Annie Philaxis's Arc

Chapter 137 of 6

The four smallest Frost Sinklings stood in the warm soil, newly named. The throne had bound them, but Annie knew names were not enough. A child could freeze from ignorance as fast as from cold. The new heirs had to be taught what the throne would do to them. She sent for Zev. Zev came with the four small ones trailing her like shoots after rain. She knelt in the greenhouse dirt and gathered them close. "The seat pulls at you," she said. "You will feel it in your roots. A hook under the ground." She pressed each small hand flat to the soil. "When it pulls, you push back into the earth. Not toward the ice. Down." Veruca, the youngest, pushed her palm hard against the dirt and grinned when the ground held her. Verdant watched from the doorway, counting under her breath. Zev did not soften it. "It wants you because you are new weight. It always wants new weight." Flora watched from her root-woven body. Her neon leaves had grown into limbs now, and she moved without her pot. She listened to Zev teach her seed to bend toward the earth, and her leaves stiffened. "You teach them to kneel," Flora said. "I teach them to survive," Zev said. Flora reached a vine toward Veruca. "There is another lesson. The throne is not the only one who names you. She names you." Flora's voice went flat as she pointed at Annie. "The witch. She wrote you in a book you never read. She calls that a gift." Veruca's leaf-hair began to curl and pale. "You do not have to obey her. Roots break stone. You could break her ledger." Annie felt the throne shiver up her spine. Flora was seeding rebellion in children too young to weigh it, and the frost climbed the glass in answer. Zev stood between Flora and the four small ones. "No." She did not raise her voice. "You want them to fight so you are not alone in fighting. That is not love. That is hunger wearing your face." Flora's vine stopped mid-air. Named, it had no more pull. Veruca's leaves uncurled. She looked from Flora to Zev and put both hands back in the dirt. "Whose weight are you?" Zev asked her. "The ground's," Veruca said. "And yours." The frost slid back down the glass. The throne quieted, its heirs anchored by choice instead of fear. Flora drew her vine in. "They will learn," she said. "Later. When you are not looking." She turned her root-body toward the far wall and went still. Zev pressed her forehead to Veruca's. "I count them every morning now," she told Annie. "Same as Verdant. Flora will try again." Annie looked at the four small ones, taught and held, and at the plant who had bred them to break her. The heirs were safe today. But Flora lived inside the court now, patient as a root, and Annie would have to watch her own children for the crack she meant to grow.