Page 45 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Stamatios sank to his knees on the temple’s stone floor, his forehead pressing against the marble. Desperate prayers spilled from his lips, whispers that dissolved into vast, indifferent silence.

The fields and orchards surrounding Athens were renowned for their fertility.

Year after year, waves of golden wheat surged from the rich, dark soil.

Nourished by plentiful sunlight and rain, slender green shoots rose as surely as the sun, swelling and finally bowing beneath heavy, golden crowns of grain.

This year had promised no less.

By early summer, the fields had shone in vibrant shades of green, swaying with the soft caress of a warm breeze. Rain had been abundant, and the crops stood tall and proud—a symbol of the kingdom.

Athens, prosperous and blessed.

As keeper of the royal storehouses, Stamatios had anticipated the largest yield in decades.

He had lain awake at night, restless with the worry of too few laborers to gather such unprecedented abundance before the winds turned cold.

Soon, people would come from the surrounding villages, eager to buy their share of the season’s grain.

But everything had changed that morning.

In his usual habit, he’d dressed and eaten swiftly before making his way to the fields. But in the palace atrium, he’d paused. At the wide window overlooking the familiar landscape, he turned.

Shock roiled through him, his stomach twisting.

Fields that had gleamed with life the day before lay dull and ashen, their bright green stalks now shriveled and gray in the morning sun.

His sandals had slapped sharply against the stone as he sprinted outside.

Bursting into the fields, he’d stumbled, his knees striking the dry earth as his hands reached—grasping. The wheat crumbled to dust at his touch, slipping through his fingers like ash.

His breath turned sharp and shallow, disbelieving.

It made no sense.

The night before, the crops had thrived—lush and vigorous, brilliantly green. Now, they lay lifeless, withered by an unseen plague that had crept through in the dead of night, leaving ruin in its wake.

Panic crested, thundering in his ears. Staggering to his feet, he’d shouted for emissaries. At his barked command, they scattered in all directions, sent to inspect every field within Athenian control.

The reports arrived in waves, each one a blow to his frayed nerves.

Every field—dead.

He could barely hear over the wild pounding of his heart as he shouted for royal messengers. With frantic strokes, he scrawled urgent missives onto sheets of papyrus, sealing each with his mark.

Riders went out on the kingdom’s fastest horses. Hooves thundered down the dusty roads toward Attica, Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and Rhodes.

Two agonizing days had crawled by in long, tormented hours caught between despair and hope.

Then the messengers returned. Their horses clattered through the gates lathered and weary, the riders coated in the dull sheer of dust and exhaustion. Damp with sweat, the scrolls were pressed into Stamatios’s trembling hand.

He unrolled them, one by one. The message was the same—again and again.

The crops of Greece were dead.

A cold wind swept the barren land, rattling the skeletal stalks that whispered in mourning as they swayed. The chill cut through him, settling icily into his bones.

The earth had simply ceased to provide.