Sage winterwood's Arc

Chapter 12 of 29

The morning after the fox returned, Sage spread the rare seeds across her workbench. Half of them had changed. The silver ones had gone dull. The blue pod had shrunk inside its shell. Two black seeds felt soft when she pressed them, like fruit gone bad. The long journey had drained them. If she waited for the soil to be ready, they would die in her hand. She could not put them in the ground yet. Frost still touched the plot each night, and cold would finish what the road had started. She needed a warm, sheltered place to nurse them back. She had none. So she built one. All day she cut boards from the enchanted lumber and fit glass panes into frames. By dusk a small greenhouse stood beside her cabin, its walls green and living, vines already curling up the seams. Inside the air held its warmth. She lined the shelves with shallow pots of damp earth and laid the failing seeds down like sick children. But warmth was not enough. The silver seeds stayed cold and gray. Sage knelt among the shelves as the light died, out of ideas. Golden light spilled through the glass. Sage turned. Her mother stood in the doorway, her gown bright enough to throw shadows across the pots. Aurelia Lumenis, the goddess of light and life, had not visited the garden once since Sage began. Sage's throat tightened. She had wanted to show her mother a finished garden, not a room of dying seeds. "You built all this yourself," Aurelia said. She stepped inside and touched a leaf on the wall. "I heard you were failing. I came to see it fail." She smiled. "I was wrong." "They're dying," Sage said. "They traveled too far. I can't wake them." Aurelia knelt beside her. She set down two things she had carried. First, a heavy book, its cover deep green and stamped with gold. "Every plant that grows," she said. "And how to keep each one alive. I marked the pages you'll need." Then she placed a satchel on the bench. Through its open mouth spilled seeds that glowed soft in the dark, each a different color. "More seeds won't help the ones already gone," Sage said. "Then use both." Aurelia opened the book to a marked page. Sage read. Warmth, the tome said, was only the start. A withering glimmerseed needed light poured straight into it, life given by hand. Sage looked at her mother. Aurelia held out her glowing palm, then drew back. "No. You have the light too. You always did." Sage cupped a dull silver seed. She let her glow gather in her hands and pressed it into the shell. The seed warmed. Its skin brightened. One by one she held each dying seed and fed it light until color returned. By midnight every seed lived again. She now had a greenhouse full of rare plants ready to root, a book to guide her, and a satchel of new seeds she had never planned for. The garden had never been so close.