Briar Thorne's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

Briar carried the journal into the ice cave. The shrine glowed ahead, moon-bright behind its crystal frame. She knew what she had come to say. But the words felt cruel. She was here to ask the goddess to break the one spell she had cast for the woman she loved. A goddess might refuse that. A goddess might turn away. Briar needed proof that Celestine truly wished the spell undone. The air went silver. The goddess formed before the shrine, tall and pale, her long hair drifting in slow light. She looked at Briar with eyes that had waited too long. "You bring the princess's book," she said. "I feel her in it." "I do," Briar said. "And I have to ask you something hard." She opened the journal to the last clear page. "You froze the garden because she begged you. She wanted the flowers to last forever. But the spell did not preserve them. It put them to sleep. It has been killing them. It has been killing her." The goddess did not move. "I gave her what she wanted." "You gave her a cage," Briar said. "She wrote it here, in her own hand. Read it." She held the page up. The faint ink caught the moon-light. The goddess bent close. Her face did not change, but her light shivered. "She never knew," the goddess whispered. "She died still asking me to hold it." "She knows now," Briar said. "Her spirit is at the stone. Barely there. She told me to wake the flowers. For her. And for you." Briar reached into her collar and drew out a silver pendant. She had found it pressed inside the journal's spine. A crescent moon, ringed with carved blossoms. "This was hers. She kept your mark against her heart. She wants the hold released." The goddess took the pendant. Her fingers closed around it. For a long moment the cave was silent. Then she looked at Briar, and grief moved across her face like frost melting. "That is her proof," the goddess said. "I believe you." She lifted her hands. Light gathered between them, warm now, not cold. "I will not fight the ice. I will let it go. But I cannot do it from here. The garden must call the warmth home. Bring the pink blossoms to full bloom around the stone. When they open, the spell will loosen. If they do not open in time, it holds forever." Briar took the pendant back and pressed it to her chest. "They will open." "Go," the goddess said. "The cold season is nearly spent. When it ends, so does your chance." Her light drew back into the shrine. "And sprite. Wake her gently. She has been asleep a long time." Briar ran for the mouth of the cave. She had her answer. Now she had only days to make the blossoms bloom.