Tom didn't stop to think, but just threw his arms around Lumi. Lumi was startled but so comforted by it that she didn't resist, and instead leaned into his body. Tom wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her. "Stay strong," he told her. "This whole meditation thing is crazy. Just stay here with us."

"For today," Hart said. "But tomorrow, you will try again. Tomas, continue."

Tom let Lumi go too quickly, to grab the book he'd discarded. Lumi sat down across from him and focused on his hands, because she couldn't look at his face. She could feel a blush in her cheeks. He'd hugged her so easily, and to him it had been careless, but she knew she wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it.

Tom spoke out loud what he was reading.

"From Taro's translation: the liquid star is a fallen relic of the gods of ice and fire. The gods who shook the world so that one day it rained ice and the next day it rained fire. These are the gods who have forced Reunsgar into the dark, but they have commanded that Reunsgar shall defend the liquid star with their lives, so that one day the city will be once again brought into the light."

Doctor Hart placed her hand on the chair, and it seemed a signal, because Tom set the book down.

"We're getting somewhere," Doctor Hart said. "Tomas, what are your thoughts?"

"This talk of gods..." Tom said slowly. "I know the Norrlish people once worshipped gods, but that was... at least a thousand years ago. They would pray to gods to warm their hearth and keep away illness. But these were simple gods, of home and hearth and gods to watch over flocks of sheep."

"The Norrlish also had gods of war," Doctor Hart said.

"Ah, I didn't know that," Tom said. "I'm not so familiar with them. I was brought up in Lombardia, where such things are deemed quite silly. Are there old Norrlish gods of ice and fire?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Doctor Hart said pensievely. "There is a god of the hearth, as you mentioned. A god of war, a god of storms and weather. But the closest to a god of ice would be the goddess of the lake."

Tom clicked his tongue. "But this about the gods creating ice and fire that falls from the sky. It doesn't make much sense to me."

"I'm not sure about ice," Lumi said. "But if fire fell from the sky... I think this could refer to a volcano. Perhaps this old text refers to a time when a volcano erupted."

"Ah, Lumiko," Doctor Hart said. "That's exactly what I think."

"A volcano?" Tom said. "Like the Volcano Palace in Singtsu?"

Lumi nodded. "That volcano has been dormant for at least a thousand years, but we have records of eruptions from long before that. Lava exploded from the volcano and it's been described as fire raining from the sky."

Tom's eyes lit up. "Then this Reunsgardian text must refer to a volcano. But why would ice also rain from the sky? Unless it means hail?"

"I'd expect so," Doctor Hart said. "So, the volcano erupted, and possibly there were violent storms during this time. Rain, hailstorms, thunder and lightning."

"That makes sense," Tom said. "But what about shaking the world and plunging Reunsgar into darkness?"

"Quakes happen with volcanoes," Lumi said. "That's the world shaking. But I don't know anything about the darkness."

"But you do," Doctor Hart insisted. "What happened to Stargarzen?"

"The Starg people founded Lombardia and emigrated there," Tom said. "Stargarzen is abandoned."

"Why did they leave Stargarzen?" Doctor Hart prompted.

"Because they only get a few hours of daylight in the summer," Tom said. "And in winter it's dark for months at a time. It was impossible to live there. They moved to Lombardia."

"But thousands of years ago, that wasn't the case," Lumi said, suddenly remembering her school lessons. "There used to be sunlight in Stargarzen. But the pattern of the suns changed and now it's dark there almost all year round."

"The patterns of the suns?" Doctor Hart asked.

"Or the world?" Tom suggested. "This text says the gods shook the world. Maybe when they shook the world, they changed the balance? Now Stargarzen doesn't get any sunlight..."

"And the Lothern-most parts of Alamadi never gets true darkness!" Lumi said.

"Precisely," Doctor Hart said. "The axis of the world has tilted. Whether it was the gods the Reunsgardians spoke of, or something else, there are many academics who believe this theory. Alamadi now sees almost constant daylight - the suns almost never set over Alamadi. And here in the icelands, and further Dorth to Stargarzen, the suns almost never rise here. This is because of the tilt of the world. It wasn't always this way."

"This still doesn't explain the liquid star," Lumi said.

"Ah, but we're getting closer," Doctor Hart said confidently. "I am happy to see that the Reunsgardians have texts that confirm the academic theory of the tilt of the world. But I would like to learn more. Tomas, continue."

Tom kept reading, and the rest of the afternoon Lumi and Tom continued to discuss what they learned with Doctor Hart. Thoughts of the failed meditation slipped out of Lumi's mind until dinner, when she found Armo and Eero staring at her disapprovingly.

x

Thanks everyone who votes on the chapter!

Have you ever done meditation? Do you like it?

I have a lot of anxiety and probably meditation would help but the issue is that I am too anxious to meditate lmao

See you next week!

xx elle