Linnea's Arc

Chapter 5 of 14

The barn filled fast. Linnea worked through the morning, pulling one dose after another from the plants along the shelf. Eight blossoms held eight cures. By noon all eight were spent, and the line outside had not shrunk. It had grown. Soraya came in from the door, face tight. "There are forty more," they said. "A man carried his daughter here. She's burning up. And I have nothing to give them." Linnea looked at the empty stems. The blue and purple flowers hung dry. Each morning the plants made eight, no more. Each morning Mia sent thirty, fifty, a hundred. The math was cruel and simple. People would leave sick, and they would blame Linnea, not the woman counting heads in the yard. "We need more plants," Linnea said. "Not eight. Fifty. A hundred." Soraya shook their head. "The seed pods take days to root. You know that." Linnea crossed to the soft-leaved bloom by the door, the one with pale petals and layered green. They had never brewed from this one. It had come with the winged creature, a gift, set aside. Now Linnea pressed a hand to its leaves and felt something new. Warmth. Willingness. This plant did not hold one dose. It held many. Linnea drew sickness from the feverish girl and poured it into the bloom. The plant took it. Then a second patient. A third. The petals stayed full. Linnea laughed, shaking. "This one doesn't empty. It keeps giving." They worked without stopping. Ten cures. Twenty. The bloom fed dose after dose into cutting after cutting. Soraya ran seed pods and fresh soil, planting each new sprout beside the mother plant. By dusk the shelf held rows of green, all drinking from the one bloom that would not run dry. Mia came through the door as the last patient left healed. She stopped. She counted the plants, then counted again. Her pearls caught the lamplight. The smile she wore in the cellar was gone. "You found a way," Mia said. "I did." Linnea wiped their hands. "Send your hundred. Send your thousand. I can cure them now, all of them, without your barn or your crowds." Mia stepped closer. "You misunderstand me. I don't want you failing." Her voice dropped, smooth again. "I want you famous. And a healer who never turns anyone away? That's a name the whole province will pay to reach." She touched a broad green leaf. "You've just made yourself worth ten times more. To me." Linnea's stomach turned. The bloom had solved the shortage. It had also turned their small barn into a prize too large to hide. Mia was already looking past the door, past the field, toward something bigger. A castle-sized ambition, and Linnea at the center of it. "Rest tonight," Mia said, leaving. "Tomorrow the roads will be full."