8. Lucina #4
But these people and their culture… they survived. Their families were ripped apart, and they were then forced to spend the last twenty years hiding, too outnumbered to do anything about it. Their Disciples are gone, and Rogues have killed off most of their nobility.
A once glorious people…
Forced to hide when they were meant to shine. It wasn’t fair.
The crowd silences when the Dame stands, approaching the golden basin before us. Laverna and Ceres join her, raising their hands to the sky and then—
Everything goes black.
Every amber light that floats in the trees vanishes. Every lantern on every building is snuffed, and even the stars and moon dim as the entirety of Pirn is cloaked in darkness.
Flames burst through the humid night air, and I squint against the sudden fire, my eyes adjusting in time to see it pouring from their raised hands and into the awaiting bowl before them.
Fire. They’re wielding fire.
Witches bathed in starlight, Nana would say, with the power to steal light from the sun, moon, and stars…the ability to transform it…
It’s true. Real. I’m seeing it with my own eyes.
The crowd erupts into cheers as the fire is captured within the bowl and the flames shoot up towards the sky, sparks dancing in the air above them.
It feels like lightning has struck me to the core. Like I’ve been jolted awake after years of the deepest sleep. Like I’ve been hibernating all this time and now…now I’m alive.
A group of young boys starts up the band, strumming guitars, banjos, and blowing into harmonicas, each note making the fire burn brighter and brighter, until the entire camp has been smothered by a mighty orange glow.
My vision blurs, my hands tingling, and my heart thumping to the beat of the music. People chant, raising their glasses to the flames and praising all three Matrons, their godly names on their lips as they tilt their chins to the starry sky.
I watch a man sweep up a woman in a spinning embrace that causes her skirts to fan out around her.
By the time her boots land back on the ground, he’s already spun her around again.
Dirt kicks up as everyone joins them, moving and twirling, in a mass of layered skirts and dresses.
A clash of sun-kissed skin and glittering eyes.
A beautifully chaotic celebration.
I stare wide-eyed at Gemma.
She grins wickedly back at me.
The heat from the fire buries its way under my skin, like the effects of the alcohol multiplied tenfold the very moment the fire was lit. “What’s happening to me?!” I shout over the music and the singing.
“Selumira is happening to you!” Gemma replies, her pupils dilated so wide that her baby blues are nearly lost to their black centers. “Isn’t it wonderful?!” she cheers.
Every sound is intensified, and the lingering smokiness from the moonshine dances across my tongue. I just want to—
Dance. All I want to do is dance.
Gemma throws her head back to the sky, spinning to the music, her blonde hair whipping around her face. My body begs me to move with her, but why? I don’t understand this feeling. This urge.
Selene’s smile is mischievous, and I know before she even speaks that she’d read my mind again. “It’s captured moonlight,” she reminds me, falling into the dancing crowd, her eyes just as wide as Gemma’s. “Light is what replenishes our magic, and drinking Selumira by the fire is like—”
“Dousing the flames in gasoline!” Gemma shouts as she twirls Kimber, the layers of her yellow dress billowing out around her.
My whole body is a flame.
Like a wildfire that sweeps across the forest floor, ridding it of dead leaves and fallen branches. Selumira burns away every worry and fear, every bit of uncertainty and guilt that I’ve been carrying for leaving my old life behind, and I’m left feeling… weightless.
Free.
I swear sparks from the fire twist between my fingers, making their way up my arms, and leaving tiny burnt kisses in their wake.
Gemma, Selene, and Kimber move with the rest of the crowd, twirling and twisting to the strings, and I ache to join them. As if the power flooding my veins needs an outlet, and losing myself to the music is the only release.
Burning. I’m burning.
And it’s magnificent.
I grab Kimber’s hands, laughing as I join them. We move like twirls of flame, singing loudly as we fall deeper into the crowd of people. My entire body begs for more, begs to just keep dancing.
So, I give in to its demands, moving like I’ve been forced to sit still my whole life.
We dance until our feet are throbbing, and my hair is a sweaty mess that clings to the back of my neck. We dance until we’re breathless and so high off the flames and the moonshine that I can barely see straight.
Never in my life have I felt so happy and content to be in one place.
Never in my life have I been so…free.
I feel like a child again, running through the woods and winding between tree trunks. And as I watch Gemma, Kimber, and Selene move wildly, singing their hearts out to the stars—
Tears slip down my cheeks.
This isn’t like running through the forest by myself; this is like finding all the other little girls who did the same.
This is like finally figuring out what I’ve been running towards.