Nettle Quill's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Nettle Quill knelt in the meadow at dawn, brushing gray dust from a wilting toadstool ring. The blight had crept this far overnight. She needed these herbs whole to prove her craft to the faerie court, to earn the title of Royal Apothecary she had chased for years. She worked fast. She had built raised beds days ago, stretching cloth barriers between sick soil and clean. Now she dug up every healthy stem within reach and moved it across the line. Her hands shook. The blight pressed closer with each breath. By noon, the wildflowers behind her were ash. But inside the wooden beds, a single moonflower pod sat whole, its dark seeds tight and alive. She had saved one. Only one. Nettle wrapped the pod in cloth and stood. The meadow she knew was gone. What she carried now would have to be enough — and she still did not know what the court would ask her to do with it.