He repeats it, more forcefully this time. “No.”
Confusion and frustration bubble up inside me. “I don’t understand. I just need a few plants for my research. Eryon, you have no idea how important this is. I can turn it into a medicine that could save lives. Ineedit.”
His expression hardens, his voice carrying an edge of finality. “This plant has already cost lives. Nothing can leave this basin. I am its protector, and I will not allow humans to destroy my family again.”
“What?” I gasp, stepping back, my confusion deepening. “Eryon, I thought you said you’d never brought a human here. What do you mean, ‘destroy your family again’?”
I shrink back further as his body begins to grow, his form swelling with raw power until he towers over me, his presence suffocating when just moments ago it had been… everything.Wehad been everything.
“Humans,” he snarls, his voice low and menacing. “They take and destroy, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake. Everywhere I go in the forest and the mountains, I see the damage they’ve caused. Plastic water bottles tossed into streams. The skies choked with haze. Forests full of ancient trees razed. Animals slaughtered for a few bites of meat, the rest of their bodies discarded as if their sacrifice meant nothing.”
He starts to pace, his arms swinging wildly as his fury pours out. “Humans believe they have dominion over the earth and exercise their right to take and take without giving anything back, no matter the cost. I’ve witnessed their greed and devastation right here in this very spot. No,Ididn’t bring a human here to this sacred place.”
He punctuates his statement by slamming a fist against his chest, then shakes his great head, as if in disbelief. “But my mate did. She brought a human here for that same flower. She was kind, always trying to help. Too trusting. He befriended her, gained her trust over time. The human told her he just needed one. Just one. Do you know how he repaid her trust? Do you know?”
His roar rips through the air, terrifying in its grief. The mountain shudders beneath me as if it quakes with his anger. His devastation. Even the plants tremble.
“He took the winter star. Not just one, but every single one he could find. She begged him not to, tried to explain that we needed it for our little snowling, who had fallen ill after the human’s first visit. We didn’t realize, until it was too late, that a simple human sneeze would cost us our child’s life.”
He pauses, his voice thick with emotion. “Yes, the winter starcan save lives—ours and perhaps others. But it’s also taken them, and I’m not willing to sacrifice any more for this plant.”
He looks at me with cold fury, “Or for a human.”
The weight of his words devastate me. I am just trying to save myself and anyone else with this same disease. But now I can’t help but wonder what is the value of a life, human or otherwise? Is taking the plant worth his sacrifice? The plant, the research—is it worth all of this?
I remember the cave paintings—two Yetis, with a little furball nestled between them. My heart aches for Eryon and his family. TheSilene vitalishad been cataloged and brought back to America nearly a century ago. Only my searches on plant genetics and mass spectrometry coupled with my research in ethnobotany had led me down a rabbit hole to this plant.
My last hope.
“What happened to your mate?” I whisper as tears streak my face. As hurt as I am, I still need to know the rest of his story. The exact price of this flower.
“She couldn’t survive the loss of the snowling,” he says, voice cracking in anguish.
"Eryon, I’m so sorry for your family. I’m sorry about what humans have done and still do. For all the destruction we cause. But you don’t understand—Ineedthis plant. This isn’t about taking or destroying—it’s about survival.”
My voice cracks, and I take a shaky breath before continuing, “My life is at stake. Without theSilene vitalis, I won’t make it. I know it’s hard to trust humans, and I understand why you’d want to protect this place, this plant. But please, don’t let my desperation make you think I’m like the ones who’ve hurt you."
“Leave,” he growls, his eyes narrowing.
I slowly back away, struggling to my feet. “Leave?”
“This is the only reason you came here,” he spits, throwing my words back at me. “You’re no different from the others. You want to take it for yourself, and damn the consequences.”
His chest heaves with anger, but there’s something else—something raw beneath his words. ‘The only reason you came here,’echoes in my mind. I’ve reduced him, and whatever this is between us, to nothing more than a dalliance. A fun little side quest in my search for the plant. My heart cracks under the weight.
“It took me decades to get this plant to repopulate, from the single one that was left, a small seedling he missed. The only thing that kept me going, the only thing that gave me hope, was the possibility of someday having another snowling. I did this for them. For my family. For my future. And now—” His voice cracks, and he deflates, falling hard to his knees.
The weight of his grief hangs in the air, a reminder of the sacrifices he’s made, and of what I’m threatening to take from him.
“Maybe you can still have a family, a snowling. I hope that for you, Eryon, I do. Not to replace the one you lost, but because I can see how important it is to you. I would never take all the plants. I would never try to hurt you,” I say. Each word rings out with sincerity, but they fall hollow in the face of his grief.
“I’ve never seen another of my kind. I don’t deserve another family after I failed to protect them. But I am the sworn protector of this place, of the forest and the mountains. And I will not allow you to destroy all I have left,” he says.
“Eryon, I’ll die without the plant,” I say softly, my voice a whisper.
“Leave me here with my ghosts,” he growls, his voice cold and final. “The world is vast, but this corner is mine. Go find something else. I won’t be used, not again.”
I stagger back, as if struck by a blow. I never planned on using him. I didn’t deceive him. This was all an incredible, inexplicable coincidence. My chest throbs with the crushing weight of my failure.
