Chapter 13.
918 Words
The following morning, the mist didn't lift; it settled into the crevices of the mountain like a heavy silver blanket. Sora appeared at Rhiannon’s door not with linens, but with a sturdy pair of leather gloves and a small wicker basket.
"The air is damp today," Sora said, her silver hair charms tinkling softly. "Perfect for the roots. There is a place, tucked behind the western crag, where the wind doesn't reach. It is where we grow the things that help us heal. I thought you might like to see something different."
Rhiannon followed her, her boots- now feeling a little more like a part of her and less like a weight, crunching over the frost-nipped grass. As they descended into a natural bowl in the earth, the roar of the mountain pines began to fade. The static in Rhiannon’s head, usually a jagged wall of white noise, softened into a low, tolerable hum.
The glen was lush, a hidden pocket of emerald in a world of grey granite. Rows of broad-leafed herbs, delicate flowering vines, and thick carpets of moss clung to the damp soil.
"It’s... quiet," Rhiannon whispered, stepping onto the soft floor of the glen.
"The elders call it the Silent Glen," Sora explained, kneeling by a patch of feverfew. "The soil here is deep. It swallows the noise."
Rhiannon wandered toward the back of the glen, where the rocks were slick with moisture. She knelt before a patch of star-ferns and silver-thread moss. Without thinking, she pulled off her glove and pressed her scarred palm against the cool, damp greenery.
In the forest of her childhood, the trees had been a booming orchestra. But here, stripped of her wings and her wand, she couldn't hear the symphony. She could, however, feel a tiny, rhythmic pulse. It wasn't a shout; it was a thrum, thin as a spider’s silk.
Dry, the moss seemed to breathe. The stone is drinking our share. We are thirsty.
Rhiannon’s breath hitched. It wasn't the loud, judgmental screaming of the ancient pines. This was a tiny, fragile need.
"You're thirsty," she murmured.
She looked around and saw a small stone basin nearby, filled with rainwater. She cupped her hands, the water freezing cold against her skin, and carried it back to the ferns. As she poured the water over the moss, she closed her eyes and reached- not with the grand, sweeping power of a noble fairy, but with the desperate, quiet spark of a survivor.
She felt a flicker of heat in her chest, a tiny ember of the fairy fire she thought had been extinguished by the iron shears. The water didn't just soak into the dirt; it seemed to glow for a heartbeat, vibrating as it was pulled into the roots.
The ferns unfurled, their tiny fronds stretching toward her fingers. The moss deepened from a sickly pale green to a vibrant, healthy emerald.
Better, the earth whispered.
Rhiannon let out a jagged breath, a tear tracing a path through the dirt on her cheek. It was a small win- a tiny patch of moss, but it was the first time in ten years the world had answered when she spoke. She wasn't just a "clipped fairy" or a "broken toy." She was a fairy. She was a Deeproot.
High above the glen, perched on a jagged outcropping of rock, Fenris stood as still as the stone itself. He had been tracking their scent, his Alpha instincts never quite allowing him to leave her entirely unguarded.
He watched as Rhiannon knelt in the dirt, her blue hair spilling over her shoulders. He saw the moment her shoulders relaxed. He saw the faint, ethereal glow of the water in her hands and the way the plants seemed to lean into her touch.
His heart hammered a slow, heavy rhythm against his ribs. He didn't move. He didn't growl or announce his presence. He simply watched the woman he had bought from a tomb begin to breathe life back into the world.
For the first time since he had seen her in that brothel, the tension in his jaw vanished. He didn't look like a "mountain of secrets and jagged edges." He looked like a man who had just seen a miracle.
Rhiannon looked up, sensing eyes on her. She scanned the ridges until her gaze locked onto the dark silhouette of the Alpha. In the city, a man watching her from the shadows would have sent her into a panic. But here, in the quiet of the ferns, she didn't flinch.
She didn't smile- not yet, but she raised her damp, mud-stained hand toward him.
Fenris gave a single, slow nod- a silent acknowledgement of her strength, a gesture of pride that held no demand. He stood there for a moment longer, a black shadow against the grey sky, before turning and disappearing back into the mist.
"What do you see?" Sora asked, looking up from her basket.
Rhiannon looked back at the moss, her fingers still tingling with the ghost of her magic.
"I see a mountain that isn't as cold as it looks," she said softly.
She picked up her wicker basket and moved to the next row of herbs, her footsteps no longer feeling heavy with dread, but of someone walking a path she was finally beginning to see.
- Writer
