3. Even in Eden
even in eden
My heart is still heavy with the weight of the good sleep I gave the creature.
I move toward a bush of dark berries and pluck a handful with my claws, careful not to puncture them.
I hold them out, and Droot lets out a happy, high-pitched squeak.
He dives into my palm, eating the berries three at a time.
His nose twitches with purple-stained excitement.
“Eat, Droot,” I whisper, leaning against the bark of a magnolia tree. “We’ve had enough hunger for one day.”
Good, Sage, he mumbles around a mouthful of juice. Sage is the best gardener. The berries taste like… purple.
I manage a small, tired smile. “Droot? Why did your mother say I was tethered? Why does it feel like there’s a string pulled tight inside my chest, dragging me north?”
He pauses, a half-eaten berry still in his paw. Because the peony is lonely, Sage. She has been sleeping in the dark for so long. When you woke up, you finally heard her dream.
The thought is absurd. Someone dreamed of me while I was beneath the dirt? The string in my chest gives a sharp yank. I follow the pull until the air changes and the scent of old trees is replaced by something so sweet it makes my lungs ache.
“She’s close, Droot,” I say, my voice dropping back into the low rumble from earlier.
We move silently through rows of ancient trees until we stumble into the center of a clearing. The ground rises into a gentle slope, where thousands of lush peony bushes create a massive circle.
Crowning the slope, three massive weeping willow trees stand like sentinels. Their long green tresses drape down to the earth, forming a shimmering curtain that hides whatever lies at the heart.
My fingers tremble as I reach out, brushing the heavy, ruffled head of a crimson peony. It leans into my touch.
The willow’s hair hides the peony, Droot whispers, his little paws treading softly on my shoulder.
“There are peonies right here,” I say.
Not the one that belongs to you, he murmurs.
I pull back the curtain of willow branches, and my breath hitches. The peonies inside aren’t the soft pinks or deep reds of the outer circle. These are the color of a dying sun, like their petals have been dipped in liquid copper.
The air here is cooler. It smells like ripe florals and something warmer underneath.
The wind shifts, and the heavy canopy of the willow sways. A single, piercing beam of sunlight lances through the leaves, hitting something in the center so brightly the reflection nearly blinds me.
I flinch backward with a hiss, shielding my eyes with a mossy forearm. I blindly reach to cover Droot’s eyes. White spots dance in my vision as I attempt to recover. Droot tucks his head underneath my hair.
“What is that?” I mutter.
I blink frantically. Slowly the light shifts from a weapon into a spotlight. The beam is focused on a long, rectangular block of crystal sitting atop a plinth of dark stone.
The glass is so clear it’s almost invisible, except for the way the sunlight catches the beveled edges, turning them into prisms that scatter tiny rainbows across the orange peonies.
I take a step forward, my feet sinking into the soft, petal-strewn earth.
I reach the edge of the crystal, and my breath leaves me entirely.
My vines surge out to caress the glass. They weave themselves around the base of the plinth, crawling up the sides of the glass like starving roots finally finding water.
She isn’t just in the sunlight.
She is the sunlight.
Her hair is a rebellion of copper curls, spilling across the velvet pillow beneath her like a wildfire. The flowers surrounding her look dull in comparison.
“Saevúra.” (Soulbond/mate)
Your spring, Droot murmurs, his little eyes reflecting the orange glow from the crystal.
She is a masterpiece.
I look down at my fingers, clawed and green, then back at her soft, freckled shoulder.
I collapse against the edge of the box and rest my forehead against the warm crystal. The moment my fingertips brush the glass, a jolt of something unfamiliar races up my arms and slams into my spine.
I gasp.
My back arches as a heat more intense than a thousand summer suns floods my muscles. The pressure between my shoulder blades becomes unbearable. Just when I think my body will tear in half, two massive structures burst from my flesh, stretching wide with a wet, heavy rustle.
Sage has petals! Droot squeaks, hopping wildly. The peony gave Sage his petals!
I stare at my reflection in the glass, breath catching in my throat. Wings—I have wings. Shimmering green membranes, threaded with veins of gold, unfurl behind me. They cast a protective emerald glow over her sleeping form.
The ghost of a voice whispers in my mind. “I’ll find you. Even in the meadow. Even in… Eden.”
“I’m starting to believe I didn’t wake up in the dirt by accident,” I whisper. “I think I climbed out of my grave because I promised you I would.”
Droot leaps from my shoulder, landing with a soft thump on top of the crystal. He scurries across the lid, rubbing his chin frantically against it.
She has my smell now, he says excitedly. The Sun is ours, Sage.
I look down at her and catch a faint flicker of light behind her eyelids.
“You can feel me. Can’t you?” Without thinking, I fold my new wings around the glass box. “I’m not leaving, Eden. I’ll stay by your side until every one of these peonies has seen the sun.”