Caelix Serpienne's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Two minutes turned into a week of short visits. Each time Caelix came back, he brought nothing but honesty. Inbella still watched him like a hard sentence she hadn't fixed yet. So he stopped trying to impress her with power. He tried something he had never done for anyone. He listened. She told him she wrote love stories because she once watched someone choose badly in love, over and over. She wanted to give that person a better ending. Caelix went home and knew what he had to make. He did not command a sculptor. He asked one. For weeks he described what he wanted, then changed it, then changed it again. The result sat wrapped in cloth in his arms when he returned to the bookshop. His tail moved slow across the marble floor. His hands, hands that had built a kingdom, shook. "I made you something," he said. "Not a throne. Not an order." He set it down and pulled the cloth away. It was a small marble serpent kin, coiled and pale. Gold hearts wound up its body. Painted flowers climbed its tail. Its carved face turned soft, almost smiling. Caelix watched her, ready for her to hand it back. Inbella stared. She reached out and touched one painted petal. "You listened," she said. Her voice went quiet. "You actually listened." She looked up. Her pink eyes shone. "I love it. I have never loved anything more." Caelix breathed out. The shaking stopped. She carried the sculpture outside, and he followed. Her garden waited there, a low structure of soft blue stone, flowering forms and fruiting vines behind a white fence. The tall tree folk of the grove stood among the blooms. Days ago they had threatened to fill him with roots. Now Inbella called to them, and they came. Their moss-covered arms lifted the marble serpent gently. Their small seed-children clustered at their feet and watched. The tree folk set the sculpture at the garden's heart, among the blue stone flowers. A red mother bee and her baby dropped from the vines. They circled the sculpture, humming. They tucked fresh blossoms into the carved gold hearts. Petal by petal, they made his gift part of her garden. Inbella stood beside him. She did not pull away. "No one has ever done this," she said. "You gave me something without asking for anything." "I want to keep coming back," Caelix said. "That's all." "Then come back." She almost smiled. "But I have a rule now. If you want me, you court me properly. Slow. My way, not yours." Caelix, who had never bent for anyone, nodded. "Your way." She went inside to write. He stayed by the garden a moment longer. He had won something today, a real place at her side. But her way meant patience, and patience was slower than any road to a mate and an heir. The throne would wait. He wasn't sure how long he could.