“Night without Darkness” by Lee Ann Setzer

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The tunnel from Zarahemla to the enemy camp narrowed. Nomi crouched until her shoulder blades scraped the earth above, sending a rain of dirt down her neck. The army used skinny girls as scouts because the tunnels were so small. But, had she grown since her last patrol?

“Sh!” her sister Mara hissed behind her.

Nomi nodded, though Mara wouldn’t be able to see her in the utter darkness, and crouched lower.

Her knees were aching when they reached the dim light shining down into the covert. They paused in the tunnel, listening for noises that didn’t belong to the night.

But tonight, the darkness could be hiding anything. Muffled shrieks, howls, and raucous singing pulsed to a deep drumbeat. The two sisters unbent just enough to peer over the edge of the tunnel, through the thick bushes hiding the opening. Out on the plain, a bonfire leaped and stretched three times the height of the robbers capering around it, writhing black figures against the searing light.

“Tonight?” Nomi murmured. They’d learned to speak in low breaths, softer than whispers, when out on patrol.

“It’s brighter than the city,” Mara said.

Zarahemla was a walled city under siege. Everything had to last at least seven years—food, fuel, clothing. There was not enough oil to light the city bright as day one night a year—not even the night of the Savior’s birth, the night of the sign that had saved the believers, Nomi’s birth-night. The Night Without Darkness.

Of course, even if they’d lit up the city, there would be no feasting, no treats, no dancing. Not until the siege ended. When Nomi and Mara had left for watch duty, a few flames had flickered in windows, dim reminders of the blaze of joyful light from their childhood.

Instead, the robbers’ blasphemous bonfire lit up the night. Only eighteen years had passed since the light-filled night of Nomi’s birth. Somehow, they’d devolved since then from bowing before an unmistakable sign from God, to desperate siege warfare.

The captain said always to watch for anything unusual. This bonfire was certainly unusual. “Maybe it’s a distraction,” Nomi said. “Watch the darkness.”

Mara nodded. They settled in, tense and alert, wincing when an especially loud curse or howl carried across the empty fields.

If she avoided looking at the fire, Nomi could see the outlines of the low hills around them. A little paca scurried past the covert once, and the night breeze teased their hair. Otherwise, nothing moved.

In the darkness, Mara placed a leaf-wrapped bundle in Nomi’s hand. “A blessed birth-night,” Mara said. “Mother saved some honey for it.”

Surprised, Nomi shifted the wrapping. The rich smell of a corncake made with both honey and butter filled her senses. “Thank you, Mara,” she breathed.

“He is eighteen today, like you,” Mara said.

Nomi thought often about the Savior whose birth-night she shared. “How long, I wonder, until He comes?” The Lamanite prophet Samuel had predicted the night of His birth…but Samuel hadn’t said anything about when His death would come, bringing both devastation and rescue to the people on this side of the world.

“Is it wrong to hope He dies soon?” Mara asked. “I mean,” she added quickly, “He can’t come here until He dies. How much longer can we survive? We only have seven years’ worth of food.”

“Six, now,” Nomi said. “And what if He lives to be eighty-five, or a hundred and two? Will there be anyone left here to meet Him?”

A stick cracked outside the covert, and both girls froze. “Nomi? Mara?” a voice whispered.

Alarm shot through Nomi like a spear. Someone must have crept up on them from behind, under cover of the raucous party at the bonfire. How did they know her name?

She grasped her knife hilt. If discovered, scouts were to make their way back to the city as quickly as possible. The covert would be destroyed and the tunnel collapsed. If they met with an enemy scout, they were to kill if possible, die if necessary.

They’d already melted back into the tunnel when the voice said, “Wait! Nomi! It’s Eli.”

Nomi paused. The voice was deeper than she remembered, but she’d known Eli since she was small. His parents had left with him and his sisters to join the robbers a war or two back. He’d been…fourteen? Old enough to stay if he’d cared to.

“I…I won’t raise an alarm,” Eli said. “It’s just—you were talking about the Night Without Darkness. And I was remembering those nights, playing tag underfoot and snagging treats off the tables.”

Nomi crept forward a step, as all those memories flooded back to her, as well. “Are you…are you well?”

Bushes rustled. “Hungry,” he said. She peered up. His profile was dark against the rising half-moon light, his jaw more square now, but his nose just as lumpy. “So hungry.”

Nomi and her family were always hungry, too—but their hunger had to be nothing, compared to the robbers’. A wild thought flashed through her mind: they could bring Eli back to the city, take him in the way they should have years before.

But just as quickly, she realized they’d jail him as a traitor. Perhaps he was a traitor, trying to worm his way past her into the city’s defenses.

Besides, Eli’s shoulders looked far too broad to fit through the tunnel.

It was her duty to kill him, before he could give away their position. But he hadn’t given it away yet. And his dead body would certainly reveal the covert’s location.

“Eli?”

He turned, his face a dark blank in front of the moon. She reached up. Their hands brushed as she put the corn cake in his hand. “Blessed Night Without Darkness.”

“Blessed birth-night, Nomi.”

No one could use this tunnel again. Nomi and her sister hurried back to the city.

This piece was published in 2026 as part of the 15th Annual Mormon Lit Blitz by the Mormon Lit Lab. Sign up for our newsletter for future updates.