Levi Ashborne's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Levi reached the farm before the sun cleared the trees. He carried a jug of pond water and had no plan for it. He had promised to help test the flowers. He did not know how. Aria waited by the cottage, her pink hair loose, her white dress still gray at the hem. Beside her stood a girl he was familiar with. Railiana, a sixteen year old farm girl. Railiana smiled at him. "Good morning Levi. Aria said you'd be coming.” She led them to the strange crop bed. Flowers twisted up in wrong shapes. Some glowed. Some bent like broken fingers. Forty blue blossoms stood in a cold row, brighter than the rest. Aria pointed at them. "Those. The fever needs them. But they killed the boy. I need to know why before I use another." Levi stared at the plot. He was no healer. But he knew the pond. He knew its water burned strong when used raw. "The water twists things," he said slowly. "Undiluted, it makes them wrong. Railiana grew these with warm water straight on the soil. Maybe that made them too strong." Railiana nodded fast. "That's true. I thawed the ground with warm pond water. These grew colder than the others." Aria crouched by the blue flowers. "Then the strength is the danger." She looked at Levi. "We test it. Weak first." They worked through the morning. Railiana brought a jar of well water. Levi mixed it thin, one part pond to four parts well, the way he had learned kept crops healthy. Aria pressed a diluted blossom to a wilting plant at the plot's edge. The plant lifted. It did not burn. It did not blacken. It stood green and whole. Aria watched it a long moment. "Cooling, not killing," she said. "Diluted, it heals without stopping the breath." She wrote it on a scrap of paper with a stub of charcoal. Her hand shook once, then steadied. Levi felt something loosen in his chest. He had done a real thing. Not hidden. Not fled. Railiana grinned at him. Aria did not smile, but she looked at him without anger for the first time. "This could save them," Aria said. "If I can test it on a person before frost ends." She folded the paper. "But the village forbids untested herbs. A boy already died. They will not let me try again without proof." Levi's relief drained. The test had worked. Now Aria needed the village's trust, and the village feared what came from his pond. His secret would have to leave the forest. "Then they'll ask where the water comes from," he said. Aria met his eyes. "Yes. And you will have to decide what I can tell them."