Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 1 of 26

Aster Alloway had one blooming season to find the century flower, and she was already wasting it. She stood in her shop doorway with a torn old map in two of her four hands. Her pastel fronds drooped. Glowing pollen sifted from her apron as she traced a road that led nowhere. The legendary bloom grew only in the hidden groves beyond the city, once every hundred years. This was the year. But the map was worthless. It showed streets and gardens, not a single grove. A small white dog trotted through the door and dropped a fallen blossom at her feet. Its long puffball ears swung like lollipops. Aster picked up the flower. Pale blue petals, slender stems. She kept a bush like it near the window. But this blossom smelled wrong, sweeter, wilder. She had never grown anything like it. "Where did you get this?" she asked the dog. The dog only wagged. Then Aster remembered who owned it. The painter across the street. The one neighbor Aster never waved to. The recluse who vanished for weeks and returned with canvases of places no one in the city could name. Aster crossed the street with the blossom in her hand. She had never knocked on that door. She knocked now. Aster Bella answered in a paint-stained apron. Green streaks and dried red splashes covered the cloth. She studied Aster with tired brown eyes and said nothing. "Your dog brought me this," Aster said. She held up the blossom. "It grew wild. Somewhere far. You've seen it, haven't you? You've seen the groves." The painter's face tightened. "People who go looking never come back with what they want." "I'm not people. I'm a florist." Aster's four hands opened wide. "That bloom blooms once a century. This is the year. I can't waste it guessing." Bella stared a long moment. Then she stepped back and let Aster inside. The walls held paintings of glowing groves, misted valleys, flowers that pulsed with light. Aster's breath caught. Every place she needed was here, painted from memory. Bella reached above her worktable and lifted down a circular hanging piece. Dozens of glass spore-shapes crowded its frame, glowing blue and gold and pink. A compass rose sat at its center. She pressed it into Aster's hands. "It reads pollen on the wind," Bella said. "When the century bloom opens, its scent carries. The glass answers. Follow the strongest glow." She looked away. "I won't guide you. But that will." Aster held the compass. Its spores warmed against her palms, tilting faintly toward the door. It was pulling already. Somewhere out there, the bloom was stirring. "Thank you," Aster said. She meant it. Bella's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Don't thank me yet. The wind doesn't care if you're ready." Aster stepped back into the street. The compass glowed brighter, pointing toward the hills beyond the city. She knew where to go now. The season had truly begun.