“I will weave you into every cloth,” she promised. “Until the last thread snaps.”
She threw herself into the flames, her small body lifting the beam that ten men could not move. “Get up,” she whispered, dragging him to safety. Blood streaked her face. She looked exactly as she had the day she found him.
“Stop treating me like a child,” he snapped, his voice cracking into a man’s baritone. He stood a head taller than her now. She still looked fifteen. “You’re not my real mother. You’re… you’re nothing .” Maquia When the Promised Flower Blooms -2018- B...
One spring morning, Ariel called her to his bedside. He was very old. His breath came in shallow waves.
Maquia never approached. She only left small gifts on his doorstep: a blanket for the baby, a pair of gloves for Dita, and always, a single woven flower. “I will weave you into every cloth,” she promised
Maquia ran.
At five, he grabbed her finger and called her “Mama.” At ten, he learned to chop wood while she wove cloth to sell in the human towns. The villagers whispered. “That girl—she never ages. Must be a witch.” Blood streaked her face
Then came the crimson dragon—the Renato—shattering the peace. Its roar tore the sky, and with it came the armored knights of Mezarte, desperate to capture the last of the ancient bloodlines. They wanted the Iorph’s immortality, their ageless bodies, to graft onto their dying king.