Chapter 13 - A flower

“You’ll need to wear long sleeves,” Sera said, tying her satchel with a loop of river-twine. “The glade’s full of thorn-bushes, and whatever’s left of last season’s nettles.”

Eirian slipped on her cloak without argument. The morning light bled silver through the thatched roof, and the air already smelled like distant rain.

“What are we looking for?” she asked.

“Moon herbs,” Sera replied, adjusting the charm-strand around her wrist. “They only grow in a place I know; it needs a deep grove and quiet soil. The roots won’t bloom unless the canopy is old enough to remember silence.”

Eirian raised an eyebrow. “Trees remember?”

Sera just smiled. “The right ones do.”

“That sounds crazy,” Eirian mumbled, but Sera was able to hear her.

“Don’t talk like that to nature; otherwise, it will hunt you down.”

“Who? Nature?”

“There’s a lot for you to learn about the world, sweetie.” Her mother answered her. “Just do me a favor and don’t underestimate the stories that I and your father tell you.”

“I will, Mom, don’t worry.”

She knew that this world was filled with things that defy common sense; even her abilities seemed something hard to believe for most people.

They set off past the ridge trail and into the woods where the river bent south. The deeper they walked, the more the light thinned—broken only by dappled gold slanting through moss-laced boughs.

The birdsong faded as they crossed into older growth; there were no insects or even the rustle of creatures, just the creak of bark and the soft, slow breath of the forest.

It was beautiful but suspicious at the same time.

The quiet clung to Eirian’s skin like cold breath on glass.

“Why is everything so quiet?” Eirian asked.

“This part of the forest has always been like this, but you don’t need to worry; for some strange reason, no magical creatures come near here.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better, Mom.”

“Why not? I just told you that no creature is going to attack us.”

“And if there is no creature coming here, there must be a reason for that, don’t you think?”

“Well, that’s true,” her mother answered. “But a lot of people have looked all over this place without being able to spot anything.”

Sera led them toward a hollow where the trees grew in a crescent, tangled roots curling over one another like sleeping animals. She crouched near a patch of glintleaf and began sifting through the soil.

“Stay close,” she murmured. “Some of the roots here are tricky.”

But Eirian had already turned.

She heard them.

It was something strange; it wasn’t voices exactly. Instead, it was like whispers that the wind brought to her, like shapes behind her ears; it felt like a rhythm.

“Just a minute,” she called softly.

She walked toward the sound. Past a twisted hawthorn. Past an old bird’s nest now filled with mushrooms.

There, beneath a clutch of ivy and crumbling moss, was a stone; it looked small, worn by the passage of time, and half-swallowed by the ground.

Eirian dropped to her knees, heart tightening like a drawn bowstring. She brushed the ivy aside.

The stone was smooth, pale blue, and veined with faint lines of gold. A low hum vibrated against her palm—faint, like a breath held too long. Its face was carved in looping sigils, some broken by time.

But one she recognized.

A protective seal, but this one didn’t look like the ones Sera used with her plants; it was from her old life.

Her mother had etched it in chalk before every storm. Had painted it onto her cloak’s inner hem when she’d first been allowed to walk into shrines alone.

Eirian’s fingers shook as she traced the half-erased lines.

She didn’t speak; instead, she drew a small charm from her pouch—a woven circle of fox hair and dried fennel—and laid it at the base of the stone. Then she pressed her finger into the dirt and carved a new sigil beside it.

One that belonged to this life.

A circle with three breaths—she didn’t know it, but Eirian was making a connection to something sacred with her sigil.

She bowed her head, and that’s when she felt it, how the air around her warmed, and the whispers began again.

A breeze stirred the moss around the shrine.

No—not a breeze.

A presence that moved through the hollow with the intent of someone breathing behind her ear. The air shifted, warm and then cool, and her charm rolled an inch toward the stone, as if drawn by a hidden tide.

Then her sigil—scratched into the soft dirt—lifted slightly from the ground and pressed deeper into the grooves on the shrine’s face, as if invisible fingers were tracing it into permanence.

Eirian’s breath caught.

The whispers bloomed into song.

She hadn’t felt something like that before; she knew that no human was capable of producing those sounds—it must be something else. It sounded like light flickering through colored glass or the memory of laughter in a dream. A made out of vibration.

Then came the lights.

Tiny pinpricks at first. Then orbs of warm gold, blue, and pale green, swirling from the underbrush like dandelion seeds caught in a whirl. Dozens. No—hundreds. Each the size of a berry, and moving with impossible grace.

