Sage Knight's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

By the fourth dawn, Sage climbed down from the watch platform with a worn leather journal under her arm. No field guide named this stage. She would have to write it herself. The ground around the den had changed. Dark streaks marked the bark of the nearest post, and disturbed leaf litter lay in a rough ring around the stalk. The fox had claimed the space in a language Sage could read but not translate. She knelt and opened the journal. The bud above the den had swelled overnight. Its outer skin was indigo, almost black, but a thin seam of amber light glowed deep inside. She had never seen this. No one had written it down. Sage sketched the shape. She wrote the hour, the color, the soft heat she could feel near the stalk. Then she stopped. She did not know what a true midnight-bloom looked like. She could not tell if this was the night before, or three nights away, or wrong. The fox watched her from inside the den. Its sides pulsed slow, like a breath. Sage closed the journal and set it down. She would not guess. She would not cut, or touch, or force. "I don't know when," she said aloud. The fox blinked. Sage decided then: she would stop trying to read the bud, and start reading the fox. Its glow would tell her. That was the new plan. The bud stayed closed. Her waiting had changed shape.