Railiana Monroe's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

The morning after Aria left, Railiana counted her heated stones. Seven. She spread them across the frozen ground and knelt. Their warmth reached only a small circle of soil. The rest of the field stayed hard as iron. She needed dozens of blue flowers by frost's end. Seven stones could not thaw enough dirt for even half that many. She pressed her palm to the cold ground and felt the problem sink in. She walked to the pond to find Levi. He was her neighbor, the horned man who lived alone past the trees. He had given her the stones in the first place. She found him crouched at the water's edge, staring into the glow. "I need more stones," she said. "Aria wants dozens of flowers. Seven isn't enough." Levi did not look up. "The pond gives up a few each thaw. No more." "Then I can't grow them." Her voice cracked. "People are sick. The fever. This flower is the only thing that cools it." He was quiet. Then he stood and looked at the still water. "The heat is in the water, not just the stones," he said. "Warm the water. Pour it on the soil." Railiana stared at him. "Undiluted pond water mutates the sprouts. It ruins them." "The seeds are already planted," he said. "Warm water on cold roots. Not on seed." She understood. The danger was in the growing magic, not the heat. If she poured warm pond water only to thaw the ground, the roots might wake without twisting worse than they already had. It was a gamble. But seven stones had already lost her the field. They worked through the day. Levi lowered the glowing stones into a bucket of pond water. The water warmed. Railiana carried bucket after bucket to the frozen beds. She poured slow, soaking the soil, not the young stalks. Steam curled off the ground. The dirt softened under her boots. By dusk the whole field had thawed. Blue flower shoots stood in every row, dozens of them, pale and trembling but rooted. Railiana counted forty. More than Aria asked for. Then she looked closer. The nearest shoots glowed brighter than her old plants. Their petals had a sharper blue, almost white at the edges. She touched one leaf. It was cold as frost, colder than any flower she had grown. Levi came to stand beside her. "They're stronger," she said. "The warm water pushed the magic harder." "Stronger," he agreed. "You don't know what they'll do." Railiana held the icy leaf between her fingers. She had filled the field. She had beaten the frost. But these flowers were not the same blue flowers Aria had tested and trusted. They were something new. And Aria needed to make a cure from them, a cure meant to go into sick villagers' mouths. She would have to prove they were safe before frost's end. Again.