Page 11 of A Petal in the Crown

The wind blew again, and she leaned into its cool kiss.Azalea, she heard, the soft breeze carrying with it the sound of her name.

"Azalea." Her name again. But this time closer. And not the ghost of a voice, but her mother’s voice. "Oh, my flower."

Lea’s eyes sprung open, her head whipping around, praying it wasn’t just the wind. Not this time.

Had Lea’s heart still been beating, it would have stopped. Only feet away was her mother, exactly as Lea remembered. Her dark brown hair was in a messy, low bun, and her simple linen dress was covered by an apron stained with berries, herbs, and spices. She had soft wrinkles around her chocolate brown eyes and smile lines bracketing her mouth. It was as if she had been plucked straight from her memory and placed here, right in front of her.

Slowly, Lea rose to her feet. "Mom?" Her voice cracked, her lungs constricting with disbelief, but Lea was relieved to feel anything inside her body besides darkness and wrath.

"Oh, my flower," her mother repeated, rushing toward Lea and crushing her in an embrace so full of love that it almost broke through her fiery, black heart.

"Mom!" Lea cried, collapsing into her arms.

Adelaide cupped Lea’s face tenderly, her eyes clouded with tears. "I’m so sorry. I’msosorry I couldn’t tell you more. That Ididn’ttell you more. I should have. I’m so very sorry I didn’t prepare you."

"You couldn’t have known," Lea’s voice sounded foreign to her own ears. More melodic, but also sharper, and tinged with a fury that, days ago, she’d never have thought herself capable of feeling. Not at her mother. Never at her. But this anger was part of her marrow now, just as mucha part of her as her own blood and bone. "I know you did all you could." Lea clung desperately to Adelaide, her touch a splash of cool water on her burning skin.

"I’m so proud of you, Azalea," her mother said. "For your strength and your courage."

Lea felt as if she might shatter at the words. She wasn’t strong. Not strong enough to defeat Alaric, or to control the darkness inside her. Not strong enough to save Gray.

She’d failed. Not only herself, but her people. The thought made Lea’s knees weak.

As if sensing her exhaustion, Adelaide grabbed Lea’s hands and lowered them to the ground together, wrapping her in a warm hug as they faced out toward the black night.

They sat together in silence for a while, Adelaide stroking Lea’s hair like a small child as the raging inferno inside her slowly calmed. As if it, too, needed rest. But even in slumber, its embers glowed white hot, ready to blaze again in the blink of an eye.

Lea forced away the thought. "Is this where you stayed?" she asked. "After you died, I mean?"

Adelaide patted her hand, the touch so familiar it made Lea’s eyes burn. "No, my love. I didn’t stay here. And you don’t have to either, if it’s not what you wish. Whatever your heart desires, wherever your heart desires, there’s a way to find it here."

Lea’s dead heart clenched. Whatever her heart desired. What she desired—whereshe desired—was Gray. The one thing that wasn’t possible.

Adelaide continued. "I spend most of my time in a garden, with eternal sunshine and the richest soil. There are no bugs to eat away my plants, no diseases to rot their roots. No worries. Just the sun on my face and the soil beneath my fingernails."

Lea wondered what it would be like to join her there. To plunge her fingers into the cool dirt and forget, if only for a moment, but a fist of anxiety wrapped around Lea’s throat at the thought of being further away from Bearswillow. Even if she couldn’t see Gray or feel him on top of this hill, he washere. Unreachable, but nonetheless,here.

Lea shook her head. "I won’t leave him." She looked back toward where she knew, in another world, another reality, Gray would be rising from the ground and beginning his quest for revenge.

Without hesitating, Adelaide squeezed Lea’s hand and settled back onto her elbows. "Then I think I would like to stay with you. At least for a little while, if that’s okay."

A bubble of gratitude settled behind Lea’s breastbone. She wouldn’t be alone. For now, at least. And the relief from that knowledge was enough to allow her a singular, shuddering breath.

Days passed slowly as they sat there together on the hill, the glow from the stars overhead and the fire dancing along Lea’s skin the only source of light in the eternal night in which they waited. It was as if they were frozen in a moment in time, unable to move forward.

Adelaide told Lea everything she’d kept from her in life—about the day she’d found her lying beneath the sun all alone, and the joy she’d felt, mixed with the fear and terror that had flooded every fiber of her being the moment she saw the moonflower birthmark beneath her arm.

She told her of the journeys her father took trying to find her birth parents, trying to findanyscrap of information that could prove who Lea really was. She told her that when Lea had turned three years old, it had become obvious that her magic was stronger than was usual. Her mother had given her the ice cold water from the stream that ran from the mountain, the same water that her father and the rest of the villagers drank whenever the royal army came to Bearswillow.

It was why so many with magic had chosen to dwell in their village. Even Adelaide hadn’t understood it, but the water had somehow glamoured their appearance and hid their magic, so long as they didn’t go more than a few months without drinking from the stream. But even the water hadn’t been enough to hide Lea’s power.

While she’d looked fully human after drinking it, within a few hours, her eyes would once again become unnaturally blue, and her features would sharpen. And so her mother had been forced to look for a more permanent solution. Adelaide cried true tears of regret and sorrow as she told Lea what she’d done. Told her how she’d created a potion that would permanently lock down her daughter’s magic, so deep inside her that Lea would never be aware it was there at all.

Within Adelaide’s eyes, Lea could see she was still struggling with the decision she’d made. She’d taken away her birthright. Her ability to protect herself. Her identity. But it had felt like the only way to keep her safe. And so she had given Lea the potion, so bitter that she’d had to sweeten it with two scoops of sugar for the toddler to take it willingly.

And then Adelaide had watched as her light dimmed, as the potion closed off everything magical about her forever. Or at least, until she’d met Gray, and it had once again awakened. Her magic had recognized its mate, its equal, and so her day and night magic had revealed themselves. Slowly, at first. But then, when Alaric and Lea had battled, her primary magic had shattered through the remaining floor holding down her magic.

Adelaide hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t expected for her to have a mate at all, let alone for that connection to overcome her potion’s power and break its spell. She’d underestimated that true love was the most powerful force of all. Capable of anything. Capable ofeverything.

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