And laughter.

Soft, bell-like giggles that chimed through the glade. They sounded joyful, like children spinning in the first snow.

‘Fairies.’ She thought.

Eirian gasped, stumbling back slightly. Her hand went to her chest.

They danced around her, weaving through the air like silk ribbons. One darted through the strands of her hair, giggling as it did. Another twirled around her outstretched hand, trailing light like pollen.

“I—I didn’t mean to call you,” she whispered.

They didn’t answer with words. Only a shared, rippling joy that pressed against her skin like sun-warmth.

“Sera!” Eirian called, voice high and sharp with awe. “Sera, come here!”

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From beyond the trees, her new mother’s voice echoed back. “What? What is it?” Footsteps on damp leaves. “Are you hurt?”

Sera broke through the brush—and stopped short. Her brow furrowed.

Eirian gestured wildly. “Can’t you see them?”

“See what?” Sera stepped closer, cautious. “There’s nothing here but a half-buried rock and some weeds. Are you dizzy again?”

“They’re everywhere, Sera. Look! There are so many lights, and they have wings; I can hear them laughing.” Her voice trailed off, seeing Sera’s blank expression.

Sera put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing there, sweetheart. Maybe the ritual from last week took more from you than we thought.”

“But…”

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Sera said. “Take a break; I’ll come if something comes up.”

Sera continued collecting plants while trying to keep an eye on her.

“No. I know what I see,” Eirian whispered. “They’re real.”

As if to answer, one of the fairies drifted forward and touched her other shoulder—soft and weightless as mist.

And the world exploded into threads, but this time it felt different compared to those previous times when she had seen them; they weren’t just red for pain or green for life, not even silver for fate. All of those were present, but there was so much that she hadn’t seen before. There were some blue threads, and then she saw violet and golden.

They were folding like mirrored ribbons through space, forming symbols behind the veil of sight. Threads of meaning, of truth—like seeing the code of the world itself, stitched beneath bark and blood.

‘It hurts.’

She hadn’t felt something of this caliber before; her eyes burned, her vision blurred, and her legs gave out. With all the overload of information, she collapsed to her knees with a choked cry.

The fairies scattered in alarm. Then—softly, gently—one offered a flower; it was pale violet, petal-light.

She touched it, and the pain eased, as if it didn’t exist in the first place.

The threads faded.

But the knowing remained.

‘Interesting,’ the demon spoke to her. ‘They shouldn’t be doing this.’

“What do you mean?” Eirian asked.

‘Fairies don’t interact with humans after the last great war, so for them to approach you and even offer you a flower…’

Eirian knelt among the soft moss and broken roots, her breathing shallow, her temples pulsing where the pain had throbbed seconds earlier. The flower the fairies had offered her lay in her palm—unassuming at first glance, its petals a soft ivory tinged with flickers of silver at the edges, as if moonlight itself had kissed its bloom. Its scent was faintly sweet, laced with something colder—crisp, like winter water from a mountain stream.

The fairies hovered nearby, their glowing forms bobbing gently in the air, eyes watchful. They didn’t speak, not in any way she understood, but their presence pulsed with expectation. As if they were waiting. As if this flower wasn’t a gift but a message.

Eirian blinked the remaining dizziness from her eyes and studied the flower more closely. There was something strange about the way the air moved around it. If she paid attention, the threads would become visible for her. The faint shimmer of lines tugging gently at its center, not wrapped around the flower like they did with people or objects, but passing through it.

Her breath caught.

It was like the threads didn’t bind to the flower. They flowed through it as though it were part of them—like a channel carved in stone for water. As if the threads welcomed it. They didn’t buzz with resistance or try to lash at it. There was no pain or pressure, those symptoms that she normally felt when she touched one of them.

The petals trembled once.

Very carefully, Eirian lifted the bloom closer to her face and tilted it sideways. The silver edges caught the light—and with them, the threads became clearer. Not overwhelming this time, not attacking. Just… present. Slender lines of silver, red, green, violet, golden, and blue—colors that she’d never seen before—coming from them, drifting past the petals like fish through a gentle stream.

She narrowed her eyes and watched.

Some threads passed straight through the flower’s center. Others circled the bloom’s base in elegant spirals, gently pulled inward by its unseen rhythm. Where threads had once screamed at her touch, here they whispered. Muted and soft. As if the flower taught them how to breathe.

