Page 57 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Like pressure,” I say after a moment. “Like something trying to get out through my skin.”

“And where does it go when it escapes?”

“Everywhere,” I admit. “I can’t direct it. It just… floods.”

He nods slowly, unsurprised by my answer. “That is because you are pushing outward. Every instinct you have says expand, bloom, fill the space.” He stops in front of me. “But that is not how roots grow, Sage.”

He crouches down and presses two fingers into the soil. The earth darkens, and a single green shoot spirals up between his knuckles before he withdraws his hand.

“Roots do not reach outward first.” He straightens. “They reach down. They find the bedrock, and they anchor before they ever think about growing toward the light.” He meets my eyes. “You have been flourishing before you have grown the roots to sustain your power. And a plant without roots in a storm is just—” he pauses.

“Tumbleweed.”

“Yes.”

He steps back, giving me space. “I want you to feel the ground beneath you. Really feel it. Every grain of soil, and every root already living there.”

I don’t have to look for it. My awareness drops through the soles of my feet the way water finds cracks in stone. It spreads through the root systems beneath the meadow, branching outward through the dark soil in every direction. The warmth of the house settles into me. Particularly, one room, where something bright is waiting for me.

The pressure in my chest doesn’t burst outward like usual. It sinks. And something sunny and gold seeps through the soles of my feet, spreading through the network beneath the meadow in a slow, steady pulse. Every plant in the circle relaxes at once.

Oh.

Therael watches the ring of gold light fade into the soil.

“What you just pushed through the soil,” he murmurs, “is your vel’thurá. Your living sap. That is what we are learning to command today.”

Eden smiles and waves at me through the window; golden specks of glitter start floating from my wings.

Therael pauses.

“The gold that blooms in the air when she’s near—” his lips pull into a dry smile. “That has its own name. Lavásia. And it is a separate sap entirely.”

The tips of my ears go slightly warm. “I’m aware.”

“You have found your root quickly,” he says, pivoting cleanly like he didn’t just bring up the pollen I produce when I’m aroused.

“She makes it easy.”

“Good,” he says quietly. “That’s good.”

We stand in awkward silence for a moment as the meadow settles around us.

“Again,” he says finally. “But this time I want you to hold it while I push against you.”

“Push against me how?”

“I am going to make you angry,” he says simply. “And you are going to root anyway.”

My wings shift. “You’re going to make me angry on purpose?”

“Your power spikes with emotion. You need to learn to root when the storm is the loudest, not just when the morning is quiet.” He tilts his head. “Unless you would prefer to only have control on peaceful days.”

I stare at him. “I don’t like you.”

The saddest smile I’ve ever seen crosses his face.

“I know,” he says. “Use it.”