Page 12

12

HARMONY

T ime passes like water through my fingers, days bleeding into weeks, months into years. I mark the seasons by the growing swell of my belly at first, then by my daughter's first smile, her first steps, her first words.

The birth itself is something I both try to remember and forget. Pain like lightning strikes through my body, Marda's steady hands gripping mine as Ansel wipes sweat from my brow. The tiny room above the kitchen becomes a battleground where I fight for both our lives.

"Push, Harmony!" Ansel's voice, for once urgent rather than measured. "I can see the head."

"I can't," I sob, exhausted beyond measure after eighteen hours of labor. "I can't do it anymore."

Marda's weathered face appears above mine, her gray eyes fierce. "You can and you will. This child needs you. Now, push!"

Something primal takes over, and with a guttural scream that tears from somewhere deep inside me, I bear down one final time. The relief is immediate and overwhelming as my daughter slides into Ansel's waiting hands. For one terrifying moment, silence fills the room—and then comes a furious, indignant wail.

"She's got a temper," Marda laughs, tears tracking down her cheeks. "Just like her mother."

They place her on my chest, this tiny, red-faced stranger with a shock of pale blond hair. My arms curl around her instinctively, and when she opens her eyes to look at me for the first time, my heart stops.

Adellum's eyes stare back at me—clear green, impossibly bright, rimmed with those distinctive thick lashes. I search her tiny back frantically, but there are no wing buds, no sign of her father's heritage beyond those startling eyes.

"Beautiful," Ansel murmurs, his usual stoicism momentarily forgotten. "What will you call her?"

I think of running water, of safe harbors after storms. "Brooke," I whisper, pressing my lips to her forehead. "Her name is Brooke."

As the years pass, Brooke grows strong and wild, her curly pale-blond hair catching sunlight like polished gold, her small hands perpetually dirty from digging in Eira's garden. She's mischievous and stubborn, quick to laugh and quicker to question everything around her.

By the time she's four, she's become the heart of Saufort, whispered about and adored in equal measure. I catch the villagers watching her sometimes, their eyes moving from her striking face to mine, questions hovering unspoken.

I'm placing fresh-baked bread in baskets one morning when Tamsin arrives for her daily order, Brooke perched on her hip. My daughter's face is smeared with what looks like berry juice, and she's regaling Tamsin with a story about a thalivern she saw in Eira's garden.

"And it had purple wings, Mama! Purple! Not blue like the ones yesterday!" She wriggles down from Tamsin's arms and runs to me, throwing her arms around my legs.

"Is that so?" I laugh, smoothing her wild curls. "And did Eira let you chase it?"

"She said I'd scare it if I did." Brooke's nose wrinkles. "But I just wanted to say hello."

I exchange a smile with Tamsin over Brooke's head, then notice something odd—tiny golden sparks dancing from my daughter's fingertips as she gestures excitedly. Not for the first time.

"Brooke," I say carefully, capturing her hands in mine. "Remember what we talked about? About keeping our sparkles inside when we're excited?"

Her eyes—so like her father's it still steals my breath sometimes—widen. "Sorry, Mama. I forgot." She concentrates hard, her little face scrunching with effort, and the sparks fade. The magic manifestations started when she was three, small bursts of golden light when her emotions run high.

Tamsin shifts uncomfortably. "I should get back to Holt. The order for New Solas is due tomorrow."

The name of the city sends a chill through me, as it always does. New Solas, where Adellum still lives, unaware of the daughter who carries his eyes.

"Did her father have magic?" Tamsin asks quietly after Brooke skips outside to look for more thalivern.

I stiffen, my hands automatically kneading dough with more force than necessary. "I don't talk about him."

"I know, but—the sparks, they're getting more noticeable. People are wondering." She fidgets with her apron. "There are rumors, Harmony. About who—what—he might have been."

I know the whispers. They started not long after Brooke was born, when her unusual eyes couldn't be ignored. I let them think what they want—that I fled from some xaphan who forced himself on me. That my master raped me and I escaped to where I could finally be safe.

It's easier than the truth: that I loved him, that I gave myself willingly, that I still wake sometimes with the phantom touch of his fingers on my skin. That my heart still aches with the loss of Adellum, that he was never truly the man I thought he was.

And then hatred burns in my chest at the way he used me, tore me apart while he treated me like all xaphan treat humans, and I'm able to shove him out of his mind.

"Let them wonder." My voice is harder than I intend.

Tamsin's expression softens. "No one blames you. Everyone knows what those creatures are capable of. We're just grateful you escaped."

The bread dough tears under my fingers. If only they knew how I'd run to him, not from him. How eagerly I'd welcomed his touch, believed his lies.

"He's not part of our lives," I say firmly. "He never will be."

Later that evening, as I tuck Brooke into bed in our small room above the restaurant—expanded now with Holt's help to include her own little sleeping alcove—she asks the question I've been dreading for years.

