High Maiden Crystal knelt in the dark soil outside Locksborough's walls and pressed a seed into the ground for people who would never see her do it. She was a widow now. Her husband had been a warrior; she was an enchantress. Every refugee who fled the regime needed somewhere to hide, and she meant to grow it. Not a wall of stone, but a living fortress of vines and roots and leaves that could shelter them all. This soil patch was rich and ready, the best she had found. She had already whispered growth into half a row. Then she heard boots on the road. She flattened against the furrow. Down the slope, three of the regime's scouts marched the outskirts, spears out, sweeping the land she needed. This was their patrol route. She had planted here because the soil was good, not because it was safe. Now she saw her mistake. If they found her hands in the dirt, they would drag her back inside the walls, and the garden would die with the seeds still cold in the ground. Crystal could not fight three spears. She could not run without being seen crossing open field. Her fingers found the crystal at her throat. Her husband had given her the necklace before his last battle. Its pale gem shimmered, then seemed to swallow the light around it. She had never dared to use it on herself. She stood up in plain view. The scouts turned. But the necklace bent the light over her shoulders and face, and what they saw was one of their own. A gray uniform. A dull helm. She raised one hand in the flat salute she had watched them give a hundred times from behind the walls. The lead scout returned it and waved her along the road, as if she belonged to their patrol. Crystal walked with them for twenty steps, matching their pace, her heart slamming. Then she peeled off toward a stand of brush and let them march on. When their boots faded, she dropped the disguise and breathed. But the necklace had cost her. As the light returned to her skin, the gem cracked with a thin, bright sound. A hairline split ran through its heart. It had hidden her once. It would not hide her twice. She turned back to her half-planted row and made her choice. She could not keep planting in the open where patrols would always find her. She needed a guardian for this ground, something the scouts could not salute their way past. She knelt over the seeds she had already sung to life. Deep in the enchanted soil, something large stirred and pushed against the dirt from below. Crystal spread her fingers over the patch and poured her magic down, calling up the one thing fierce enough to hold this land while her garden grew.

The soil went still under Crystal's hands. Whatever had stirred below sank back down and did not rise. She dug with her fingers and found only cold seeds and packed dirt. No guardian. She had poured her magic into the ground, and the ground had swallowed it and given her nothing. She sat back on her heels and understood how thin her luck had worn. She had escaped the scouts once. They walked this road every day. They would return, and next time no trick of light would save her. She pulled the cracked necklace from her throat and held it in her palm. The pale gem had a split running through its heart. It could not hide her again. Without it, one glance from a returning scout would expose her whole garden, every seed, every refugee she meant to shelter. She had planted a fortress with no walls yet grown. Her hands shook. Two tears fell before she could stop them, and they ran into the crack in the crystal. The gem drank them. Light burst from the split, so bright Crystal shut her eyes and turned her face away. Heat rolled off the stone in her hand. She heard a sound like ice breaking on a river, sharp and long. When she looked again, the necklace was gone. Something stood in the furrow where the light had been. It was the size of a horse and growing. Scales covered it, white and blue and purple, and they threw back the morning sun like cut glass. Wings unfolded, thin as frost on a window. The creature turned its long head toward her and breathed out. Blue fire curled from its jaws, warm against her cheek, and did not burn. Crystal did not move. The dragon lowered its head to her level and looked at her with eyes she knew. The same pale shimmer the crystal had held. Her husband's gift had not died in the crack. It had changed. She reached out one hand, slow, and laid it flat on the scaled snout. The dragon leaned into her touch and made a low sound in its chest. "You'll hold this ground," she said. It was not a question. This was the guardian the soil would not give her. Not a thing she called up from the dirt, but the last gift her husband left, remade. The dragon lifted its head and swept its gaze down the empty road. Its wings settled over the planted rows like a roof. Crystal stood and pressed a new seed into the dirt beside it. She no longer had to hide from the scouts. She had something now that could meet them. But a dragon could not stay hidden. Its scales caught every ray of sun for the whole valley to see. She had traded a thing that concealed her for a thing that announced her. The regime would not send three scouts next time. They would send an army.