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My breath catches.

Not Bride.

Keeper.

The word burns beneath my skin like it has been waiting two hundred and thirty-five years for someone to remember it.

Slowly, I raise my eyes to the Harvest.

It has gone completely still.

So has the field.

So have the Witnesses.

Even the corn has stopped moving.

For the first time tonight, the thing in front of me doesn’t look hungry.

It looks afraid.

Good.

I step over the torn pieces of red ribbon.

Then I make my choice.

Not theirs.

Not the founders’.

Not the Harvest’s.

Mine.

“I choose the Communion.”

Silence.

Absolute fucking silence.

And this time, the Harvest listens.

The old Brides lift their heads one by one. The Witnesses stop chanting and Mercy appears at the edge of the circle. Her eyes fill then she nods.

The altar changes. The roots binding my retreat. Flowers erupt through the black soil. Hundreds of red poppies. White blossoms. Dark vines. Corn rises around the outer circle. The fire lowers. Not gone but contained.

The air changes— warm, heavy and electric.

The Harvest doesn’t disappear. It watches.

Malakai approaches first.

Of course he does.

He always understands the Earth before the rest of us.

He stops beside the altar. “Are you sure?”