The Color of Light

Later that night, long after the marketplace sounds had faded, Gregor still heard the echo of it all—the shouts, the children playing, the music, and the soft rhythm of Luxa’s footsteps beside his.

When sleep would not come, he got up and wandered the corridors above the Council Hall. The torches burned low and steady, painting gold across the stone. It was there he saw her again, standing by one of the great columns, her face half-lit by flame.

She turned as he approached, and he took her hand and said, “I could not sleep tonight.” “Neither could I,” she said almost wistfully, as the last of the torches along the Council corridor burned low, painting ripples of gold across the stone.

Gregor and Luxa walked in near silence, their footsteps soft on the smooth floor. The noise of Regalia was a dull hum somewhere below — forges echoing, air moving through tunnels, the life of a city that never truly slept.

Luxa stopped near a tall column where a torch hissed and flickered, touching its cool surface with her fingers. “You are quiet tonight, Protector,” she said, her voice calm but curious.

The new title still caught Gregor a little off guard. She had called him Protector ever since the night he had stepped between her and the assassin’s blade — not Warrior, not Overlander. Just that. Protector.

He smiled faintly. “Just thinking.”

“Of what?” she asked.

He hesitated, then met her eyes. “You.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, though her tone stayed light. “Of me? Should I be flattered or concerned?”

“Flattered,” he said, grinning. “I was just thinking how different you look now.”

Luxa tilted her head, letting the torchlight play along the strands of her hair. “Different how?”

“When I first met you,” Gregor began slowly, “your hair looked almost silver — not gray, but like moonlight. And your skin…” He paused, remembering how her face had startled him that first day — pale as marble, almost glowing. “It was so white I could see the blue veins under it. I thought you looked like something carved out of glass.”

Luxa gave a soft laugh. “So you thought me a ghost?”

“Maybe a moon ghost,” Gregor said. “But now — your hair’s not silver anymore. It’s blonde, like sunlight on water. And your skin… it’s still pale, but not the same. It looks warmer somehow. Alive. Beautiful.”

She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers as though seeing them for the first time. “We who live under the earth lose our color as we age,” she said. “The light never touches us. Our blood shows through while we are children, but as we grow older, even that fades. My grandmother used to say the air itself steals the warmth from us.”

Gregor nodded slowly. “I saw it today in the market. The kids down there — they look like you did when I first met you. That shimmer to their skin. But the adults… they’re white like chalk.”

Luxa nodded. “It is the price of living under stone. We trade sunlight for safety.”

Gregor glanced at his own hands, turning them over in the torchlight. He remembered summers in New York — baseball, hot sidewalks, the quick tan that came after a day outside. Now his hands were pale, almost the same as hers. The blue veins traced faint lines beneath the surface.

“I guess I’m changing too,” he said quietly.

Luxa looked up, studying him. “You have changed. When first you came to us, your skin was the color of our sand. Now—” She stepped closer, hesitating before touching his cheek. “Now it is nearly the same as mine.”

He felt the warmth of her fingers against his face and didn’t move. “So I’m becoming an Underlander?”

She smiled faintly, her eyes soft. “Perhaps you already are. You walk our tunnels, speak our tongue, fight our battles, protect our queen. The air itself has claimed you.”

Gregor met her gaze, his voice low. “Maybe. But there’s still a part of me that misses the light.”

Luxa looked away for a moment, then said quietly, “I remember your light.”

He blinked. “My light?”

“The day you took me to the park,” she said. “Central Park, you called it. The open sky frightened me at first, but the wind—” she closed her eyes briefly, remembering “—the wind smelled like freedom. And the kite we flew… it was red, yes?”

He smiled. “Yeah. Red against a blue sky. You did great with it, by the way.”

“I nearly lost it in a tree.”

“That’s part of the fun.”

Luxa’s smile lingered for a heartbeat before fading. “I did not tell you something about that day.”

“What’s that?”

“After we returned to Regalia, my skin burned. Not from anger or battle. It burned as if I had held my hand too near a flame. The light from above — your sun — it had touched my arms, my neck, my face. The pain lasted, and finally went away. My grandmother said it was the sun’s punishment for those who forget its strength.”

Gregor frowned. “You got sunburned! I didn’t think! I’m sorry!”

“Sunburned,” she repeated softly, tasting the word. “Yes. It was a strange pain, but I did not tell you. I feared you would not take me again.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Luxa, you wanted to go again?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “Even though it burned me. I thought, perhaps, if I found a way to cover my skin or protect it, you might take me to the place you spoke of — the beach. The one where the sea meets the sky.”

For a moment, neither spoke. A torch crackled softly.

Gregor’s voice was quiet when he finally said, “I’ll take you there. I promise. That can be our date! We’ll figure something out. A hat, a cloak — sunscreen, maybe.”

“Sunscreen,” she repeated, puzzled.

“It’s a lotion,” he said. “You put it on your skin to keep from burning.”

Luxa smiled faintly. “You Overlanders have magic after all.”

He chuckled. “Maybe just better chemistry.”

Her expression softened again as she looked up at him. “You brought the sun with you when you came here, Protector. I think that is why I burned. Not just from the light above, but from remembering what warmth feels like.”

He felt something stir deep inside him at her words — a blend of pride, guilt, and something gentler than either. “Then maybe,” he said, “the warmth belongs to both of us now.”

Luxa stepped closer, the light from the torch painting gold across her blonde hair. “Perhaps,” she whispered. “Perhaps we carry different lights — yours from the sun, mine from the stone. Together, they make something neither world can dim.”

For a long moment they stood that way, the shadows shifting around them. Somewhere down the corridor, a distant bell echoed the hour. Luxa turned her face toward the torch, eyes half-closed.

“The sun and the stone,” she said softly. “Maybe they were never meant to be enemies after all.”

Gregor smiled. “Guess not.”

He kept hold of her hand; she never tried to pull away. The torch flickered, the corridor hushed, and for the first time in a long while, neither of them felt caught between worlds.