Forty Seconds of Light — An Eleriia Story

The heat of that day refused to lift even after the sun had rolled down behind the sharp roofs of the market stalls, hanging over the horizon like a glowing copper coin. It simply settled into the dust underfoot, tangled in the sticky vapors of spilled ale, the smells of sizzling fat, burnt sugar, and dry hay that had been strewn across the market square since morning. The air was so thick that it felt as though it could be cut with a knife, and every inhalation brought only a bitter taste of exhaustion.

The crowd hummed. It was that peculiar, dense drone of a summer festival, when hundreds of people, worn down by grueling daytime labor, greedily tried to bargain for a single drop of wonder. Blacksmiths in scorched aprons, weary weavers, petty merchants, and pickpockets darting between the rows—all of them jostled near the wooden stage. They stepped over broken barrels, swore in various dialects, laughed too loudly, and wiped sweat from their brows with dirty sleeves, desperately wishing to forget about tomorrow.

On the stage, Lucan was putting on a desperate display.

His velvet coat, once deep burgundy and luxurious, now faded on the shoulders to the color of dry clay, gleamed with sweat. The gilded buttons had long since turned green with time, the threads on the cuffs had frayed, but Lucan held himself as though he were performing before an emperor rather than drunken artisans and peasants who could barely stay on their feet. He waved his arms, desperately trying to hold the public’s attention. He pulled a double-bottomed mug from a wooden chest, fumbled with worn cards in his trembling fingers, and shouted until his voice grew hoarse, cutting through the general uproar of the square.

The spectators began to whistle. The tricks were as old as the fair itself, and the showman’s worn, calloused hands no longer possessed their former dexterity. During the coin trick, it traitorously clinked against the stage boards. Everyone had long known where the fake dove was hidden and where the secret button was located on the trick box. The first drunken jeers rose from the crowd. Someone threw a turnip scrap onto the stage, which bounced off Lucan’s wooden trunk with a dull thud.

Eleriia stood off to the side of the stage, near a tall wooden beam that supported the worn canvas canopy.

She kept apart from the market bustle—a simple linen dress, bare feet in dry, hot dust, calm and deep eyes untouched by the surrounding commotion. People simply parted wider as they passed her in their noisy current. She did not look at Lucan’s fake doves. She paid no attention to the drunken shouts and laughter. She did not look at the stage at all.

Eleriia looked up.

Over the past two hours, she had been tracking subtle signs, almost imperceptible in the market hubbub. Earlier that evening, when the sun had just touched the horizon, the first solitary sparks had darted through the pale blue—thin silver scratches on the body of the sky. No one down below had noticed them. But Eleriia’s attentive gaze caught every such detail. For years, she had kept the intricate pattern of celestial orbits locked in her memory, and her current observations merely refined the details, confirming her meticulous calculations. Mentally, she reconstructed the branching network of trajectories, connecting them into a single radiant.

She knew the structure of the shower precisely. And now the gaps between flashes jumped unevenly—seventeen seconds, then twelve, then eight. But the general trend pointed to one thing: Earth was plunging deeper into the denser layers of an old dust trail, causing the average frequency of flashes to rise sharply. Her mind operated with absolute, cold precision, comparing ancient knowledge with the fleeting micro-flashes. She understood—Earth was just entering the densest, central band of the trail left by a long-dead comet. The peak was due in a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, on stage, Lucan was gasping hoarsely, fighting for breath. His final trick with the "disappearing curtain" was failing miserably—the thick rope had jammed tight in an old wooden pulley. The crowd was already openly grumbling, demanding their miserable copper coins back. New turnip scraps and handfuls of dust flew. The magician frantically jerked the cord, begging the mechanism to work. Sweat flooded his eyes, his lips trembling with despair and shame.

Eleriia took two quiet steps forward.

She did not touch him. She merely stood beside him, pointing with her gaze toward the upper knot, where the fibers of the rope had caught on a rusty nail.

"Grab the rope by the knot," she whispered. Her voice was crystal clear and completely calm, like a cold mountain stream suddenly breaking through the market’s stifling air and stench. "And raise the curtain. Now."

Lucan did not even understand who had spoken. In his panic-clouded mind, this was the sole clear, lifesaving command. He did not think; he simply obeyed. He shifted his hand, grabbed the rope right by the nail, and yanked with all his might. The pulley gave a sharp, dry click. The heavy black cloth, crudely embroidered with pale, faded stars, jerked upward, revealing the clear, dark evening sky above the wooden stage.

By habit, Lucan threw both hands up, drawing air into his chest, preparing to shout his standard, deceitful patter about the "majesty of the night’s mystery."

And at that exact second, the sky burst into flame.

It was an exceptionally bright, clustered shower. During the brief peak, a rapid succession of white, blue, emerald, and turquoise streaks slashed across the darkness directly above the stage, as if someone were successively tearing the very fabric of the universe. They silently pierced the night, leaving behind long ionized trails that lingered for several seconds. They broke apart into sparks of cold light, illuminating the square just enough to reveal every detail for an instant: every board on the stage, every drop of sweat in the air, and every terrified expression in the crowd. People’s shadows danced sharply and wildly against the walls of the buildings.

The crowd stood transfixed.

The music at the fair cut off—the musician’s lute slipped from his hands and struck the earth with a dull thud. Someone dropped a clay mug of ale, and it shattered against the stones, splashing foam, but no one even flinched. A woman instinctively covered her child’s head with her hands, fearing the sky itself was collapsing upon them. A drunkard in a torn shirt slowly sank to his knees right in the mud. Hundreds of people simultaneously threw their heads back.

Faces that a second before had been distorted by malicious mockery, cynicism, poverty, and chronic fatigue suddenly changed. Washed in this unearthly, piercing meteor light, in a single instant they became completely pure and childlike. All their cynicism evaporated, leaving only a pure, primal awe.

Lucan froze with his hands raised. His mouth remained half-open, the words of the spell stuck in his throat, while the majestic star shower flickered in his wide, dazed eyes—a brilliant spectacle he had never ordered, could not understand, and was utterly incapable of grasping in that moment of total bewilderment.

And Eleriia slipped back into the shadow of the wooden beam. She did not look at the sky.

She looked at the people.

She observed how breath caught in their chests, then slowly, hesitantly returned, how for a few priceless seconds they forgot their daily pain, their eternal poverty, their debts and illnesses. And most importantly, how the fragmented, aggressive crowd was instantly united and touched by this colossal burst of light, feeling a deep inner relief. There was a small boy in a crumpled paper crown who had helplessly lowered his hands, standing frozen with an open mouth; and nearby, a stern old blacksmith, accustomed to gritting his teeth against daily exhaustion, slowly unclenched his rough fingers and gazed upward in absolute fascination, while pure, childlike wonder lived in his eyes once more. In her gaze, there was no superiority—only a quiet, profound understanding of human nature.

She turned and silently walked away from the stage, slowly dissolving into the transfixed crowd, while overhead, reflecting in hundreds of wide-open eyes, the last silvery-green threads were still burning out.