Seedling
When Math woke, daylight streamed through a small box window, slanting directly across his face. The world rocked and swayed beneath him—disorienting, until he remembered he was on a train.
It looked like a cargo carriage—boxes, crates, and sacks lined the walls, stacked high and lashed down with thick ropes.
In that context, the window seemed oddly placed—but he was too disoriented to dwell on it. He forced himself to focus.
Strangely, nothing hurt. He glanced down, expecting to find blood and tears in his trousers, but there was no sign of injury at all.
“You’re healed,” Kai said. Her voice was off, her emotions a tangled mix of concern, anger, and dismay.
“What happened?”
“You nearly died. Because of me.”
Math ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t be ridiculous. You had nothing to do with Nuhzar—”
“I do not refer to Nuhzar,” she murmured. “’Twas not blood loss that so nearly spelled your doom last night. Your injury was not so serious, and yet, you skirted catastrophe by the narrowest of margins.”
Math frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Magic,” she said bitterly. “I speak of magic. I told you how power radiates into our world from waxing and waning sources—but our ability to hold and channel that energy is another matter. Gravers like myself draw it slowly, storing it in objects until we’ve gathered enough to act.
It’s a method that demands patience, but carries little danger. You, however—”
“Wild magic doesn’t work that way?”
“Wild magic does not work that way,” she agreed.
“Your kind stores power in your own flesh, and you draw on that power all at once.” Kai’s jaw clenched.
She looked away, her body rigid with emotion.
“In my arrogance, I thought your order’s spellcasting rules were anachronisms. I see now—they are safeguards.
Last night, you channeled so much power, so quickly, that you—” She shuddered.
“There are no limits to what you can draw. But your body has limits. And you nearly exceeded them.”
“It felt like I had a fever,” Math murmured.
“Oh, indeed. You might’ve boiled your own blood. Burst into flame. Transformed into something monstrous.”
Math shuddered.
“Do you grasp how close it was? One more spell, and—”
Math raised a hand. “Please. I get it. Just—stop blaming yourself. You didn’t know.”
The revelation smothered what little excitement he’d felt about casting without limits. Fine. He could go back to doing magic the old way. That was still an option. Probably.
“I did know,” Kai snapped. “What I failed to do was think. There’s a wide gulf between knowing and understanding.”
Math gave a faint smile. “Honestly? I feel fine. Like nothing even happened.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said coolly. “But that’s a different concern.”
She leaned forward, lifting her hand into the sunlight.
A slender green vine unfurled in her fingers.
Math’s stomach dropped. He didn’t need to ask where she’d found it. It had come from him. Grown through him.
“This is yours,” she said softly. Her emotions were a churn of horror, shame, and something very close to hatred.
“When the sun rose, this—and others like it—sprouted from your body and slipped through the gaps in the floorboards, gathering up the sun like any proper plant.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “I remember what that knight said—that you’d been exposed to Parnathi spores. I dismissed it.”
Then he recognized what he felt through her: the tangled fury of someone betrayed, the quiet shame of being made a fool. The inverted anger of someone appalled at their own gullibility.
Math was furious with himself. He could have told her—should have. But hiding his condition had become second nature, so ingrained that the thought of telling Kai hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“I didn’t breathe in enough spores to matter,” he protested.
She slid off the sack in one smooth, dangerous motion. “That’s a lie.”
Math winced at the rage burning through her. “It’s not.”
“No?” she snapped. “Then you’re deluding yourself. There is no safe level of exposure. The spores aren’t poison or toxin—they’re a connection. A bond.”
Her voice cracked. She shut her eyes.
The grief bleeding from her was cold and hollow, ice packed around an open wound.
She tried again. “It matters not how little exposure exists, nor if you cure the spores. Once that bond forms, the Queens gain access—and then they change you. Reshape you into something else, which has clearly already begun in your case.”
“Then why didn’t you—” He stopped short. If she believed he was infected, why hadn’t she killed him?
But he already knew. She hadn’t because they still didn’t know—not with any iron certainty—that his death wouldn’t become hers as well.
“No.” He pushed himself to his knees, lifting a finger. “This thing with the plants—it started when I was a child. You saw the woods near my house. That isn’t the Queens. It doesn’t happen all the time. Just when I’m asleep and in danger. Or wounded. Sick.” Or had nightmares.
There was a reason he went out into the garden to sleep so often.
He exhaled. “It’s gross, sure, and the Order—the Order would jump to all the wrong conclusions if they knew, precisely because it only happens when I’m not in control. But the wounds heal. Everything returns to normal. The Queens haven’t touched me.”
Saying it hurt—maybe because it felt too true. He hated that.
He turned away, hoping to hide the twist of dread in his expression, then remembered: it didn’t matter. She could feel every shred of his emotions, anyway.
Damn it, he hadn’t betrayed the Order. He hadn’t turned on his own people. He was still himself.
He had to be.
“You’re a wild mage,” she said sharply. “If there’s something you can’t do—if your power falters—it’s not because of law or limitation. Only your body’s threshold. Only what your mind believes is possible.”
“I can’t control plants—”
“No—you believe you can’t. But when you fall unconscious or take ill or are injured, the part of you that knows the truth takes over.”
“Damn it, I’m telling you—I’m not one of them!” he shouted. “Those things killed my parents! There’s no way—”
His voice broke. The words collapsed in his throat, leaving him gasping.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then it’s a good thing your belief doesn’t matter, isn’t it?” His voice was raw. “It doesn’t change what’s true.”
“No. No, it never does.” She laughed—soft, quiet, and sharp as shattered glass. “Still, a lack of faith for a lack of faith … a fair trade, is it not?”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
She didn’t look at him—just stared out the window.
“Did you think I couldn’t feel it? The doubt. The constant reminders you give yourself that I’m not to be trusted. That you must never let down your guard with me. Never fully believe me.”
The words cut like a razor. Math flinched before he could stop himself. Whatever reply he might’ve given caught in his throat and stayed there.
She wasn’t wrong. That only made it worse.
“Now, at last, we’re equals.” She said it like a sentence passed down from a judge. “You don’t believe I’m not a grim lord. And I don’t believe you’re not Parnathi. How beautifully balanced.”
Math shut his eyes. If he looked at her now, he’d break—shatter into a thousand pieces that could never be healed.
He heard her rise, quiet and deliberate.
“Perhaps I’ll see if this grand machine holds other occupants. A change of surroundings might do us both some good.”
She walked away without waiting for an answer.
“Thank you for healing me,” Math said, more out of a sense of politeness than genuine gratitude—Master Wadera’s training, showing itself.
Kai paused at the doorway, turned just enough to look back.
“I didn’t.”