Nepenthia Thornweave's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Nepenthia set the cutting on her work table. The pale blue petals pulsed soft light against the wood. She reached for her catalog book and stopped. Her hand hovered over the page. This flower had no entry. No drawing. No name in any record she owned. The visitor watched from the doorway, mask tilted. Thornweave swallowed. If she wrote this down, every plant before it would shift in rank. The whole shape of her collection would bend around one stem she did not understand. She carried the cutting to the tall glass chamber at the center of the greenhouse. Its metal frame hummed as she sealed the stem inside. The dome lit blue around the flower. She breathed out slow. She counted three plants she knew by name. Then she opened a fresh page and began to draw. The visitor stepped closer. They set a small mirrored display on the floor beside the chamber. Angled panels threw light across the petals. "It belongs in the front," they said. Thornweave did not argue. She lifted the cutting from the chamber and set it on the mirrored stand. The unknown flower now stood at the head of her collection. Thirty-seven specimens fell into second place behind a stem with no name. The visitor moved to the door. "I left something outside," they said, and were gone. Thornweave stepped into the cold air. Near the path stood a short carved trunk, initials and a date cut deep into the bark — her old initials, the year she buried them. She pressed her palm to the wood. The catalog inside was already changing. So was she.