Chapter 18
The petals are losing color.
I can see it—the purple edges fading toward gray where the air's been at them too long. Six hours. That's the window. I said it myself, back at the field, and now I'm sitting cross-legged outside my dwelling with baskets spread around me and my hands won't sort fast enough.
Purple-edged. White. Bruised—discard. White. Purple-edged, good deep color, keeper.
Behind me, Keer Jr. is doing the I am awake and therefore everyone must suffer scream from whatever temporary cage they shoved him in.
Good. Stay there. The goats are bleating—someone's trying to move them, I can hear hooves on packed dirt and a voice I don't recognize saying something about rope and I should help, I should go help because those goats are my responsibility and nobody here knows the first thing about—
The petals. The petals are losing color.
This one's perfect—deep blue bleeding into violet, high concentration, makes the strongest paste. I set it in the clay bowl with the others and reach for the next stem.
Kestria drops the second basket at my feet. "That's the last one."
"Thank you. Did someone water the goats?"
"Rhen's doing it."
"And the chickens—"
"In the cages. They're fine. Everyone's fine." She crouches next to me. "You're not fine."
"I'm sorting."
"You're sorting at a speed that suggests emotional distress."
"I'm sorting at a speed that suggests a six-hour potency window. Which is a real thing. Which I told everyone about. Which is why I'm here and not over there helping with the animals, which I should be doing, because nobody knows—"
"Mel." Her hand on my wrist. "The animals are handled. Sort."
Deep breath out. Okay.
She watches me for a minute, then starts separating stems from the reject pile without being asked. Wrong technique—she's pulling instead of snapping—but the stems don't matter as much and correcting her right now will cost me thirty seconds I don't have.
"You're pulling wrong."
Apparently I have the thirty seconds.
"Show me."
"Snap at the node. Here. See the little bump? Snap, don't pull. Pulling tears the fibers and contaminates the petal oil."
She snaps one. Clean. "Better?"
"Better."
We work. The pile shrinks. My hands find the rhythm—sort, check, place, reach—and my brain empties into it. The panic about the animals, the ache in my feet, the fact that I haven't eaten since that dried meat Kestria handed me on the trail—all of it drops away.
Almost all of it.
I sort faster.
"Mel?"
Not Kestria.
I look up. Dara. Standing at the edge of my workspace with her arms crossed and her braid pulled tight and an expression I'd call nervous on anyone else.
"You said to find you."
Right. I did say that. Told Kestria to send her. Because the crushing technique—because if I'm the only one—because next time someone gets poisoned and I'm not—
"Sit down."
She sits. Cross-legged. Waits.
"Wash your hands first." I nod toward the water basin. "Clean. No oils, no dirt, nothing that could contaminate the extract."
She washes. Thorough. Good pressure, gets under the nails. I watch her hands and think mine, nine years ago, standing in a field I found by accident, crushing petals into a bowl I stole from the settlement because they didn't notice and I needed it more.
She sits back down. Hands up, dripping. "Now what?"
"Now I teach you how to make the only thing standing between this pack and dead wolves."
Kestria pauses her stem-snapping. Looks at me.
I don't look back. I pick up a handful of purple-edged petals and drop them into the mortar.
"These are what matter. The purple edges mean the concentration is high enough to counteract the toxin in moonbright poisoning. White petals work too but they're weaker—about half potency. I use them for fever reduction and wound cleaning. Different preparation, different ratios."
Dara's watching my hands. "How do you tell the difference? Some of them look in between."
"Hold it up." I hand her a petal. "See where the purple fades?
If the fade line is past the midpoint toward the stem, it's a keeper.
If the purple only reaches the first third, it's a white.
Anything bruised or torn, throw it out. Damaged cells leak the active compound and you'll get inconsistent potency. "
She turns the petal in her fingers. Holds it to the fading light. "Past the midpoint. This one's good?"
"That one's great."
"And these?" She grabs two from the unsorted pile.
"White. White. See the difference? Hold them next to each other."
She does. Her face changes—not much, but enough. She sees it. "The color's completely different when they're side by side."
"Your eye adjusts fast once you know what to—"
Cedar. Faint. Carried on nothing, and my hands stop for half a second before I catch myself.
"—look for. By the time you've sorted a hundred, you won't need to compare."
A crash from across the clearing. Bleating. Someone swearing.
I don't look up. "The male goat is headbutting something."
"How do you know it's the male?" Dara asks.
