{se} in the ashes of Eden

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

Melita didn’t have the rhyme or reason – other than notions behind goddesses, especially seasonal ones, that craved more power. More worship. More devotees. Perhaps someone had been in the midst of Torchline and decided to plague the warm beaches and the sunlit paradise with cold for spite, the sake of it, or something else she’d yet to figure out. Especially with not knowing who’d constructed it, or the location. “I will be,” was a falsehood, and they probably both knew it – the Honeybee more prone to setting off after monsters with no rhyme or reason, as Evie had clearly demonstrated and seen in her own stead.

While Sila peeked through the curtain of wild hair, the youth waited for Evie’s perusal and inspection of the seeds, nodding along with some degree of notions and understanding of Caido’s vast, and stupefying, events. Tipping the seeds into the healer’s hands, she restlessly waited the result – figuring, somehow, by some manner, that the other woman would know what they were by first glance.

A light breath unfurled, probably relief, that she hadn’t selected anything poisonous or toxic. And the offer thereafter was a wondrous thing, leaving the smuggler ebullient and excited all over again. “Oooh, that’d be awesome!” She immediately snagged at a stool, propping herself upwards to watch.

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life