Antheia Botanis's Arc

Chapter 3 of 15

Antheia carried the root-wrapped cutting down the slope to the road, and Roswell walked beside her. Small white roots pushed up in his footprints and curled toward the sun. She kept her eyes on the green tip in her hands. It had not blackened. Her hands could not do that. She needed to know why. "Ride with me to the love camp," she said. "I know a healer there. She may read what my hands cannot." Roswell nodded once. He whistled, and a blue-marked monarch the size of a pony came down through the pines and folded its wings for them to mount. They landed at a cluster of pink and rose tents strung with lanterns and flower ropes. Two winged kittens tumbled out to greet them, bumping heads against Antheia's boots. Rosalind Emberheart met them at the center tent. She wore a red crown and did not smile. "You brought a prince to my camp," she said. "Say what you need." Antheia held out the cutting. "His roots hold what my hands kill. I want to know why. I need a reader." Rosalind studied the green tip, then Roswell, then Antheia's crown with its missing petals. "Luminara is here through morning," she said. "She reads with star-dust. She will want a price." Luminara Starwhisper sat cross-legged inside the tent, silver hair pinned up, purple eyes bright. She sprinkled dust over the cutting and over Roswell's open palm. The dust settled in patterns. She looked up. "His line and yours cross clean only under one bond," she said. "Marriage. His roots will carry any cutting you take, for as long as the vow holds. Break the vow and the roots let go." Antheia's throat tightened. She thought of the greenhouse, the forty-two seedlings, the throne under the potted trees. She thought of every myth-plant she still needed to find, and every grove going black while she stood still. She turned to Roswell. "I need your roots for the whole search. Years, maybe. Will you marry me for it?" Roswell did not look away. "Yes," he said. "My roots are yours. So am I. Say the vow." They said it in front of Rosalind and Luminara, plain words, no feast. The kittens curled at Antheia's feet. When she took the cutting back, a new root pushed up between her fingers on its own and wrapped tighter around the branch. She felt the bond settle in her chest like a second pulse. She had her tool now. She also had a husband she had known for two days, and a knowledge she had not asked for: Luminara had watched her face while she said yes, and Luminara had seen that Antheia meant every word about the garden and none of them about the man.