Sage winterwood's Arc

Chapter 16 of 29

By the third morning the herd had grown. The doe brought a fawn. More rabbits crept from the rocks. The forage plot shrank under so many mouths. Sage measured the empty fertilizer pouch in her hand. The moonroot had saved the grass once. Without more, the plot would strip bare in days, and the animals would turn to her rare rows. She could not make moonroot herself. Only her mother knew its making. Sage tightened her grip on the pouch. She had to reach Aurelia. She carried her mother's tome to the open ground beyond the fence. Its cover held a golden eye ringed by stars. Aurelia had left it with the seeds. Sage found the passage she needed and read the words aloud. Light gathered on the bare stone. A staircase rose from it, step by step, gleaming pale with gold suns cut into the sides. It curved up past the clouds. Sage climbed. At the top her mother stood waiting, as if she had felt the summons. Aurelia's golden dress caught its own light. She smiled and reached for Sage's hands. "You came up yourself," Aurelia said. "You've grown bolder since I left you." "The animals are eating faster than I can grow," Sage said. She held out the empty pouch. "Your moonroot fed the grass, but it's gone. Teach me to make more." Aurelia turned the pouch in her fingers. Her smile faded. "Moonroot is dug under a full moon, far below the roots of old trees. It takes seasons to cure. You have no seasons." She pressed the pouch back into Sage's hand. "But you are asking the wrong question, daughter. You keep feeding one plot for a growing crowd." Sage frowned. "I have no more soil to spread them out." "You have light." Aurelia touched Sage's chest. "The same light that woke your dying seeds. Grass fed by your glow needs no moonroot at all. It grows back the moment it is cropped." Her face turned grave. "But the cost is yours to carry each day. Every blade you feed draws from you." Sage closed her fingers over the empty pouch. She thought of the doe, the fawn, the rabbits, all turning toward her rare rows if the grass failed. "Show me," she said. Aurelia guided her hands, teaching the shape of the light. When Sage understood, she thanked her mother and turned down the long stairs. Behind her the staircase folded back into the stone. At the plot Sage knelt in the grazed rows. She spread her hands and let her glow flow into the soil. Warm light sank into the roots. Blades sprang up thick and green, faster than any mouth could eat them. The doe stepped in and grazed. The rabbits followed. The plot held. Sage sat back, breathing hard. Her hands dimmed. She could feed them all now. But every dawn would drain her, and the herd was still growing.