"I always — I mean, I wanted to believe it would be you!” Lucien’s words reached my ears, but I refused to hear them; refused to consider the awful intent behind them that I’d already grasped. No, I wouldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear it.

  Instead of troubling myself over why magic now flowed from my fingertips, I turned my attention to how it could be used. Pushing Lucien’s eager face aside, I rose from the ground to stand on numb, unfeeling feet and looked around the burning square. Though our efforts had successfully driven back Oblivion’s frozen wings, the pain that had summoned her yet remained.

  I walked as if in a daze, my body weightless — refusing to acknowledge that the blisters and burns on my feet were gone; refusing to ponder how my hands no longer ached — until I reached Leon’s side. My gaze drifted down to his slumbering form.

  The threat was gone, yet still he suffered, even in sleep.

  Wordlessly, I dropped to my knees, touched his leg, and touched his chest. Starlight spilled out of me as a faucet, washing over him. I felt his leg twist back into alignment, his bones grinding and cracking as they fused once more. The burned blood ran fresh, flowing in reverse to return whence it came. Next, the skin knit itself as easily as the seamstress knit a scarf. Lastly, I watched, and felt, as the yellowed bruise softened, then faded once more to tanned leather. Soon his pain dwindled to a murmur, then to a memory. As I pulled my hands away, I turned with trembling eyes to look at his once mangled limb.

  Only his trousers showed any sign of the nightmare he had endured.

  “Celeste!” A distant voice called to me, though I knew not from whom. Nor did I care to know. Rising, I moved. When the incredulous gathering of survivors came into view, I saw not their faces. Only their pain. The pain said no words, asked no questions. It only cried out to be mended, something my body knew how to handle without requiring my brain’s input.

  First, Eldwin’s wound. Once stable, soon gone.

  Then, Elisabeth’s leg, the same leg her father had broken, now sharing its same relief.

  Hannah’s arms, her eyes wide, gazing at me as if for the very first time. She opened her mouth to speak, but I shook my head and turned away, unwilling to hear it.

  One by one, gashes turned to bruises turned to soft skin. Bones fused back into shape, even seared hair grew back as I remembered it.

  Yet even as miracles unfolded at my fingertips, still I refused to hear Lucien’s blathering nonsense. A Hero’s magic may take years to awaken, decades in some cases, and a Healer’s was just the same. Though there was no denying that it was Healing magic responding to my intention, I’d not suffer such flights of fancy, such childish imagination.

  I was a healer with promise. I was not —

  “The Promised Healer?” Mother’s voice stole me from my bitter ruminations.

  Her hands held in mine, I looked down to watch their scars disappear. And as I held on longer, I pictured the pain between her joints and in her muscles. Pain that I had spent nearly two decades trying to mend. Thought back to how she’d suffered for so many years, grinning and bearing it without a single complaint. Tears welled in my eyes at the frequent memories, daily reminders that no matter how hard I tried, I could never undo the damage that time had already done before my birth.

  I took all that pain in my hands and silenced it forever with a simple brush of my thumbs.

  Mother squeezed my hands. There was no twinge of discomfort, no flinch of barely suppressed pain. Just a watery smile, weeping as I was now. She pulled me close and kissed my cheek. “It must be you.”

  To hear Lucien say it was one thing. He often spoke foolishness that was easily ignored. But to hear it from her, the ache in my heart felt as though it had been run through. My disbelief must have shown on my face, for she squeezed my hands again and nodded her head.

  And in just one gesture, the spell was broken. I heard the murmurs, felt the eyes upon me. Tearing my gaze from hers, I looked at the others still seated around me.

  Unblinking. Whispering. Questioning. Praying.

  In their eyes I saw not the tender affection from friends and family upon whom I’d relied and who’d come to rely on me, but the wide-eyed awe of strangers looking upon something fantastic.

  I hated that look.

  ***

  Two weeks. That was all the time it took for things to return to normal in Spring Hill. Not one person was lost in that awful Night of Fire, and not one survivor walked away with so much as a bruise to show for it. With Lucien and Vasco’s Heroic strength and speed, the reconstruction was effortless, most of the time spent waiting for Lucien and his father, Auguste, to travel to Jade Hollow for supplies.

  Once they returned, it was mere days before the Emerald Sundrop stood once again. While the hamlet gathered to celebrate their survival, I refused to partake in their jubilation. I refused to be part of the reconstruction at all, lest I be forced to face their uncomfortable stares.

  They saw a dream fulfilled; a legend made manifest.