No wonder the fairies had given it to her.

She pressed the bloom lightly to her chest—over the space where the rune had once burned into her palm. A steady warmth spread outward. Her heart didn’t race. Her head didn’t pound. The threads—those ribbons of fate, memory, and life—moved around her again. But this time, she didn’t flinch. They didn’t hurt.

They recognized the flower. Or rather, respected it.

Her eyes widened as understanding clicked into place.

“It’s a buffer,” she whispered. “Or… maybe a translator, I’m not sure.”

The flower changed the threads and how they reached her. It filtered them. Aligned them, like a prism organizing light into color.

The fairies danced in a tighter circle, spinning faster now. They chittered excitedly, the sound like rain striking crystal bells.

“I think I get it,” Eirian said slowly, turning the flower in her hand. “You don’t want me to stop seeing them. You want me to learn how to see them.”

The threads had never been the problem.

She had.

Her body, her soul, whatever made her—Eirian—wasn’t used to this world’s flow. She was a needle stabbing through delicate cloth. But the fairies… this flower… they were offering her a different way.

“Show me,” she said softly.

She held the flower between her palms and closed her eyes.

And listened.

And this time, she couldn’t feel blinding pain or crashing visions, just a slow, curling awareness—threads lacing through her fingers like silken embroidery.

She followed one with her mind, a silver line weaving ahead. A possible future. She saw not an event, but a question—a girl at a crossroads, a book in her hand. One path led to fire. The other to silence. And Eirian understood she was watching not what would be, but what could.

She opened her eyes.

The fairies had settled now, watching from a nearby branch. One gave a slow nod—if nods were even a thing for beings made of light and laughter.

Eirian stood. Her knees still wobbled, but her mind was clear.

Sera’s voice called from across the glade. “Eirian? Are you alright?”

She turned toward the sound. “Yes,” she called back. “I just… needed a moment.”

As she walked back through the trees, the flower still pulsing gently in her grasp, she felt the threads brushing against her skin. Gentle this time. No longer strangers screaming at a door. Just possibilities—quiet and waiting.

She wasn’t their prisoner.

Not anymore.

And with the flower in hand, she was learning how to listen.

***

That night, the flower lay on her windowsill—wrapped in cloth, petals cupped inward like it was sleeping. Eirian kept stealing glances at it as she washed up, combed the burrs from her hair, and whispered her nightly thanks to the stars overhead. She’d thought to press it in her journal, to preserve it, but the threads… the way it connected her to the world… it still pulsed with meaning.

But the glow had dimmed.

By lamplight, she watched as the shimmer along the silver-edged petals began to dull, each thread it once aligned now passing through it with less grace. Less harmony. One even snagged for a moment—something that hadn’t happened before.

Eirian’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t dying exactly. Just... fading. Like a song at its final refrain.

Maybe it wasn’t meant to last.

She reached out and laid her fingers along its stem. The threads around her arm trembled in quiet farewell.

“Thank you,” she murmured to the flower, then to the air, hoping the fairies would hear. “I’ll remember.”

That night, the dreams returned.

But they weren’t like the visions from the silver threads, sharp and vivid. This one unfolded slowly, fragrantly, and surrealistically.

She stood beneath a velvet sky stitched with constellations she didn’t recognize. Fireflies blinked in rhythm, and somewhere in the trees, laughter rang like bells spun in wind.

The fairies emerged from the undergrowth—dozens of them, their wings trailing motes of golden light, their faces bright with mischief and wonder. They surrounded her in a wide spiral, singing in voices she couldn’t understand but somehow felt in her bones.

At the center of the clearing, something bloomed.

A door.

Made of petals and woven thread. It shimmered between real and not real, its shape held together only by will and reverence. The fairies gestured for her to approach.

Eirian stepped forward, breath caught.

As she touched the threshold, the petals parted with a hush like falling snow.

Beyond lay a hollow tree. Towering. Ancient. Its insides pulsed with soft green light, and its walls were covered in runes—layered over one another, some glowing faintly, others scratched out or half-forgotten. The air inside tasted like memory.

Something was waiting there.

She took a single step inside—then the dream shattered.

Eirian awoke gasping, fingers curled in her blankets, the scent of crushed flower still clinging to her palms.

The window was cracked open. The moon hung low and full above the treeline. The flower on her sill had closed its petals completely, its glow gone. But it wasn’t empty.

It had passed something to her.

A door she now had to find.