Eldrene stood.
My vision blurred, and I couldn’t keep my head in the same position without it wobbling, but my senses homed in on her.
“The Crown Jewel Tulip,” she announced, her voice filling up the vast Clearing.
She held the locket high into the air, the moonlight glinting off the gold. It began to sway to and fro once more. Had it always done that, and I’d just missed it?
The Forest Train again stood in a tight line on either side of her, six and six with her in the middle. A lucky (or unlucky) thirteen. They began to hum an ancient song, the only way to unlock the tulip once placed inside. Eldrene closed her eyes and lifted her face to the night sky, basking in the moon rays and enchanted voices.
The chanting grew quicker, more frantic. My heart raced along with their voices, the locket still tightly shut. In moments, it would open and reveal the tulip within. All that work, all that toiling, all the days of the singing so much my voice went hoarse, bearing with Helda’s assholery, that squirrel, the extremely annoying stranger… all of it was held within that flower locked inside.
A tiny click resounded through us all.
The locket had unlatched.
We sucked in a breath, and nerves wound tightly in my stomach. A particularly unpleasant sensation with this much alcohol coursing through me. Eldrene slowly and gracefully opened the locket and plucked the bloom from inside.
“I give you the Crown Jewel Tulip. The magic that binds us all together.” She held it with both hands above her head. The Forest Train knelt down, their faces upturned to the flower.
We all let out a sigh, looking in adoration at the tulip that would adorn Eldrene’s crown for the next three years. Forest green with sandstone-colored edges. The colors of Moss’s flags and signs that hung from every shoppe and cottage. My heart swelled. My love for home, for Moss, found its way into the flower this time.
Eldrene gave an approving smile.
Hope lived on.
“Agnus, my crown,” Eldrene said.
Agnus bowed low and pulled the crown from the folds of her robes.
After three years of depletion, Eldrene’s crown comprised of only ornately twisted twigs. The center of the twig crown held within it the former Crown Jewel Tulip, which had nowwithered away into only a memory of itself, leaving behind the next sacred seed.
Agnus, with great care, separated the seed from the former bloom. She lifted up her hand and let the enchanted breeze carry the dead tulip away into the sky. I watched the dwindling petals as they blended into the stars. May they have a life after this one where they could bloom freely in the fields as they were meant to.
Eldrene gracefully bowed her head, and Agnus placed the crown atop the Goddess’s mossy hair. With both hands, Eldrene placed the new Crown Jewel Tulip in its resting place at the center of her crown. Once there, the crown began to glow a molten gold. The twigs became alive once more, twisting and turning around the new bloom. The crown turned from branches into bits of the sun herself. Even the grooves within the twigs now held pearls and bits of silver. The bright yellow of the crown made the mossy green bloom look like a living emerald. It was a sight to behold, to worship even.
“Damn, love, you really did good this year,” Rosie whispered beside me. I startled.
“When did you get here?” I asked, keeping my eyes affixed to Eldrene and her Forest Train.
“Just now,” she replied.
“How did it go with Patti?” I asked, ignoring a few folk that looked disgruntled at our hushed chatter.
“Oh, it went absolutely awful,” she said with her signature cheery resignation. “I accidentally called her Pami because, well, I don’t know why, actually. So, you know, the usual. I try to talk to her, I promptly forget how to use words, and then she just stares at me while I walk away.”
I gave Rosie’s arm a tender squeeze, and she squeezed my hand right back.
Eldrene began speaking again, and we fell silent once more lest the folk around us execute us for insolence.
“As you know, at every Goddess Celebration, I assign a quest. To be given a quest is the highest honor in all of Nestryia. Whether you live or perish on the quest, honor will follow you into the Halls of Haven.”
“Maybe she’ll send Helda away—likeaway, away,” I whispered into Rosie’s ear. She had to put both hands over her mouth to keep from laughing, which made me start laughing, too. “It’s been like a century since someone didn’t return from their quest. It’s about time, right?”
Rosie let out a guffaw. Eldrene stopped speaking for a moment, looking out at the crowd in surprise. Rosie and I cast our heads down, looking like the good, reverent folk we were.
“The Earth and the Fates sing their song, and I listen—they choose both the quest and the hero who will embark on it. These quests may not have their answer until far into the hero’s life. One may be sent to retrieve the smallest flower from the highest point—a simple matter at first. And in time, perhaps a long time later, that very same flower will be the key to healing an ailment that befalls their homeland. Others may require the hero to build, to mend, to alter themselves in some fashion. Some quests may ask the hero to travel to distant lands.”
“Okay, hear me out,” I murmured out of the side of my mouth to Rosie. “Helda gets sent to Dwindle—”
