Page 7 of May: Bloom & Bane

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.”

CHAPTER 4

lunch is no longer alive

Time in the grove doesn’t move in hours or minutes. It moves in the slow opening of petals.

The sun has become my first enemy.

By the third day, the clearing is a furnace of gold and orange. The peonies love it. They’ve grown fat and heavy, their copper petals shining brightly.

But the glass keeps drinking the heat.

I can’t move her.

I can’t even touch her without my own mossy skin sizzling and drying out against the crystal.

So, I become the shade. Standing for fourteen hours a day with my wings draped over the crystal to keep the sun from burning her fair skin. They filter the harsh yellow light into a cool, watery emerald.