Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
KORE
T he planting season always began with rain.
Not the kind that storms or threatens, but rather softens the skin of the world.
It was petal-warm and silver-laced, quiet as a lullaby hummed into earth.
It soaked into the soil without apology, waking seeds from their hush, urging roots to remember their shape.
The air smelled green, the way only spring could: alive, becoming, more soon than now .
I liked the rain best in these first weeks. It made everything feel new again.
Already, the lambs were finding their legs, tumbling soft and wide-eyed through pastures spangled with clover.
The sprites had begun weaving blooms into their hair—narcissus, crocus, snowdrop—giggling as they danced between puddles and bees.
Even the trees seemed eager, lifting newborn buds toward the clouds like little offerings. The whole world shimmered with wanting.
This was my season. I loved it all.
The ache of new life. The dirt under my nails.
The push and pull of sprout against stone.
I wandered barefoot through fields not yet tamed, my fingers trailing over stalks just beginning to green.
Everything I touched bloomed a little brighter, just enough to know I had passed through. Just enough to be loved.
My mother was meant to meet me here. She always did. This was our domain in tandem. She who made things grow , and I who made them feel it.
But today, I was alone.
She had been gone since the morning, summoned by some divine council or another. The type where tempers frayed and seasons bent if egos weren’t soothed. She hadn’t said when she’d return.
I didn’t mind, not at first.
I liked being alone here, especially in the rain. There were no rules in solitude, no need to be perfectly light , perfectly joyful, perfectly Kore. The land loved me even when I was quiet.
Even when I wandered to the farthest field, where the lavender hadn’t risen yet and the sky broke open in silver threads.
Even when I tilted my face to the rain and closed my eyes.
It was then I felt it.
A tremor, not rippling through the earth, but through something deeper. The kind of shift you couldn’t see, only sense . A weight. A knowing. A certainty.
I opened my eyes.
He was there far across the field, near the edge where the flowers ended and the forest began. Standing still as a cairn, clothed in shadow and rain, he gazed at me as if he’d been watching since before I knew to look.
He did not move.
Neither did I.
The rain curved around him, just slightly. Not enough to flee, but enough to recognize . Like the drops knew they were falling through something older than sky. Something older than spring.
A?des.
Not summoned. Not expected. Not even entirely real yet. Just… appearing, like memory, like myth.
We had not seen each other since the garden below.
Twenty-three sunrises had passed, and I had almost convinced myself he had returned to forgetfulness. That I had imagined the hush in his voice when he called me mirror.
Yet, now, here, in the rain-soaked harmony of planting season, he stood again.
He did not call out. There was no need.
My feet moved before my mind did, slow steps across the damp field. The clover leaned toward me as I passed, but even they were quieter now.
Still, he didn’t move while I continued to walk.
When I reached the edge of the field, close enough to see the water beading in the hollow of his throat, he finally spoke, quiet, almost hesitant.
“You’re alone.”
A statement. A question.
“My mother was called away,” I said, voice calm, though my pulse leapt like a colt.
A pause. Rain slid off his shoulders as if this world was truly reluctant to touch him. “They usually wait for her.”
“They?”
“The ones who come looking for you.”
Who came looking for me? It took a moment for me to grasp his meaning. The other divine who would come to call. Many of them waited for Mother. Not all, but most.
I tilted my head. “Are you one of them?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then, very softly: “No.”
Silence.
Not awkward. Not cold. But charged.
He looked like he belonged to a different season entirely. He might not be made of sun or fresh dew, more the whisper that followed the last fallen leaf, but here he was. In my season. In my world.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, not unkindly. More because I liked that he was here whether he should be or not. “This is the time of beginning.”
“I know.” His shadow-kissed eyes flicked to the field, where new shoots curled toward light. “That’s why I came.”
He looked back at me then. His expression wasn’t cruel, or claiming, or even particularly bold.
It was curious .
Had he come to see what grew without him? Did he know how beautiful it was in the first throes of spring?
“You’re different,” he said after a moment.
I shrugged. “I’m always changing. That’s what growing means.” Mother didn’t care for it. More often, she preferred that I endured as she did, ever the same, unyielding to time or experience. That it was not my nature baffled her. Often, it was easier to just pretend.
