Herona Teracinth's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The forest thickened around her after three days of walking. Herona recognized the old paths now, the way moss grew heavier on the northern sides of the oaks, the particular smell of pine mixing with damp earth. She was getting close to their territory. She found the clearing by accident, taking a shortcut through thorned brush she remembered from before. The stone well still stood at its center, cracked rim thick with moss. Moonflower petals floated on the stagnant water inside, pale and faded. But the clearing itself had changed. Luminous vines covered every surface now, climbing over rotted trellises, choking the spaces where she and Jereth had once walked. The flowers glowed faintly even in daylight, beautiful and invasive. No one from the Circle had been here in years. Herona knelt by the well and reached into the water. Her fingers found something solid beneath the petals. She pulled out a brass locket, green with age, its edges stained. Inside was a portrait she didn't recognize—a woman with kind eyes and braided hair. Not hers. Not Jereth's. Someone else had been here first, had their own moment in this place, had left their own memory behind. The clearing had never belonged to them at all. She closed the locket and slipped it into her pack beside the oilcloth bundle of letters. The fire spirit stirred warm against her ribs, restless. She'd been carrying this place with her like a shrine, proof that she and Jereth had mattered to each other, that the Circle had stolen something sacred. But the wild had already reclaimed it. The moonflowers still bloomed, the vines still grew, indifferent to who had stood here once. She left the clearing without looking back, her arguments suddenly feeling thinner, her grip on the past loosening with each step toward the Circle's home.