Elowen, the Bloomkeeper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Elowen knelt in the wet grass at sunrise, cutting moonpetal stems for a village girl whose fever had not broken in three days. She was the Bloomkeeper, the only healer for a stretch of farms that hugged the Elderwood, and her basket was still half empty when she heard the cry. It came from deep inside the trees, thin and shaking, not a bird and not a fox. She knew every animal sound within a day's walk. This one did not belong to any of them. She lifted her lantern from the hook on her belt. The bloom-shaped crystal at its center warmed under her thumb and threw a soft gold light between the trunks. The light always leaned toward what needed her. This morning it leaned hard, pulling her off the path and into the thorns. She found the creature in a snarl of black vines at the base of an old oak. It was the size of a lamb, with mossy green fur, small folded wings, and tiny flowers blooming along its back. A baby Floradrake. She had only ever seen grown ones, and only from far off. Its front leg was cut where the thorns had bitten in. When it saw her, it whimpered and tried to burrow deeper into the vines. "Easy," Elowen said. She sheared the thorns one by one with her belt knife, careful not to nick the small green flank. Blood beaded on her hands. The Floradrake shivered against her chest when she finally lifted it free. No mother came. No tracks led away. Someone had left it here to die, or the mother was already dead, and Elowen did not know which was worse. A small owl dropped onto a low branch above her. Bramble. Flowers grew in the moss on his head, and his yellow eyes fixed on the bundle in her arms. "There will be more," he said. "The wood is losing them faster every season." He did not explain who was taking them, or why. He did not need to. Elowen had been finding smaller signs for a year: empty nests, burned dens, snares set for things that should not be hunted. She pressed her cheek to the Floradrake's warm head and made her decision there in the thorns. "Then I need a place for them. Walls. A roof. Somewhere no one can reach them." Bramble tilted his head. From under one wing he drew a seed the size of a hen's egg, its crystal core glowing pink through golden vines. "Plant this behind the waterfall," he said. "It will grow what you need. A cottage first. Then the glass house for the ones who cannot survive outside it. Name it yourself." Elowen closed her fingers around the seed. The Floradrake had fallen asleep against her collarbone. "Bloomhaven," she said. She turned toward the waterfall with the seed in one hand and the baby in the other, and the village girl's moonpetals still uncut in the grass behind her.