Antheia Botanis's Arc

Chapter 12 of 15

Antheia held Coro's hand at the gate every dusk for six evenings, and every dusk Iant walked back through it with the orchid nymph on her shoulder. On the seventh evening the girl did not come. Antheia waited until the stars showed. She waited until Coro fell asleep against her leg. Then she carried him inside, laid him in the cot, and packed a satchel with water, bread, and one clean cutting. She followed the black line east. The anemones had died in a narrow track along the road Verdis took, and the track held. It led her over dry hills and down into a valley she had not walked before. At the valley's mouth stood a burnt arch of stone and wood, veined with slow fire. Scorched trunks braced the walls. Purple flowers grew from the cracks. This was Verdis's home ground, the grove they had kept for three hundred years. Antheia stopped at the arch. Her crown pulled tight on her head. Two petals shook loose and fell inside the grove, past the threshold, out of her reach. The crown did not lie. Iant was in there, and the ground beyond the arch belonged to Verdis. A shape moved between the trunks. Not Verdis. A dragon the size of a horse, ribbed with cactus plates, flowers open along its flanks, spines bristled at the joints. It set one clawed foot on the stone and watched her. Behind it, deeper in, Antheia saw Iant sitting cross-legged on a black slab. The nymph knelt at the girl's ear. Verdis stood over both, one hand on the child's hair. Iant was laughing. "She stays tonight," Verdis said. Their voice carried without effort. "She stays every night now. The dark work needs quiet ground. Your garden is too bright for it." Antheia stepped forward. The dragon lowered its head and breathed out. The air went hot. Her wings folded flat against her back on their own. She looked past the beast at her daughter. The twin vine mark on Iant's back showed through the thin shift, and the leaves along its curve had gone from green to black ink. The mirror on Coro's back was still green. Antheia understood then. The bargain she had made at the gate, day only, home by dusk, had been a bargain Verdis meant to break the moment the girl was ready. The girl was ready. "Iant," Antheia said. The child looked up. The child did not stand. "I am learning, Mama," Iant said. "Go home to Coro." Antheia turned and walked back through the arch. She did not run. She did not weep until the black track ended under her feet and the living road began. She had lost the daughter to the grove. One petal left on her crown. One child in the cot. One season, at most, to find a way to take Iant back before the black on the girl's spine reached her heart.