For her, anyway.
I grew tired of trying to be what I wasn’t.
“I don’t change,” he said. “But I notice more. Since you.”
My breath caught. I didn’t step closer. Not yet. Instead, I let the rain fall between us like a veil. Like a question.
“What do you want, A?des?” I asked, more curious at his presence than anything else. Not afraid.
He tilted his head slightly. A raven might have done the same. “To see you. As you are. Not below. Not in memory. Now .”
Something in me wanted to bloom at that. At the same time, something else within me wanted to flee. The competing reactions threatened to strangle me. Instead, I said, “What if my mother returns?”
He stepped forward, just once. The earth stilled beneath him. Not died— stilled . A reverence. “Then she will find me here.” His voice held no fear.
Just acceptance. My mother didn’t frighten him.
Nor make him wary. So many avoided her wrath, for her temper was legendary.
I was one of them. A?des, though? He just waited for me, utterly serene.
Pleasure sparked inside of me. The rain fell heavier, more like a shield around us now, rather than a barrier between.
Still, I stayed.
Why? While I didn’t need a reason beyond, I wanted to stay, I recognized it was so much more.
I had planted my seeds, the underworld had come to watch them grow.
At my continued silence, he took a step forward and I met him halfway.
The rain didn’t stop, but cloaked us as though it wanted to walk with us.
Without a word, I turned and began to walk. Not away, not ahead, but with him.
We moved through the wet fields in silence, our footsteps light against the softening earth. The new shoots didn’t recoil at his nearness, just bowed slightly, as if they knew he was not their end, only their witness.
I led him first to the grove where the almond trees had begun to flower again. They were always first, their hurry much like my own. Their petals clung like blush to the branches, so delicate they looked like breath.
“This is where I first learned joy,” I said softly. “Not because of the trees. Though, they are truly lovely. No, I learned joy because I once saw a fawn take its first steps here.”
He glanced at me, then back to the trees. “Did it stay?”
“No. It ran. Not because it was afraid, but because it could run.” Stumbling feet, gangly legs, and a nose that quivered, yet there was something inescapably beautiful in the way it threw itself at whatever came next.
He nodded, as though he understood.
Next, the orchard. The bees were still quiet this early in the season and the rain would keep them dormant for a bit, but the blossoms were beginning, pale pink and white, soft as sighs.
“They say spring smells sweet,” I said. “But it’s not sweetness, really. It’s hunger. The hunger of things just beginning. The world stretching back toward life.”
He paused near one of the trees, laying a hand, carefully , I’d say almost reluctantly, against the bark. “It welcomes you.”
“It’s mine,” I said. “I don’t rule it. I am it.”
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of hyacinth from farther down the path.
“Do you miss it?” I asked.
“Miss what?”
“Life. The sun. The way things bloom.”
He was quiet a long time. Then: “I miss not knowing. Not having to remember everything that comes after.”
We walked a little farther. He didn’t hurry. Neither did I. I took the time to turn over his words, to examine them and try to understand.
I brought him to the knoll where the wildflowers always broke first. It was the most innocent of places, an accidental altar, scattered in crocus and columbine. Sprites often played here, but today it was empty. Maybe they sensed him. Maybe they made space.
“This is where I come when I don’t want to be a goddess,” I admitted. “Where I can pretend I’m just a girl who loves flowers.”
He glanced around. “I don’t think you’re pretending.”
I blinked at that. “You don’t?”
“No. I think the world just hasn’t learned to make room for both.”
I looked at him then, really looked. For a moment, he wasn’t the shadow who waited in silence or the keeper of sorrows. He was a man in the rain, learning the shape of spring for the first time. Then, because he was, I took him to the last place.
A grove tucked behind the hills, where the moss was thick and warm and the water from the high creek tumbled into a small, laughing pool. The goats came here sometimes. So did the sprites, when they wanted to be alone but not lonely .
“This is my favorite,” I said, sitting down on a rock veined with old quartz. “No temples. No offerings. Just existing .”
He sat beside me, careful not to touch.
Still, I felt him. The gravity of him. Like a low drumbeat, steady beneath the skin.
“I thought your world would be louder,” he said quietly. “More singing. More laughter.”