Starrlings 1: House of Fire

chapter 63

L U M I

It was strange to have nothing but the dress on her back.

Her whole life, Lumi had had anything she wanted, and many things she never cared for. She had more formal dresses than she could possibly wear; more necklaces with jewels and shoes with gold buckles and clips for her hair. A lot of it was still in the volcano palace outside Singtsu, but everything she'd owned in Lombardia was now ash.

Fire burned. Fire destroyed.

Looking up at the ugly black scar on the building, Lumi suddenly hated the destructive power of the fire that burned inside her. She hated the way fire destroyed everything, leaving only ash. She hated the burning, and the way the fire had left glistening marks all over her skin. She hated its power over everyone.

The suns had set by the time the fire was completely put out. More students had joined the crowd standing in the old cemetery across from the House, where they had watched the water dragons quell the flames. The wing that overlooked the canal, which had housed Lumi and Tai's bedrooms, was now a blackened shell.

They'd lost everything. There was nowhere to go. Lumi had lost her one safe refuge within Lombardia - the one small room at the top of the stairs where she'd felt momentarily safe in the chaos of this new country.

One of the teachers, Madame Miller, was rounding up the students and organising them into groups. "None of you will be able to sleep in the House tonight until we've assessed the damage. So we'll move girls into the House of Water, and boys into the House of Light. We'll have fresh linen for you, but first you need to get out of this wind before a storm comes."

"Tai," Lumi murmured, looking towards her brother, but he ignored her, and went with his friends. Lumi felt achingly tired and lost, but she silently followed Chiru and the other girls as they made their way along the canal, to the unfamiliar House of Water.

There were thin mattresses to be laid on the floor of a vast dining room, while the rest of the furniture was pushed back against the far wall. Lumi was still wearing the scorched formal dress that she had worn to the Stone manor, but now she was given a spare night dress, in a material rougher than anything she had ever worn. It irritated her skin. After changing into the night dress, she hugged her smoky formal dress to her chest and found a mattress on the floor. If only Empress Kiyo could see her now.

The other girls were whispering to each other, angry conversations about who had started the fire, or what had gone wrong. But Lumi stayed silent, curled into the thin mattress, listening to the foreign conversations around her. The chatter was slowly replaced by the sounds of breathing as the girls fell asleep, and after a while Lumi was sure she was the only one awake.

She noticed a dull pain in her body when she stood up. It felt as if she'd been doing exercise. She wondered if it was the affect of the magic on her bones. The wrong magic.

It was the only magic she wanted to do.

She never wanted to burn anything, anymore. She only wanted to stop the burning.

Lumi slipped out of the unfamiliar House of Water, past a gushing fountain and along the canal, thinking only that she needed to check on Jinni and the other tigers, and make sure they were okay.

Jinni was waiting for her. His eyes reflected the little light from outside, but otherwise his face was in complete darkness when she approached. As he stood up, he moved into a beam of moonlight, and Lumi marvelled at just how beautiful he really was.

"Let's go for a walk, boy," she suggested.

She stroked along his neck and shoulder, and he responded by nudging his face into her arm, requesting to be patted again and again. She led him out of the kinnhouse and towards the field. All the while she murmured things to him in the Fire tongue. He responded with flicks of his ears or his tail, as if he understood everything she said.