  When they looked upon me, they saw not a girl they’d helped raise into a woman, nor the apothecary who had treated them in their illness and soothed them in their suffering. Not even the children saw me anymore. I was no longer the kindly sister who changed their diapers and helped them learn their letters.

  I heard them waiting at the cottage door every morning, craning their necks and straining their eyes just to get a glimpse of the angel sent to deliver them from evil.

  They no longer saw Celeste.

  So I locked myself away in the garden, away from their awestruck eyes, toiling into the late hours, then toiling until morning from the other side of the reflection. Though I desired nothing more than to forget them entirely, my newly awakened magic proved invaluable in my research, keeping my mind and body refreshed through hours on my knees or hunched over a table.

  As I toiled, I took some comfort in realizing that although I’d lost something precious in the flames, I’d found something at the bottom of a broken ale bottle that could almost replace it.

  The answer was at last within my reach.

  ***

  “Already, good sir?” I asked with a giggle, observing the Sunspire daisy’s petals and leaves through my magnifying glasses. In just two days, it had grown from a seed into full bloom. No adverse effects; no change in scent. Even the nectar’s taste remained unchanged. I bit my lip and scribbled in my notes. As I wrote, my gaze rose to observe the Serpent oak now standing at the edge of my little haven.

  Like the daisy, it too had a lifespan measured in days, not years. And yet, already its branches offered plump purple fruit, their bitter scent adding to the fragrant texture of the garden. With yet another success, I was finally ready to conclude that my obsession had borne fruit of its own. Not one with bitter taste or sweet nectar, but the power to alter nature’s very time line.

  The mixture, resting safely in the grip of an iron stand to my left, had been brought into the waking world the morning following the Night of Fire. Filled with newfound purpose and energy, and not daring to let my mind be at rest lest my thoughts wander to uncomfortable uncertainties, I set my hands to work to bring it out of the Dream.

  Just as the Fellbeast blood filled the monsters with unshakable constitution and unholy strength, my mixture, Hope’s Tears, offered that same supernatural vigor to other plants. Just a drop could restore a flower from a petal or bring a sapling into bloom.

  At first, I dared not dream it could truly be so miraculous, fearing there must be some caveat. But the reports back from Mother of the tonics I’d made with plants grown with it put those fears to rest.

  Not only were the tonics safe, they were more effective even in smaller doses.

  The Snakebite plums had been the next test. First, to confirm the mixture could grow something larger than a flower in a relative time frame. Then, to prove the fruit it bore was safe to eat while retaining its flavor. And judging by the urgent requests from Leon and Sara to grow more Serpent oaks, it was safe to reason it was yet another success.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “My apologies, good sir. I don’t mean to offend, but…” I trailed off, collecting the pollen from the newly grown Sunspire daisy. “Your bride has been most patient. It would be a crime to make her wait any longer.” I bit back a giggle as I carefully dusted the witherlily’s pistil.

  “There now. Oh my.” I adjusted my glasses and watched in awe as the strange flower accepted my offering without hesitation. The strands of black silk within its petals concentrated near the pistil. And before my very eyes, I watched the seeds form. “You were rather lonely, weren’t you, my good lady?”

  I turned to my notes and scratched out several lines. It would seem my estimated timeline was off by a few orders of magnitude. The mere thought brought a giddy grin to my face and set my heart aflutter. I was closing in on it. I could feel it now.

  “If it will accept the Sunspire daisy so readily, then…” My gaze turned to the Serpent oak and my head tilted. This was only the beginning, of course. Stillroot and Wildekin vines were waiting in the wings to court fair Witherlily’s daughter. But, if they were accepted just as readily…

  “I take it then that things are going as you imagined?”

  Though Mother’s voice was ever a sweet song to my ears, I refused to look up from my work. The thought of seeing that same alien look in her eyes terrified me to no end. Instead, I nodded and continued writing, my lips a firm, silent line.

  Soft footsteps approached; a weight slid onto the bench beside me. She wasn’t alone. Though he’d yet to say a word, I knew my brother’s breathing, could feel his heart ache from across the garden. For them both to come so suddenly, there could be only one reason.

  “Has the Rose arrived to whisk me away to Sanctuary?” I asked, my voice fragile and meek, the exhilaration of my success extinguished. The Seekers of the Rose, stewards of Sanctuary, had spent a thousand years scouring the valley for Healers. To raise them up, then to send them to die at the hands of the Fiend Lord, hoping one of them might be the Promised Healer.

  “Of course not, Dear.” Mother leaned into me, resting her head against mine. “We’d not hand you over without so much as a warning.”

