I narrow my eyes at the little light pixie. “Uh,” I say hesitantly. “Hi?”
She continues to smile at me warmly. “You have light in you, did you know that? It’s brighter than I’ve ever seen!” the light—Lux—exclaims as she flutters around in front of me.
“Light?” I ask, confused.
“Yeah. It’s your purity. The more good you have in you, the brighter your light is. But only we can see it.”
I glance down at my arms, but don’t see any ‘light’ coming from me. I’m not quite sure what she means by ‘we’ either. Lux chuckles, her voice reminding me of wind chimes brushing against each other.
“Here, I can show you,” she flutters closer. “Cup your hands.”
I do as I am told and Lux flutters inside my cupped palms before having me close my eyes and bring her towards my heart. There’s a moment of burning warmth before a blinding light flashes behind my closed eyelids. I gasp as beautiful images stream through my mind. Happiness flares within me and I feel a smile pull at my lips as I try to decipher what each image is; children playing in a garden, a beautiful hot springs, a lush forest—
The images disappear as fast as they had come and I glance down at Lux who’s still smiling up at me.
“What was that?” I ask breathlessly. My cheeks feel flushed, like I just ran a mile.
“The beauty in your soul.”
I stare at her as my mouth moves and try to form a coherent sentence, but all I can manage to mutter out is; “Huh?”
She lets out another round of tinkling laughter and pats my thumb with her small hand. “Oh Aria, you have a lot to learn.”
“How do you know my name?” I ask her skeptically.
“Beata sent me, of course. All of the light in this world is powered by her. We are all pieces of her, just like you are. I know everything she knows,” she tells me. “I’m here to help you with your powers. I’m here to guide you.”
“How are you supposed to do that?”
“We’ll talk about that in the morning,” she says as she moves to hover above my injured shoulder. She undoes the gauze and places her hands on my pink skin. I wince but remain still as she grows brighter and my shoulder begins to warm.
When she pulls away, her light has dimmed enough that I won’t blind myself by looking at her, I glance down at my shoulder to see a faint, white scar where my wound once was. My eyes widen as I turn my gaze to Lux and gape at her. “How did you do that?”
“In the morning,” Lux replies. “You’ll need all your strength for what’s ahead.”
She pushes against my chest, guiding me gently onto the pillows at the head of the bed. Once I’m laying down she tugs the comforter over me. “Good night, Aria,” she whispers before placing a small, feather-like kiss on my forehead.
I open my mouth to respond, but all too quickly, the darkness consumes me.
Lux is still with me when I wake.
I sit up and stretch, feeling more well rested than I have been in days. When I glance at my shoulder, I see that the bullet wound is still gone, just the small white scar as my only reminder of what Mother did to me.
“Sleep well?” Lux asks as she flies up in front of me.
“Yes, actually,” I say with a drowsy smile. Last night was the first time I wasn’t plagued with dreams. It feels nice knowing that I won’t always be kept awake by the retched dreams.
I slide out of the bed and change back into my black skinny jeans and tank top. I grab my sweater from my bag and decide to slide that on as well to help keep me warm. “So,” I say as I slip on my socks. “Are you going to answer my questions now?”
Lux smiles at me. “I figure you’d ask that,” she says and takes a seat on the bed before patting the spot beside her.
I lay down instead of sitting so I’m closer to her height and turn to her. “So I have powers, apparently,” I start and she nods. “Why? And how do I even use them?”
“You were chosen,” she says and I roll my eyes.
This again.
“Originally, it was supposed to be your sister, Nina, but—“
There’s a knock at my door. “Ari, who’re you talking to?” Leo asks.
“Lux,” I tell him. There’s a moment of silence and then I sigh. “You can come in, you know.”
The door opens and Leo walks in. He looks around the room quizzically. “Who’s Lux?”
“She’s Lux,” I say and point to the little light pixie beside me.
He glances down at her and furrows his eyebrows. “The light?”
“Well yeah, who else?” I ask as I sit up. Leo hesitantly makes his way towards me.
“Ari,” he says slowly. “The lights can’t talk. They’re just little orbs of light and provide the same purpose as your light bulbs do.”
I glance down at Lux who is glaring at Leo. “I’m not just an orb of light,” she growls, but if Leo heard, he didn’t acknowledge it.
“Uh, yeah, she prefers Lux,” I tell him and he glances down at the light again, squinting at it. “Didn’t you hear her tell you?”
He looks up at me now. “No, no I didn’t,” he says.
I turn to Lux. “Am I the only one who can understand you?” I ask and she nods. I roll my eyes. “Well there’s the problem, I’m the only one who can understand her.”
“How is that even possible?” Leo asks as he rubs his temples and leans against the dresser.
“It’s because of her light,” Lux says. I relay the message to Leo but he still looks as confused as ever.
“What’s going on?” Vul asks as he enters the room with his arms crossed over his chest.
Leo shakes his head. “Ari here,” he says as she gestures to me. “Can apparently talk to light.”
“That’s not possible,” Vul says slowly as he uncrosses his arms.
“That’s what I said.”
“Why is it even such a big deal?” I ask.
“Because it shouldn’t be possible,” Vul says as he narrows his eyes at me.
I sigh and fall back onto the bed. “Well it’s not like I can help it, I mean I didn’t decide to suddenly talk to light, it just happened.” I glance over at them. “The plus side, is that Lux was sent here by Beata to help me unlock my powers. She’s basically my Mr. Miyagi.”
“Your what?” Vul asks and I sigh.
“Human thing, sorry.” I guess the Arco aren’t used to human pop culture.
Lux flutters onto my shoulder, her wings tickling my cheek. “We should start soon,” she says. “It’s only a matter of time before Mortem finds you.”
I turn to Vul and Leo. “Lux says I need to start training soon. She said it’s only a matter of time before Mortem finds me out.”
Leo nods. “Agreed.” He turns to Vul. “Pack Sim a bag and take him to Pan. Tell her it’s important and that we need her to watch him for the next few days.”
Vul scowls, as if this was the last thing he imagined doing today, but nods silently and sulks out of the room. A moment later I hear him yell out Sim’s name in annoyance.
“Who’s Pan?”
Leo turns to me. “Panthura, a good friend of mine. She’s a panther,” he explains and I nod before hopping off the bed.
“Now what?”
He grins slyly at me, his slitted golden eyes glistening. “Now, we train.”
Author's Note
Sorry that this is more of a filler chapter. I will try to get more active with my updates, I just got done taking my SAT and was stressing over that so sorry for the lack of new chapters. A fair warning; as I near the end of this book, you all will probably notice the huge plot holes and I am really sorry about that, I will try to clean it up as best as I can. I am currently re-writing the beginning and trying to fix the plot holes but I doubt they will all make it to wattpad since I would like to publish this some day.
Until next time,
- forever_lyrical