Chapter 16 – A Bloom in Winter
640 Words
The world was silent under a blanket of white.
Snow had fallen early this year—soft, relentless, and untamed. The meadow that stretched before Elias shimmered like a frozen sea, each flake catching the dull light of dawn. His breath curled in the air, his boots crunching against the frost as he walked, guided by a pull he could not name.
He shouldn’t have been out there. The storms had grown unpredictable, the cold biting through even the thickest of cloaks. But something had stirred in him the night before—a dream, a whisper, a warmth that didn’t belong to winter.
And so, he walked.
The horizon blurred where snow met sky, and he thought of her. The way her voice used to anchor him when the world tilted off its axis. The way her eyes mirrored the storm but always promised calm.
He had not seen her in months.
Not since she disappeared into the silence of the north.
A gust of wind howled through the meadow, lifting the edge of his coat, and just as he turned to shield his face—he saw it.
A bloom.
A single rose, crimson and alive, pushing through the crust of frost like defiance itself. Its petals glowed faintly, almost breathing. The color was so vivid against the endless white that his heart stumbled in his chest.
Elias approached slowly, every instinct screaming that it couldn’t be real. Nothing could bloom here, not in this frozen death of a season. Yet there it was—fragile and fearless, as if it had waited just for him.
He knelt, the snow soaking into his gloves. His breath fogged the air as he reached out.
The instant his fingers brushed a petal, warmth surged up his arm—startling, consuming. It wasn’t the warmth of the sun or fire; it was living, pulsing with memory and emotion. The air trembled.
And then he heard it.
A voice—soft, aching, threaded with sorrow.
“Don’t find me yet.”
Her voice. Mira’s.
He froze. The sound wasn’t carried by the wind; it came from within the rose, within him. His chest clenched, his vision blurring as the whisper lingered like a ghost’s touch.
“Please, Elias… not yet.”
He tried to speak, but no sound came. Only the harsh rasp of his breath and the echo of her plea fading into the cold.
The warmth left as quickly as it came.
The rose wilted before his eyes—its crimson petals curling inward, blackening at the edges. Snow began to fall again, light at first, then heavier, as if the sky itself sought to bury the evidence of what had just happened.
Elias stared down at his palm.
A faint mark glowed there, shaped like a tear—delicate and shimmering. When he pressed his hand to his chest, it burned, a steady throb of life against his racing heart.
“She’s alive,” he whispered. “She has to be.”
The meadow stretched silent around him once more, but everything had changed. The air was different now—charged, aware. Somewhere, miles beyond the horizon, she was out there, waiting, hiding.
And she didn’t want to be found.
Not yet.
He rose slowly, clutching his marked hand, the memory of her voice seared into him. For the first time in months, the loneliness that haunted him shifted into something else—purpose.
The snow thickened, erasing his footprints as he turned toward the forest’s edge. The wind carried the faintest hum, a melody he recognized as hers, weaving through the trees.
He smiled faintly.
“If not now,” he murmured, “then soon.”
And as the first light of dawn broke through the clouds, the tear-shaped mark on his skin gleamed like a promise.
- Writer
