Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 56 of 59

The court had given Delia the magic to study, but she had no idea where to start. She stood in her field at dawn and looked at the glowing flowers she had never planted. She knew every healing plant by touch and smell. These she did not know at all. No book explained them. No living person could. She had promised the king answers she could not give. The black fox stepped out of the tall grass. Delia knew him. He had led her to plants before, guiding her hands to what she needed. Now he sat and watched her, ears sharp. "You know these," she said. "Don't you." The fox turned and trotted toward the trees, then stopped and looked back. Delia called for Nick. He came from the house, still buttoning his coat. "The fox wants us to follow," she said. Nick studied the animal. "Then we follow." They walked behind him through the woods, the fox pausing whenever they fell behind. He led them up a slope to a small round house on a rise of gnarled roots, its walls white and its roof blue. An old woman stood on the wraparound railing. She was small and wore red. Rings and pendants glowed at her throat and hands, brighter as they neared. Her ears were pointed. Her eyes were sharp and blue. "You took long enough," she said. "The magic has been calling you for months." Delia stopped at the stairs. "You're an elf." "Elara Jance," the woman said. "I have hidden longer than your grandmother's grandmother lived. The blooms woke me too." She looked Delia over, slow and careful. "You have the blood. I can smell it on you like rain." Delia climbed the steps. "I have to explain this magic to the court. I don't understand any of it." "Then sit," Elara said. She led them inside, past windows on every wall. "The magic is old. It sleeps in the land when there are none to tend it. It wakes when the right blood returns." She touched a glowing flower on the sill. "These grow for you. The creatures come for you. You are what the land waited for." Delia sat forward. "My ancestor was named Elira. She served the palace." Elara went still. "Elira," she said. "I knew her. She was a healer, like you. Kind, like you." She looked at her own glowing rings. "You are the first of her line to feel the call in three lifetimes." Elara taught them until the sun crossed the sky. How the blooms healed. Why the unicorn returned. How the magic answered need, not command. Delia wrote every word. When they left, she carried the answers the court demanded. But Elara had watched her rings all day. At the door she gripped Delia's wrist. "Something was stolen from me," she said. "It is moving again. And it is moving toward you."