Clover willow's Arc

Chapter 19 of 20

The guardian climbed down from the buck with the white dragon in his hands. Its glow was bright again. But he moved slow, one wing dragging the grass. He set the dragon on the willow bark. At once the little creature would not leave him. It clung to his shoulder, then his wrist, then his hair. Its magic pulsed out in restless waves. Each pulse stirred the grove. The bound willow shivered. New buds swelled on branches Clover had just calmed. She was empty of power and could barely lift her head, yet the tree was waking again. "It won't settle," the guardian said. His voice was rough. "It thinks I'm still fading. It keeps giving." He tried to lift the dragon away. It only clung harder, and its light flared. A branch above them cracked and shed petals in a rush. Lunaria rose from her low perch. Blue flowers opened in her long hair. "The dragon healed at the pond," she said. "But it feels what the pond took from you. It's trying to fill the hole." She looked at the guardian's dragging wing. "It can't. That's not a wound." Clover understood then. The dragon poured magic because it sensed the guardian was diminished. It would stir the grove all night trying to fix something no magic could fix. And she had no power left to bind another bloom. So she used the one thing she still had. Patience. She had comforted a frightened creature once by not grabbing it. She crawled to the guardian's side, pressed her palm flat to the bark, and spoke low to the dragon. "He isn't dying," she said. "Feel his heart. It's steady. He's tired, not broken. You don't have to give anymore." The dragon turned its small head toward her. Its light dimmed a notch. Clover kept her voice slow and did not reach for it. The guardian went still, watching her do what he could not. Around them the grove quieted. Buds stopped swelling. The willow's shiver eased. The dragon crept down the guardian's arm and curled against his chest, its glow fading to a soft, sleeping shine. The grove held. The bloom stayed bound. But the guardian sat with his dragging wing folded wrong, and Clover saw what the pond had cost him. He met her eyes. "I gave up something at the water," he said. "I can't fly right. And I don't know if it comes back." His hand covered the sleeping dragon. "You calmed it with no power at all. I can't do that. I never could." Clover leaned against him, spent but sure. She had chosen this grove and this man. Now he needed her not for her hands, but for what she was. The dragon slept between them, quiet at last. And the guardian, wounded in a way no healer could touch, let her stay close and did not pull away.