  “None outside of Spring Hill knows of your awakening,” Vasco added soon after. There was a tremor in his voice — though one of anxiety or excitement, or urgency, I could not say which. He joined us, sitting on my other side, completing the puzzle we’d left unfinished for more than a decade. For a moment, I allowed myself to recall those simpler times, when the three of us sat in the garden, Mother teaching us her trade.”We’ll not say a word until you’re ready.”

  He leaned against me as she did, and the weight of their bodies on mine lightened my burden.

  “What of Lucien and Auguste? I know they’ve traveled far and wide this past fortnight, and I know whence Lucien inherits his loose tongue.”

  Mother chuckled. “You needn’t worry, Celeste. Jehanne was quite clear with those boys that should even a whisper be spoken, they’ll find themselves without a home to return to.” She turned around and observed with a gasp as the seeds I planted sprouted into a sapling before her very eyes. “Is this what you’ve been up to?”

  “Elysium’s grace…what sorcery have you uncovered, Sister?”

  “Not sorcery; a miracle.” My worries lessened and my breathing quickened, words rushing to my lips, eager to be heard by another’s ears. “From the moment I saw it, I pondered what it could have been that allowed the witherlily to return from extinction. The fellblood. Somehow, it adapted, learned to drink of its power and defy its corrupting influence. Using this adaptation as a base, I’ve found a solution that makes that power freely available to any plant who would drink of it.” My hands shook as I drew the stand closer to show them. “Hope’s Tears, borne from suffering to give life to others.”

  Vasco leaned forward, resting his chin upon his clenched fists. “I had assumed it was the work of your Soulspark that caused the Serpent oaks to spring from the ground fully formed.”

  My smile twitched downward, and I drew my hands back to clutch at the knot in my stomach.

  “No. It was not. I’ve…not used it since that day. Not directly at least. It affects me without my needing to call upon it.” Possessed by some urgent need to prove my point, I picked up the clippers and snipped my finger. The two of them gasped. Then again, when the trickle of blood returned itself and my skin knit shut with a wisp of lilac and gold smoke and the scent of burning incense.

  “Oh, Celeste…” Mother reached for my hand, but I flinched away, clutching my middle once again. “What frightens you so about this gift?”

  “If it is a gift, why now? Why after so long did it manifest? If I am…” I shook my head. No. I could not even speak it, lest I risk believing it myself. If it were true, the guilt would surely crush me. Twenty-three years of senseless death and suffering, after a thousand wasted dreaming.

  If it were true…why had it taken so long?

  “You are.” Vasco said, his hand on my shoulder to keep me from getting lost in my thoughts. “You are the Promised Healer, Celeste. Of that there is no doubt in my mind.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” My voice cracked with despair; my pleading eyes brimming with yet more tears, more than I’d shed in a lifetime.

  Vasco looked down at the witherspire sapling. “Lucien and I have had the honor of fighting alongside two Healers in our time with the Valeguard. The first, a woman twice your age, who spent ten years with the Rose honing her power. The other, a boy Eugene’s age, thought to be a prodigy with an awakening at just five.” He turned to me. There was a sparkle in his eye. “Their powers, honed for years by the greatest minds in the valley, were but a flicker compared to the dazzling light you shine with, Celeste. I saw the limit of their power, and neither of them would have been able to pull me back from Oblivion’s embrace as you did.”

  “But, what if I’m not? Or worse, if I am? What does it mean that so many have died, and continue dying, as I do nothing in ignorance?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t say, Sister, why it was that your Soulspark took so long to awaken. But in my heart I am certain that it is you. There can be no one else, and not just because of your power.” Vasco clenched his fist.

  “Just as I knew I was born to be a shield when my body moved on its own into the path of danger, to spare others a blow it knew I could weather, does it not also make sense that you would be the one? You, who feels everything from everyone so strongly, who will not, cannot turn away from those in pain?”

  He laughed and gestured to the phial of Hope’s Tears and the witherspire sapling. “Who else could be the one to mend the world then she who turned a curse into a cure?”

  I fell silent. My hands reached out to the sapling, touching it with tenderness, fingers aglow with starlight. It reached back, growing toward me as if to the Sun itself.

  “We’ll not force you, Celeste.” Mother said softly. “We’ve no intention to shame you into accepting a destiny you never desired. But neither could I sit in silence and watch you suffer — and I know you suffer, girl — and blame yourself for something outside your control.”

