THORN
They call her the Plant Whisperer now.
I hear it echo through the Grove like laughter stitched with reverence—young voices wrapped in awe, in blooming belief.
She wears the name well.
But with every bloom she nurtures, every seedling she maps, I feel something shift in me I can’t name.
I sit alone tonight at the old stone circle.
The Grove pulses quietly around me—steady, thriving, changed.
Clara changed it.
And she’s changingme.
But change doesn’t come easy to stone.
Or to magic born of duty.
For centuries, I was shadow and soil. A sentinel. My pulse tethered to one tree, my voice hidden in bark. I guarded. I endured. I wasmeantto be unseen.
Now I walk among them.
Theylookat me.
Not with fear anymore, but fascination. Sometimes even respect.
But not understanding.
Not really.
Because I still feel the shadow clinging to me. Still hear the hum of the old rites in my bones. Still wake with the reflex to vanish, to defend, to disappear.
I am not meant to existwithpeople.
I was meant to protect themfromwhat lives in magic’s corners.
I drag a hand through the moss, grounding myself.
The earth here no longer recoils from my touch. It reaches for me—welcomes me. That used to be enough.
But now… Clara’s presence has softened the Grove’s edges. Itfeelsdifferent. Less guarded. More alive.
And I don’t know if I’m a relic in that world or part of it.
A soft shuffle breaks the quiet.
Hazel.
Thirteen, barefoot, brilliant, and nosy.
She plops down beside me without asking.
“Clara’s drawing up root charts by moonlight again,” she says. “You know she does that when she’s stressed?”
“She told me.”