"Why don't I have a papa like Joss says he had?"

My heart stutters in my chest. I've known this moment would come, have rehearsed answers that are gentle half-truths. "You do have a father, little one. But he... he travels and lives far away. So we stay here, where you're happy and safe, and he lets me love you enough for the both of us."

"Will he ever come back?" Her lower lip trembles.

"He can't," I say softly, gathering her close. "But that's okay. You have me, Brooke. You'll always have me."

She lets me hug her tight and tuck her in. But as I pull her curtains closed to section off her room, my chest aches. I know it will only get harder to face my past with Adellum as time goes on.

I know it's only a matter of time before Brooke's gift becomes impossible to hide. Every mother thinks her child exceptional—but mine truly is, in ways that terrify me.

This morning, I find her crouched in Eira's garden, surrounded by a circle of violet midsummer bellflowers that weren't blooming yesterday. She's whispering to them, her small fingers hovering just above their petals, which seem to strain toward her touch like sunflowers following light.

"Brooke." I keep my voice even despite the panic fluttering in my chest. "What are you doing, little bird?"

She looks up, beaming, golden sparks dancing between her fingertips. "Making them pretty for you! Look, Mama!" She waves her hand and the flowers bob their heads as though caught in a breeze that doesn't exist.

I glance around quickly, relieved to see only Eira watching from her cottage doorway, her ancient face impassive. The old earth nymph has known about Brooke's abilities from the beginning, likely sensed them before I did.

"They're beautiful," I say, kneeling beside her. "But remember what we talked about?"

Her smile dims. "Magic is private."

"That's right." I brush dirt from her knees, tucking a wild curl behind her ear. "Just like bathing or changing clothes. Some things we only do when we're alone or with family."

"But why?" She frowns, lower lip jutting out. "Joss can make his clay move without touching it, and everyone says it's amazing."

I sigh. Joss's elemental magic is different—he's otherwise human and it's just a touch of earth magic. What flows through Brooke's veins is far more dangerous.

"Joss is older," I say, knowing it's a weak explanation. "And his magic is... safer."

"Is my magic bad?" Her eyes—so like her father's—widen with hurt.

"No, sweet one. Your magic is beautiful." I cup her face. "But it's special. So special that some people might want to take you away to study it." It's as close to the truth as I can get.

Her tiny fingers curl around my wrist. "I don't want to go away."

"And you won't." I press my forehead to hers. "That's why we practice being careful."

Despite these conversations, hiding Brooke's abilities becomes harder each day. She charms an extra sweetroll from Tam the baker with nothing but a smile, though I know it's the faint iridescence in her eyes that truly persuades him.

She coaxes raindrops to dance in midair when she thinks no one's watching. Once, when she fell from the apple tree beside Marda's restaurant, I swear she floated for a heartbeat before landing.

This afternoon, she sits at a table in the restaurant, drawing with the charcoal sticks Holt made her, while I prepare for the evening meal. Marda works beside me, her capable hands deftly chopping dreelk greens.

"She made Eira's potted brimbark bloom this morning," Marda murmurs, her voice pitched low. "In the dead of winter."

I nearly slice my finger. "Did anyone else see?"

"Only me." Marda's eyes find mine. "But Ansel was asking about her yesterday. Said he noticed a glow when he treated her hand after that thorn scratch."

Fear coils in my stomach. "What did you tell him?"

"That he works too hard and sees magic where there's only childhood wonder." She sets down her knife. "But he's not a fool, Harmony. None of us are."

I turn away, blinking hard. "I don't know what to do."

Marda's hand settles on my shoulder. "We protect her. All of us."

My throat tightens. "Why would you risk yourselves for us?"

"Because you're one of us now." Her voice is gruff with emotion. "And that child?—"

"Mama! Look what I made!" Brooke's voice cuts through our conversation as she barrels toward me, brandishing her drawing. It shows what appears to be our little family—me, Brooke, Marda, Eira, the Ferrises, Ansel, and Joss—all standing in front of the restaurant. Above our heads float tiny specks that look suspiciously like golden sparks.

"It's beautiful, love." I take the paper, noticing how the charcoal seems to shimmer faintly where she's pressed hardest.

"I put in our sparkles," she whispers, eyes gleaming with conspiracy. "But it's just a picture, so it's okay, right?"

"Of course." I swallow the lump in my throat. "Why don't you take this to show Eira? I bet she'd love to see herself in your art."

As she skips away, Marda sighs. "That child glows from the inside out, Harmony. It's not just magic—it's her spirit. The whole village sees it."

"And loves her for it," I say, watching my daughter through the window as she races across the square, trailing faint golden light that most would mistake for sunshine.

"Yes," Marda agrees. "But love may not be enough to keep her safe forever."