Railiana Monroe's Arc

Chapter 6 of 10

Railiana knelt in her plot at dawn and pressed a finger into the soil. Cold bit back. Frost had come in the night and stiffened the top of the dirt. She dug the seeds from Synthia's sack into shallow rows anyway, then watered them with the diluted pond mix. But she knew the truth even as she worked. Any sprout that broke the surface would freeze before it rooted. Her open plot held no warmth, and she had no way to give it any. She was staring at the rows when Levi came through the tree line. He rarely crossed onto her land in daylight. He carried something wrapped in cloth against his chest, and he walked fast, like he wanted the errand over. Levi was her neighbor from the woods, the horned man who fought off her boars and let her use his healing pond. He set the bundle down on the fence post and stepped back before she could thank him. "For the cold," he said. "They came from the pond. Take them." She unwrapped the cloth. Inside sat a cluster of smooth stones, gray and gold, glowing from somewhere deep inside. Heat rolled off them. Not fire heat, but a steady warmth, like a hand held near her cheek. She looked up. "Where did these come from?" "The water changes things." Levi shrugged, but his red eyes stayed on the stones. "I've had them a long while. You need them more than I do." Railiana knelt back at the rows. She pried the cluster apart with her fingers. Each stone stayed warm on its own. She pressed them one by one into the soil between the seeds, spacing them down the length of the plot. The frost around each stone melted into dark, wet dirt. Steam curled up in thin threads. She kept going until the whole plot breathed warmth into the cold morning air. By the third day she had her answer. Green broke the soil. Not one sprout but dozens, pushing up in the warm circles around the stones. She ran her hand over them and laughed out loud. The frost had held off the rest of the ground, but her seeds had rooted. The season was not lost after all. Then she looked closer. The sprouts near the stones grew wrong. Some twisted sideways. One bore a blossom already, blue and glowing, though the plant was no taller than her thumb. Another split into three stalks from a single seed. The pond magic in the stones had done more than warm the dirt. It had changed what grew there. Railiana crouched over the strange, bright plot. Her seeds were alive. But she had no idea what they would become, or whether she could ever sell them.