Moonpetal knelt in the ash and pushed a seed into the dirt. She wanted a grove here, a place where hurt creatures could heal in safety. But the ground of Vinerot was poisoned. She had planted twelve seeds this week. Every one had rotted before dawn. The tarantula rode on her shoulder, still and warm, watching her fail again. She patted the soil down. Then she pressed her palm flat and fed the seed her own magic, the way her mother taught her. Green light spread from her fingers. A pale shoot broke the surface. Moonpetal held her breath. The shoot curled black. It sank back into the dirt and died. The soil drank the poison and gave nothing back. Moonpetal sat down hard. Her locs fell around her face. She had left Mosscap Cottage to find fertile ground for miles and found none. The whole valley was sick. She could not grow a single flower here, let alone a grove. Wings scraped overhead. A dragon-woman dropped from the sky and landed on her clawed feet. Ginger hair, dark brown skin, a tail that lashed once as she folded her wings. Moonpetal knew her. This was the one who guarded the ridge, who chased off anything that came near the weak. "You're planting in a graveyard," Sage said. "Nothing roots in Vinerot dirt. It's been dead since the burn." "I have to try," Moonpetal said. "Wounded things need somewhere safe. I promised myself I'd build it." Sage crouched beside the dead seed. She sniffed the soil and made a face. "Poison. Deep in the roots of everything." She looked at Moonpetal for a long moment. "There's one patch it can't reach." Moonpetal stood. "Show me." Sage led her up the ridge to a hollow ringed by stone. In the center grew a towering flower, taller than Moonpetal. Its petals were red and purple. At its heart gaped a mouth lined with white teeth. It turned toward them and hissed. "The soil under it is clean," Sage said. "That thing eats the poison. It's the only living ground for miles." She kept her body between Moonpetal and the maw. "It also eats birds. And rabbits. And anything else soft enough to swallow." Moonpetal stared at the fanged flower. The only fertile ground in Vinerot sat under a monster's teeth. She stepped closer. The flower snapped at the air, missing her hand by inches. The tarantula pressed tight against her neck. "Then I need this ground," Moonpetal said quietly. "And I need it without dying for it." Sage groaned. "I was afraid you'd say that." Moonpetal knelt at the edge of the clean soil. She could grow her grove here. She only had to take the one patch of living earth in Vinerot away from the thing that made it live.

Moonpetal stayed at the edge of the clean soil until the sun climbed high. The fanged flower watched her. Every time she leaned toward the good ground, its mouth snapped shut inches from her face. She could not dig here. She could not even kneel here. The thing would take her hand, then her arm, then all of her. Sage landed beside her with a thump. The dragon-woman had guarded this ridge for years, and she still kept her body between Moonpetal and the teeth. "You've been staring at it since dawn," Sage said. "Staring won't stop it biting." "I can't reach the soil," Moonpetal said. "It won't let me close." Sage reached into her belt pouch. She drew out a small glass vial. Inside, pale blue liquid swirled with a soft light. "I've been saving this," she said. "It's a sleeping draught. One dose puts a grown bear down for an hour." She turned the vial in her clawed fingers. "I don't know if it works on a plant. Nobody's been stupid enough to try." Moonpetal took the vial. The tarantula on her shoulder shifted, watching. "How do I get it to swallow?" "It bites anything soft," Sage said. "So give it something soft." Moonpetal looked around the hollow. She found a fallen branch and wrapped a strip of cloth around its tip. She soaked the cloth in the draught until it dripped. Then she held the branch out toward the flower. The mouth lunged. Teeth closed on the wet cloth and tore it free. The flower chewed. Blue liquid ran down its petals. It hissed, then swayed. Its head dipped low. Its jaw sagged open. The teeth went still. "It's asleep," Sage breathed. "It actually worked." Moonpetal did not wait. She dropped to her knees on the clean soil and pressed her palm flat. The dirt was dark and rich under her hand. She fed it a thread of green magic. A shoot rose and stayed green. It did not curl. It did not blacken. It lived. She laughed out loud. Her first living plant in all of Vinerot. Then the flower twitched. Its head lifted an inch. A low growl came from its throat. Sage grabbed Moonpetal's arm and pulled her back. "It's waking already," she said. "That was one dose. My last one." Moonpetal stood on the clean soil with her one small shoot behind her. The flower shook itself. Its mouth opened wide again, hungry, awake. She had reached the ground. She had grown something here. But she could not build a grove in the minutes a sleeping potion bought her. "I need it gone," she said. "For good. Not just asleep." Sage looked at the waking flower, then at Moonpetal. "That thing eats the poison," she said. "Kill it, and the soil dies too."

