Nymphflora Mossfern's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The stranger still stood in her light, waiting. Nymphflora kept the stone pillar between them. His sword hung at his hip, but his hands stayed loose. She was small and afraid, yet the swamp had never guided her wrong. She made herself step out from the pillar. "My name is Nymphflora," she said. "I don't know how to stop the dying. Not all of it. But I'm made to wake it." She touched a bloom near her foot. It brightened at her fingers. "I only know this small place. I'm still learning the rest." The man watched the bloom glow. Something in his face eased. "Casian," he said. "I came from the fields past the swamp. The rot crossed into my land." He did not offer more. He looked at her leaf clothing, then at the moss spreading under her feet. "Where do you come from?" "I don't remember being born," she said. "No family. No first years. I woke one night under a blue moon, in a tree by two ponds." She pointed through the dark. "That tree is my home. It hollowed itself around me when I asked. Come. I'll show you where I began." Casian hesitated. Then brush parted behind him. A great silver wolf stepped into the glow, tall as Casian's chest, a crest of blue light burning on its chest. Its eyes were pale as ice. Nymphflora froze. The wolf lowered its head and sniffed the moss, then looked at her without threat. "Mine," Casian said. "He guides me. He won't hurt you." The wolf pressed close to his leg, watching the dark beyond the light. Casian's hand rested on its fur. For the first time his shoulders dropped. Nymphflora led them through the reeds. Moss unrolled behind her boots the whole way. The wolf walked at the edge, ears turning at every sound. At last the gnarled tree rose ahead, wrapped in vines and lit by clusters of water lilies. Small windows glowed in its trunk. A tiny door sat among the roots. "This is where I woke," she said. She pressed her palm to the bark. The tree answered with a warmth she felt in her chest. "It gave me my name. It told me what I could become. Something that wakes whole living places, not just moss." Casian looked at the home, then at the dead swamp around it. "You can't do that yet." "No," she said. "Not yet." He was quiet a long moment. The wolf sat beside him. "The rot moves faster than you learn," he said. "You need time. I can buy it. Blade and bow." He met her eyes. "Come with me. I'll keep you safe while you learn. You heal what we pass." Nymphflora's heart lifted, then tightened. She had meant to root here, in one place. Now the boy asked her to walk into the whole dying swamp before she was ready. "Yes," she said. "I'll come."