I lean back, away from the heat, letting the flames paint my face orange.
Marveling at what I’ve done.
All on my own, this time. And it makes me wonder—what else can I do?
The statue of Alyssantha catches my eye, and I hold up my glowing palm in its direction.Breathe in, breathe out.
It takes a few minutes of concentration, during which my stomach grumbles distractingly with hunger. But as I continue to steady my breath, the vines tangled around the statue’s neck begin to ruffle in the breeze—except there is no wind.
Then, they curl back, rippling slowly as they draw away from the worn grooves in the stone, slink earthward until they’ve tucked themselves into a tidy wreath at the statue’s base.
“I did that,” I whisper like a girl learning to bake her first pie. “Me!”
What else, what else? My attention drags over the clearing, briefly touching on the high pine branches, a copse of bioluminescent mushroom caps glowing a dark indigo, a wasp’s nest three trees over.
The ground beneath me is awfully hard—uneven from twisted roots and bare patches of soil that will be painful to sleep on, even with the saddle blankets we packed.
I scramble to my knees, running my hands over the ground, feeling a coil of warmth build in my palms.
Help me, I speak in my godkiss voice, only this time, I talk to the entire natural world, the trees and the stones and the rain, not just any nearby animals.Sense my need. Come to my call.
Everywhere I move my hands over the earth, springy moss sprouts and fills in to make a natural mattress for Basten and me. Soft clumps blossom for our pillows, and that’s not all—the pine branches overhead lean in, sheltering us from a few sparse raindrops dripping from an earlier storm. Acracksounds nearby, and a small sapling falls right on my kindling pile—offering itself as wood to keep me warm.
I shiver, not from the cold.
I didn’t specifically call the pines or the sapling.
But they still answered:Sense my need.
As goosebumps crop up on my arms, the fire swells to throw out more heat, as if it, too, feels my shiver and rushes to respond to my need.
I’m so awe-struck at how new this is, how wildly different, for nature to respond to me like this, that I don’t even take note of the small, soft creature moving through the grass until out of the corner of my eye, I see the rabbit.
It’s a big one. A buck. Fur a pure white, a color that Astagnonian rabbits never turn. Here, maybe they have to adapt to the more prevalent snow. The rabbit hops forward, unafraid, nose twitching as its glossy black eyes fix on me.
Hello, friend, I say.Aren’t you a pretty thing?
I reach out to pet its white fur, wondering if it’s as soft as it looks, and there’s a moment when my hand connects and I can feel its little heart beating so, so fast.
I’ve only touched it for a second when the rabbit takes one more leap?—
—intothe fire.
Flames immediately catch on its fur, but it doesn’t scramble or jump away. It lies its body right on the hot coals, breathing in smoke, its eyes slowly dimming, muscles twitching until, within seconds, it stops moving.
It happens so suddenly that I shriek.
Immediately, I reach for it, trying to pull it out—but it’s too late.
Fingers singed, I scramble backward from the fire, my own heart thumping far too fast now, and stare at the little body in the coals.
And it comes to me:I asked nature to respond to my need—and I’m hungry.
“No, no,” I whisper, as I snatch up a stick and try to fish the rabbit’s body out of the flames before it chars to ash. “This isn’t what I meant! I didn’t mean for you to sacrifice yourself!”
I get the rabbit’s body close enough that I can grab a crisp paw, pull it out onto the grass. Its white fur is already burned off, its flesh smelling of Drahallen Hall’s roasting kitchen.
My eyes fill, and a tear breaks to roll down my cheek. It lands on the rabbit’s flank. And then, more tears burst free, a whole waterfall of them, and I bury my face in my hands and sob.