"The females don't cause problems. The male causes all the problems. That's goats." I pick up the pestle. "Watch. This is the part that matters."
I press the pestle into the petals. Slow. Grinding in a circular motion, steady pressure, not too hard—too hard bursts the cell walls too fast and you get a watery mess instead of paste.
"The pressure's important. You're persuading, not forcing. The color should bleed out gradually. See?"
Purple spreading through the mortar. The smell rising—copper and petrichor, the smell that means safety, that means I have medicine, that means the next person who comes to me broken won't die on my floor.
"Here." I hold out the pestle. "Try."
Dara takes it. Her grip is different from mine—harder, more decisive. Healer's hands, used to applying pressure to wounds.
"Lighter."
She eases up. Grinds. The petals resist for a second, then give.
"Good. Keep that pressure. Consistent. If you push harder, the—"
Screaming.
Not animal screaming. Human screaming. And then very much animal screaming—Keer Jr.'s unmistakable shriek cutting through everything, followed by a crash and a yell and the specific sound of a large man hitting the ground.
I'm on my feet.
Across the clearing, Tovar is on his back. Keer Jr. is on Tovar's chest. Wings spread, beak stabbing, spurs raking, every feather on his body puffed to twice its normal size. Tovar's arms are up, shielding his face, and the sounds coming out of his mouth are not dignified.
Oh no.
"He's fine!" I'm already running. "He's just establishing dominance. Very normal rooster behavior."
"GET IT OFF ME—"
"Stop flailing, you're encouraging him—"
A younger wolf lunges for the rooster and Keer Jr. redirects—launches off Tovar's chest and goes for the new target. The kid stumbles backward, trips over a log, and goes down. Keer Jr. lands on his shoulder and starts pecking his ear.
"Don't grab him from behind, he'll—"
Too late. The kid grabs. Keer Jr. twists, gets a spur into the kid's forearm, and launches himself toward the cooking area where three women scatter in different directions.
I catch him on the third try. One arm around his body, pin the wings, tuck him against my ribs. He screams directly into my ear at a pitch that even impresses me.
"You're done. You're done. Everyone's alive."
He screams harder. His feet are still going, talons raking the air.
Tovar rolls onto his side, face scratched, ego destroyed. Blood on his cheek from a beak strike that was clearly personal. He looks at me. Looks at the rooster. His mouth opens.
"Don't." I point at him with my free hand while Keer Jr. writhes under my arm. "He doesn't understand words and neither will you, apparently, because I said don't approach the cages."
"You brought that thing into our territory."
"That thing produces offspring that produce eggs that keep people fed. You're welcome."
A man crouches by the temporary pen, refitting the latch Keer Jr. shredded on his way out. Deep voice, weathered hands, moving with steady patience, clearly someone who’s handled animals before.
"Needs a better latch." He doesn't look up. "This one's for rabbits. Too light."
"Oh, you know animals?"
"Kept them. Before." His hands work the wood, testing the fit. "Your goats need a wider pen too. The male's going to break the rails by morning if he keeps hitting them."
"He will keep hitting them. That's his entire personality." I shove Keer Jr. back into the cage and hold the door shut while the man rigs a heavier closure. "You have a name?"
"Bram."
"Bram, I owe you a conversation about pen construction. Tomorrow morning. Can you make sure the rails hold tonight?"
"Already reinforcing them." He stands. Looks at the goats, then at me. "The spotted female's got good lines."
"She's my favorite." I lean in, voice down. "Don't tell the others."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
He goes back to the goat pen. Just like that. No negotiation, no posturing, no asking permission. Sees work, does it.
I like him.
Orel is standing off to the side.
I don't know how long she's been there. Gray hair catching the low light, arms crossed, sharp eyes that miss nothing. She's looking at the rooster with an expression I can't read.
"What is that thing's name?"
I look her dead in the eyes. "Keer Jr."
Silence.
The silence where the air itself holds its breath. Bram's hands pause on the goat rail. The kid with the pecked ear looks up. Tovar, still on the ground with blood on his face, makes a strangled sound.
Orel's mouth lifts.
"Fitting," she says, and walks away.
Kestria is sitting on the ground near my workspace. Face in her hands. Shoulders shaking.
"Don't."
"I'm not—" She can't finish.
"I need to get back to the paste. The potency window is—"
"Fitting." She's wheezing. "She said fitting!"
I leave her there, still cackling.
Dara hasn't moved. Still cross-legged by the mortar, pestle in her hand, watching me walk back with calm patience.