The flower snapped awake, hungry again. Moonpetal backed off the clean soil. She could not kill the thing without poisoning the ground she needed. She could not build a grove in the minutes a potion bought her. She stood there, watching the teeth, and then an idea landed. She did not need this flower. She needed what it did. "Sage," she said. "Does it make seeds?" Sage cocked her head. The dragon-woman had guarded this ridge for years, and she still kept her body between Moonpetal and the maw. "It blooms," she said. "Down low, near the roots. Small pods." She frowned. "Why?" "Because if it eats poison, so would its children." Moonpetal knelt at the edge of the good ground. "I could grow a young one wherever I want. Feed it magic. Let it clean the soil. Then I plant my grove around it." Sage stared at her. Then she grinned, showing sharp teeth. "You want to farm the monster." "I want a seedling," Moonpetal said. "One pod. That's all." The flower loomed between her and the pods at its base. Moonpetal reached into the grass and found the branch she had used before. The cloth was gone. She needed another soft thing to draw its bite. Her tarantula climbed down her arm and waited on the dirt, patient and loyal. "Not you," she whispered. She unwrapped the strip of cloth from her own sleeve instead. She tied the cloth to the branch and held it high. The mouth lunged for it. Teeth closed on cloth and wood. In that moment Moonpetal dropped flat and reached under the swaying stem. Her fingers found a pod. It was small and hard, with a glossy shell. She twisted it free and rolled clear as the jaw snapped down where her hand had been. "Got it," she gasped. She held the seed up. It caught the light, dark and strange. Sage pulled her to her feet, away from the teeth. Something slid through the grass behind them. A small green snake lifted its head, calm, its markings smooth and neat. It flicked its tongue toward Sage and settled at her boot like it knew her. "That's mine," Sage said, and nudged it gently aside. "Keeps me company up here." Moonpetal barely heard. She pressed the seed into a scrap of clean soil at the flower's edge and fed it a thin thread of green magic. The shell split. A tender rosette pushed up, tiny traps already forming, red mouths no bigger than her fingernail. It lived. It was hers. She could carry its children anywhere and grow clean ground from nothing. Then the seedling's little traps turned. They opened toward her tarantula on the dirt. They opened toward Sage's snake. Small as it was, it was already hunting. Moonpetal's smile faded. She had grown a monster. Now she had to raise it without letting it eat everything she loved.

By morning the seedling had grown. Its red mouths were wider now, and they turned to follow anything that moved. Moonpetal's tarantula crept too close to the clean soil. A trap snapped shut a hair from its leg. She scooped the spider up and held it to her chest. "You can't stay near this thing," she whispered. But she couldn't watch it every minute. The seedling was hunting, and it wanted meat. Sage crouched beside her, wings folded tight. The dragon-woman had guarded this ridge for years, and she'd shared her sleeping draught to help Moonpetal grow her first plant. Now she watched the little traps with a hard face. Her green snake coiled at her boot, tongue flicking toward the seedling. "It smells them," Sage said. "It won't stop until it's fed. Give it what it craves, or it takes what you love." "I have nothing to feed it," Moonpetal said. "No meat. No prey I'd give up." She looked at the tarantula, then at the snake. Both trusted her. Both were exactly what the seedling wanted. "There has to be another way." Sage was quiet. Then she pointed past the ridge, toward the dark patch of poisoned earth near Moonpetal's cottage. Green ooze bled from its cracks. "That ground is dead," Sage said. "But it's full of small things. Beetles. Grubs. They live in the taint where nothing else does." She grinned, sharp. "The monster eats poison and prey both. Feed it the crawlers from the blight." Moonpetal grabbed her trowel and ran to the blight patch. She dug into the cracked, sickly soil. Her fingers found fat grubs and hard-shelled beetles, pale and squirming. She filled a cloth pouch with them. The whole time, the seedling's hunger pulled at her mind like a thread. She carried the pouch back and knelt at the clean soil. She shook a grub loose in front of the nearest red mouth. The trap struck. It closed on the grub and pulled it under. Another mouth caught a beetle. Then another. The seedling fed, fast and greedy, its traps working through the pile. One by one, the red mouths swelled and went still. They stopped turning toward the tarantula. They stopped tracking the snake. Moonpetal set her spider down at the edge of the soil. No trap moved for it. She let out a long breath. "It's full," she said. "And I can feed it forever. The blight is huge." Sage laughed. "You just turned poison into food." But Moonpetal built a fence anyway. She wedged wooden slats around the seedling, tight enough to keep her tarantula out on the days she couldn't dig. The barrier stood firm. The seedling stayed fed and caged, hunting only what she gave it. She wiped her hands. The monster was tamed. Now she could grow it larger, carry its children across the valley, and clean the blight for good. And a larger seedling would need far more than a pouch of grubs.

