"Come outside."
I get out of bed and pull on a simple dressing gown. Imas pulls on his breeches, leaving his chest bare.
We walk out into the garden. It is a wild tangle of green, overgrown and chaotic, but vibrant with life. The sea crashes against the cliffs below, sending a fine mist into the air.
I lead him to a patch of earth near the wall where a single, withered stalk of a Paradise blossom struggles to survive. It is brown and brittle, choked by weeds.
"Watch," I say.
I kneel in the dirt.
Imas stands over me, his shadow shielding me from the sun. "Leora, it is dead."
"No," I say. "It is just lonely."
I close my eyes. I reach for the place inside me where the dam used to be. The Purna magic is there, a well of deep, resonant blue water. It’s not the jagged lightning of Chaos. It is not the crushing weight of Order. It is a connection.
I place my hands on the earth on either side of the withered stem.
I do not command it to grow. I do not force my will upon it.
Ifeelit.
I feel the dryness of its roots. I feel the exhaustion of fighting the weeds. I feel its faint, thready pulse of life, waiting for a reason to persist.
I push.
I push the memory of the rain in Lliandor—not the gloom, but the life-giving water. I push the warmth of Imas’s skin against mine. I push the feeling ofsafety.
Live,I think, not as an order, but as an invitation.It is safe to grow here.
My palms tingle. A soft, humming vibration travels up my arms.
"Leora," Imas breathes.
I open my eyes.
The brown stalk is turning green. Color flushes through the plant like blood returning to a limb. The leaves unfurl, stretching toward the sun. A bud forms at the apex, tight and shy, and then, in a burst of accelerated time, it opens.
A brilliant, yellow bloom explodes into existence, its petals vibrant and dewy.
It is life, restored.
I sit back on my heels, exhausted but exhilarated.
Imas drops to his knees beside me. He stares at the flower, then at my hands. He takes my fingers in his, turning them over, inspecting them as if they are artifacts of a lost age.
"You created life," he whispers. "With a thought."
"I just reminded it how to be," I say. "It wanted to live. It just needed help."
He looks at me. The awe in his eyes is terrifying in its intensity.
"You are amazing," he says, his voice thick. "You are the sun. You are the rain."
He pulls me into his arms, crushing me against his bare chest. We kneel there in the dirt, amidst the wild grass and the blooming flower, holding onto each other.
"We won," he whispers into my hair.
