Sapphire Crystalline's Arc

Chapter 7 of 12

Sapphire survived the night in the warded cell. She woke at dawn with dirt under her nails and no memory. Her family had lived through the moon too. But she was no closer to a cure. Her father's hidden item sat in a cloth bundle by her feet, delivered days ago. She still did not know what it was. Kael had read it before he handed it over. He would not tell her, not without more. So she turned to the one person who might help without a price. Lyra Silverblade met her at the east gate of the refuge. Sapphire had met her once before, guarding this place. Lyra guarded House Orvanos, but she was kind to cursed folk. A shadowbeast dozed by the wall near her, and she stepped over its tail without looking. Her armor was dented at the left shoulder. She had called Sapphire a friend, and meant it. "You look like you slept in a cage," Lyra said. "I did." Sapphire held out the bundle. "My father hid this. I need to know what it does." Lyra unfolded the cloth. Inside lay a dried flower, dusky and purple, its petals stiff but whole. A folded paper was pinned beneath it. Sapphire's breath caught. She knew that flower. She had cut one just like it at Dreadfall keep, and it had burned her hand. Lyra read the paper. Her face went still. "This is your father's writing?" "Yes." She passed it over. Sapphire read the cramped lines. The dusk flower alone did nothing. It marked a path. Cut it, dry it, carry it, and it would point toward the tree that healed all sickness. Her father had named the tree. He had drawn a small map beneath the words, half of it torn away. "He never finished," Sapphire said. "Half the map is gone." "He ran out of time," Lyra said. "Or someone took the rest." She tapped the flower. "But this is the key. The bloom answers to cursed blood. Yours burned when you cut one. It won't burn a clean hand. That's how it leads." Sapphire's chest tightened. Two attempts had failed because she chased cures blind. Now she held the reason her father died still searching. The flower was not the cure. It was a compass. And she had already given a fresh one away to Vexeron. "Where is the tree?" she asked. Lyra shook her head. "The map's torn. But the flower points. Carry it near, and it'll pull." She closed Sapphire's fingers around the dried bloom. "You've got a start now. Not an answer." Sapphire looked at the withered flower in her palm. She finally knew what her father left her. She could begin her third attempt at last. But the map was torn, and the only fresh flower that could guide her already sat in a necromancer's hands.