The seedling had outgrown its little fence overnight. Its stalk stood tall now, thick as Moonpetal's wrist, red mouths snapping at the slats. A pouch of grubs no longer filled it. To spread new fertile ground, she had to move it out to the blight patch itself, where it could eat the poison at the source. But her flimsy wooden fence would never hold a plant this size out in the open. Moonpetal dug her trowel around the roots and lifted the whole plant free. The mouths thrashed toward her fingers. She wrapped the stalk in cloth and hurried to the dark, cracked ground near her cottage. Green ooze bled from its seams. She set the plant down and jammed her old slats into the poisoned earth around it. A mouth lunged. The slats cracked and toppled. The seedling swung loose, snapping at the air, hunting anything warm. She stumbled back. "It's too strong," she said. "I can't cage it here." Wings snapped overhead. Sage dropped beside her, the dragon-woman who'd guarded this ridge for years and given Moonpetal the draught that started all of this. She took one look at the loose plant and grabbed Moonpetal's arm, pulling her clear of a striking mouth. "That fence was built for a pup," Sage said. "This thing's a wolf now." "Then I need a stronger pen," Moonpetal said. "And it's starving. It'll break out to hunt." A new voice cut in, calm and dry. "Then feed it more than grubs." An old snake-woman slid from the shadow of a nearby cottage hung with drying herbs. Her lower half was thick green coils; her ginger curls caught the light. She was a wandering beast tamer, and Sage's shoulders eased at the sight of her, so Moonpetal trusted her at once. The stranger held out a bubbling amber-green vial. "Grub tonic. Pour it on the blight. The crawlers swell fat and plump. One tonic makes a feast." From her pack she pulled a heavy wooden pen, sturdy slats bound in a solid frame. "And this will hold what your slats couldn't." Moonpetal worked fast. She dripped the tonic across the cracked soil. Grubs heaved up from the taint, swollen fat as thumbs. The seedling's mouths snapped toward them, greedy. While it fed, Moonpetal and Sage dropped the strong pen over the plant and drove its posts deep. A mouth struck the slats and held. The frame didn't budge. Moonpetal sat back, breathing hard. The seedling gorged inside its new cage, rooted now in the blight itself. Around its base, the green ooze had already begun to fade to brown. "It's eating the poison," Moonpetal said. "Right here. On its own." The snake-woman nodded. "It will. But a plant that eats this much grows fast. By tomorrow that pen may be small too." She coiled back toward her herbs. "You'll need more than one patch to keep it fed."

By morning the pen was too small again. Moonpetal knelt beside it and watched the seedling's mouths snap at the last swollen grubs. The blight beneath it had faded to pale brown. Clean, but eaten bare. One more day and the plant would starve. When it starved, it would break the slats and hunt her grove. She needed a new patch of poison, and she needed it now. "There's a bigger one," Sage said. The dragon-woman crouched at the pen's edge, wings folded tight. She had guarded this ridge for years and knew every scar in the valley. "A dead stretch past the ridge. Wide as ten of these. But you'll never carry the plant that far by hand." "Then I'll build something." Moonpetal looked at the thrashing stalk. "A cart. A cover to keep the mouths inside." Hooves struck stone behind her. A centaur climbed the slope, black hair loose, a coil of rope over one shoulder. This was Thalia, a builder who worked the far cottages. Sage had sent for her. Thalia glanced at the snapping plant and did not flinch. "So that's the wolf you're feeding," she said. She unslung her rope and started measuring the pen with her hands. "I can move it. But if it bites through on the road, that's on you." Thalia built fast. She lashed sturdy slats into a deep box and fixed it on two wheels. Over the top she stretched a heavy cover, cinched tight at every edge. Moonpetal poured the last of the grub tonic across the dying blight. The grubs heaved up fat. While the seedling gorged, the three of them tipped the pen and rolled the plant into the covered cart. The mouths struck the cover from inside. The cloth bulged and held. Thalia took the cart's handles and hauled. Moonpetal walked beside it, one hand on the frame, feeling every jolt as the plant threw itself at the walls. Sage flew ahead to scout the ground. They crested the ridge. Below spread the dead expanse Sage had promised. Cracked soil ran gray and endless, veined with red rot, scattered with dry roots and pale scars. Green ooze wept from a hundred seams. Enough poison to feed the plant for weeks. They drove the cart to the center and set the seedling into the deepest crack. Its roots gripped the taint at once. The mouths dove down and tore at the grubs already writhing up from the rot. Moonpetal watched the soil darken and settle around the base. "It'll clean all of this," she said. "Room to grow." Thalia coiled her rope. "It'll clean it and want more." She nodded at the plant, already taller than when they'd loaded it. "A patch that size won't last a beast that grows that fast. You bought days. Not weeks." Moonpetal looked across the vast dead ground. She had a feeding field now. And a hunger racing to outgrow it.