Silas's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The moth stayed on Silas's shoulder for three days. It would not eat. Its petal wings drooped, pink fading to gray. The court watched from the trees. The living throne sat behind the stone arch, its wood shut tight as a fist. Morrigan found him beside it at dawn. "The throne waits for an offering," she said. "Not a rose. Not a trick of blooms. Something the moth can drink that costs you." She left him with the puzzle. Silas remembered a tower far past the grove. Vines climbed its walls. Midnight blossoms crowned its peak, blooms no season could copy. He walked two days to reach it. At its foot he found a small man digging in the dirt. Twigs sprouted from his gray hair. Green leaves clung to his ragged clothes. Silas knew him from old grove talk—the keeper the court had cast out years ago. "You want the high blossoms," Elrik said, not looking up. "Everyone does. They kill the ones who climb." He jerked his chin at the thorny vines. "Court threw me here to guard nothing. Funny, that." His eyes went to the moth. They sharpened. "You carry the throne's own creature. So you're the new fool chasing the crown." "I need one bloom," Silas said. "For the moth. It's dying." Elrik snorted. "The blossoms won't feed it. The moth wants what you'd hate to give." He pointed at Silas's hand. A ring sat there, gold worn thin, old oath-marks carved deep in the band. "That. The warden's vow. You'd trade your keepsake for a crown?" Silas's thumb closed over the ring. His father had worn it. Forty years he had kept it while he searched. "It's all I have of the last warden," he said. "Then it's the only thing that costs you," Elrik said. "Blooms are cheap. You grow them free." He watched Silas with old, bitter eyes. "The court took everything from me and I gave it freely. Look where I stand." Silas climbed the tower anyway. Thorns tore his coat. He pressed his palm to the vines, and flowers opened, softening the climb. At the top he cut one midnight blossom. He held it to the moth. The moth turned away. Elrik was right. Silas came down and slid the ring from his finger. He set it in his palm beside the blossom. "Take what costs me," he told the moth. The moth crawled to the ring. It touched the worn oath-marks. Its wings flushed back to pink and gold. Then it flew, straight and sure, toward the distant throne. When Silas returned, the living throne stood open. Its wood had unfolded like a bud. The court knelt at last. But the ring lay gone inside the wood, swallowed. And on the arch above, watching, stood a woman in a crown of pale bone, vines and small flowers threaded through her black hair. She smiled at the open throne as if it were already hers.