I set it down, pages opened before me, breakfast long forgotten. I stroke the ink, my heart aching that no one else sees what I do.
“Mira,” Soria says softly, “can you read that?”
Vale’s smile widens, but I keep my eyes on the page. Sylara’s words gathered dust, cared for by only a few. Now something even older is treated almost as a curiosity. Yet I know it holds something worth protecting.
From the corner of my sight, Soria and Vale exchange a hushed glance. “What is it?” I ask. “So much has happened—what about this draws such concern?”
Soria straightens. “Those who could read it trained for years. Those who wrote it were considered either mad or miraculous. The gift was rare. And those who held it…” She looks at Vale. His expression holds both pride and awe. “It was their only gift.”
“But you light fires. Flowers bloom near you,” Ace adds slowly.
“No one has ever touched so many gifts,” Soria continues, “and never with such ease.”
I shrink into my chair.
“A gift like this is something new, my flame,” Vale says gently. “As unique as the woman it’s bestowed upon.” He offers his hand. I rise to meet it.
Tightness takes hold in my chest. As if stepping into being queen was not enough… how much more am I meant to embody?
Chapter Forty-Eight
Needing to feel like myself again, I go back to where peace first found me. It’s been so long since I’ve had dirt under my nails.
Soria may scold me later—insisting on helping me scrub them clean—but for now, she seems content to work beside me, hands just as stained.
Nestled deep within the mountain, the High Hold offers few chances for this kind of labor. The soil here feels precious. Alive.
“You haven’t seen the greenhouses at the Hold yet, have you?” Soria asks. She knows my patterns better than most, but even to her, the past weeks must be a blur.
I shake my head, and she smiles faintly.
“Many have been repurposed,” she says. “I’m told the fruit gardens were once a place for parties and spectacle. Now they serve something greater.”
She works the earth in front of her, loosening the freshly cleared bed with practiced ease.
“There are still pocketed communities, deep in the hills,” she murmurs. “Long-standing settlements, sheltered like this valley. The ones near the borders bore the worst after the Fade. But the hidden ones… theyendured. They support us all now. That’s why a butcher earns more respect these days than some of the so-called nobles.”
I brush the soil from my palms and reach for the jar of seeds we brought with us.
The gardens are beautifully kept. We’d eaten breakfast among the floral beds near the manor, but now we kneel behind the staff quarters, in the vegetable plots. It’s an odd indulgence they’ve granted me—the simple ritual of placing seeds in the ground. But I don’t take it lightly.
I breathe in as I open the jar, already imagining the scent of parsnip soup—sweet, nutty, warm. A memory from my youth, made richer by hope than spice. Perhaps the mountain frost will make them even sweeter than anything I managed in the village. That first bite always lit something in me. A quiet spark. A whisper of spring, still tucked beneath winter’s weight.
“The women you see at court,” Soria says, drawing me gently back, “most are there for one of two reasons. Either their families held power long before the Fade—political, martial, or otherwise—or they come from the households that kept Caerhollan alive.”
She creates a small opening in the soil and holds it steady for me. I lean in and begin to place the seeds.
“They tend the land,” she says, softer now. “And in return, their sons and daughters have a place at court.”
We move in tandem, smoothing soil over the seeded bed. I press a palm to the earth, pausing to acknowledge its quiet promise—a ritual I’ve carried with me in every place I’ve ever called home. But as I move to lift my hand, Soria already bundling the small tools to be cleaned, something shifts beneath me. A subtle tremor—almost imperceptible. I still.
I expect a burrowing creature, a vole perhaps, stirred by our presence. But then I gasp.
Green pierces through the soil—fresh sprouts unfurling where only moments ago we’d laid the seeds.
Soria returns to my side just in time to witness it. Her eyes widen, not with fear, but with a kind of hushed reverence. “I almost suspected it might,” she says, voice low. “But I didn’t dare speak it aloud. I should have known, with how magic flows through youalready.”
She kneels swiftly, gathering the tender shoots. Roots dangle from her fingers—full, thriving, weeks too soon. “We won’t waste what’s been given,” she murmurs, “but no one else can know.”
