Antheia Botanis's Arc

Chapter 8 of 15

By nightfall the balanced table had to be moved under glass. Antheia stood at the shrine terrace with the pedestal between her and Verdis, and the plants held their arrangement in a thin, humming quiet. Verdis had named the danger already. Open weather would tip the balance. They had one place built for both light and shade, and they had to reach it before the dew set. Antheia sent word to Roswell. He came within the hour, roses on his shoulders, roots trailing behind him wherever his feet landed. He looked at the pedestal, then at Verdis. "I can carry it," he said. "My roots will hold the base steady. They do not care what side a plant is on." Verdis's flat green eyes moved over him. "You are her husband." "I am," Roswell said. "That does not change the wood." They walked the pedestal down the terrace path to the half-eclipse dome. The dome sat where the ridge cut the sky in two, one side always bright, one side always dim. Living vines climbed the glass on the sunlit half. Dark ferns filled the shaded half. A stone floor ran between. Verdant Shade had marked the center already, a small circle where light and shadow met. Roswell set the pedestal on the circle. His roots crept out from his heels and sank into the seam of the stones, bracing the base without touching the plants. Antheia watched the golden crocus at the table's center. It did not flare or dim. It held. Verdis crossed to the shaded side and knelt at the ferns. Antheia crossed to the bright side and stood among the vines. Between them, a pale orchid nymph drifted out from behind a fern, luminous, marked with faint poison lines. She did not speak. She circled the pedestal once, tasted the air, and settled at its foot as a witness. "Hands," Lily said from the doorway. Antheia and Verdis set their palms on the pedestal edges again. The bond woke. Warmth ran both ways through the wood. Charred stems kept their one green node. White blossoms kept their browned tips. Neither side pushed. The orchid nymph did not move. Verdis lifted their hands first, as before. "It will hold here," they said. "Sun feeds the living. Shade feeds the rotting. The dome shares them." They looked at Roswell, then at Antheia. "Before your heir comes, the seat is shared. After, we speak again." Antheia felt the words land. Not a threat. A clock. Roswell drew his roots back into his heels. Antheia stepped away from the vines. The blight had stopped at the groves already taken. The table held under glass. Her sister-goddess had named a term she had not asked for, and Antheia had one season, maybe less, to decide what she would plant next.