I walk toward the center glade, feeling her hesitate behind me, then follow.
As I step, flowers bloom in the soil beneath my feet—wild and blue, disappearing seconds later like echoes. Clara gasps.
“What is this?”
I kneel and place a palm against the soil. “Emotion. Memory. The Grove reflects what we feel. When you speak to it, when you work the soil… it answers.”
She kneels beside me, almost touching the earth. “So… when I come here…”
“You awaken it,” I say simply.
She bites her lip. “And that’s good?”
“It is rare,” I say. “And powerful. And not without risk.”
Her eyes search mine, blue and quiet. “But you let me stay.”
“I did.”
A long pause stretches between us.
“Why?” she asks, voice barely audible.
Because I wanted to. Because something in you calls to something in me. Because I have been stone and shadow for too long, and now the Grove won’t sleep when you’re near.
But all I say is, “You see what others do not.”
She lets that sit between us. Then smiles—small, shy, but real.
“I don’t want to break it,” she whispers.
“You won’t.”
She looks up, startled. “How do you know?”
I meet her gaze. “Because it chose you first.”
We stay there a while.
She asks questions, softly, like she’s afraid her voice might bruise the quiet. I answer what I can. The Grove responds more tofeelingthan logic, and she seems to understand that instinctively.
Without meaning to, she laughs.
A real laugh, bright and startled, bubbling up as she watches a root twitch and recoil when her elbow bumps it.
And the vines bloom.
All around us, petals unfurl in ripples, delicate and wild—white and violet and gold, tiny things that blink into existence in the breath of her joy. It’s not showy. Not dramatic.
Just… beautiful.
Clara covers her mouth, eyes wide. “Did I—did I do that?”
I nod. “The Grove likes your laugh.”
She looks dazed. “That’s insane.”
“It’s truth.”