  “Had I been born sooner…mayhap Giulio would still…”

  “My husband’s death was no fault of yours, Celeste.” Mother’s arms slipped around my shaking shoulders, pulling me into her embrace and pressing her cheek against my head. As I wept, she shushed me as if I were a girl again. “What happened before you were born is not, and will never be, your doing. What matters is what you do, not what you could have done.”

  A gentle breeze blew through the garden, whistling through the flowers and shaking the Snakebite plums. It carried with it a rainbow of scents, the warmth of the Sun, and the last of my tears. I sat up from Mother’s embrace and brushed my eyes. Then, I turned to Vasco with a small, noncommittal smile.

  “Allow me to finish what I’ve started. Only when my work is done will I make my decision.”

  He nodded, smiling in kind. Then, he turned to the sprouting Witherspire lily and asked, “What more could you hope to find? You’ve already tamed the fellblood. What else remains?”

  The corners of my mouth twitched upwards. My breath quickened.

  “The Answer.”

  ***

  “Just a little more, there we go.” I turned off the burner beneath the alembic, wearing a grin just barely contained. Within the glass pot, the petals of my latest flower breed — a trifecta of pale pinks, blues, and greens that faded to white at their tips — floated within boiling water, unbothered by the heat, but still generous enough to share their riches with me. I detached the receiver and held it up to the moonlight, admiring the clear glow that rested atop the distilled water. I reached for a pipette and began the tedious, but exhilarating task of skimming the oil.

  In the days that followed the birth of Lady Witherspire Lily, I introduced her to good Sir Wildekin Vine, and then their daughter, Lady Wildespire Lily, to Sir Stillroot.

  They were a feisty couple at first, refusing my attempts at matchmaking. But my persistence paid off with some encouragement from Hope’s Tears. And it was their daughter, Hope’s Bloom, whose petals held the penultimate ingredient in my quest for the Answer.

  “Fantastic, my dearest lady. You are truly the sweetest of your kind.” I said to the flower, her clipped petals regrown, their crystalline sheen glittering in the moonlight. After a long stretch of dipping and dripping, I set down the pipette and showed my companion our prize: a small glass phial that contained the first natural collection of Hope’s Tears. Something once thought to be impossible, the tamed power of the fellblood, now living within the petals of a single flower.

  “With your contribution, I do believe it’s at last time to move on to the final phase. Oh, but don’t think I’ve any mind to cast you aside, Dearest. You’ve a duty of your own to uphold even beyond this task.” I twisted in my seat, stretched my arms, and then leaned back, admiring the flower with a loving gaze and tender touch. “Can you imagine the possibilities? Orchards grown within days, farms producing more food than any settlement could eat on their own! An ocean of flowers painting the Dreadlands, drinking and dispelling the death from the soil!”

  It was almost, no; it was too sweet a dream to be reality. And yet, the flower was not a conjuration of the Dream; it reflected the real thing that waited for me upon opening my eyes. Thousands of years of suffering and starvation would be washed away with Hope’s Tears.

  A heavy sigh found its way to my frowning lips.

  There was but one obstacle that remained between my dream and reality. A problem that could only be overcome by finding the Answer. With a resolute nod, I rose to my feet and walked over to the Serpent oak. But as I plucked a plum from its branches, a sudden realization fell upon me, sending a chill crawling down my spine.

  The Dream had gone silent. No murmuring whispers, nor cricket symphony. Not even the illusory breeze stirred the stillness. Darkness churned at the edge of my vision, just out of sight when I turned to face it. And somewhere in the darkness, I felt an ache unlike any before. More ancient, more all-consuming than the totality of the Night of Fire.

  My feet moved as if with a mind of their own, drawing me to the edge of the hilltop, gazing down into Spring Hill. I saw another shadow looming at the heart of the village square. But when I blinked, it vanished.

  I pursed my lips and pinched the bridge of my nose. Perhaps my constant bounces between dream and reality had at last caught up to me? I shook my head and turned.

  The shadow now stood at the table, its head low, studying my findings. Frozen in place, I could do nothing but stare when it tilted its gaze toward me. Malevolent eyes, bleaker and more hateful than those of the Fellbeast, stared into mine. And though I knew it was impossible, somehow I knew it to be true. This was no illusion of the Dream, no passing nightmare.

  It was real. It was aware. And now it knew that I was, too.

  Thank you so much for reading!

  Tumblr. It's still a brand new blog, so not much yet, but concept art for Celeste is up as of today.

  Feedback of all kinds is appreciated to help make the story better, improve my writing, and keep me motivated!