Chapter 4

When I opened my eyes again, the midnight bells echoed through the air. The Heart-Root was blooming. The fifteen-minute window for miracles and monsters had begun.

I tried to sit up, but thick ropes cut deeply into my wrists and ankles. I was lying on the massive, twisted roots that served as the ancient tree’s trading altar. 

I whipped my head around. Two groups of people stood glaring at each other across my bound body. 

On my left stood my mother, my brother, and my little sister. 

On my right stood my husband and my husband’ s mother. 

They weren’t looking at my bleeding leg. They weren’t looking at the panic in my eyes. Their greedy, feverish gazes were locked entirely on my chest. 

"We go first!" my mother screamed, pointing a trembling finger at my husband. "Her father is in a freezing coffin! He needs those Petals right now!"

"Are you crazy?" my husband’ s mother spat back, taking a threatening step forward. "She is our family’s daughter-in-law now! She belongs to us. Her Petals belong to us. My grandson needs to be brought back to life tonight!"

"A mistress’s bastard!" my brother yelled, leaning angrily on his cane. "You want to waste my little sister’s life-saving Petals on a whore’s dead fetus? You must be out of your mind!"

"Shut your mouth!" my husband roared, his face turning red. "That is my flesh and blood!"

They were shouting, cursing, and calculating. They bargained over my heart like butchers fighting over a slab of meat in a wet market. Not a single person asked why I was tied up. Not a single person asked if I was in pain. Not a single person asked if I was willing.

"Stop arguing!" my little sister suddenly piped up. 

She stepped out from behind my mother, a sweet, innocent smile plastered across her face. "There’s enough for both. I saw Clara changing clothes yesterday. Her seed is glowing brightly. She has at least twenty golden Petals."

I froze. I stared at her in sheer, paralyzing horror. 

Twenty? 

I hadn’t grown a single Petal since before she was born. My seed was a dead, hardened stone. She knew that. She was lying. She was deliberately pushing me off the cliff.

My mother’s eyes instantly lit up with greedy relief. "Did you hear that? She has plenty! We revive her father first, then your little bastard. Everyone gets what they want!"

My husband exchanged a quick, calculating look with his mother. The old woman narrowed her eyes, then nodded sharply. 

"Fine," my husband said. "Deal."

My mother immediately marched over to me. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back. "Get up. Stop playing dead. The Keeper is waiting. Don’t try any tricks."

Tears spilled down my face, mixing with the dirt on my cheeks. "Mom, please," I choked out, my voice breaking. "I don’t have any Petals. My seed is completely empty. If you force a trade, the tree will kill me!"

My mother slapped me hard across the face. The sting radiated through my jaw. 

"Still lying!" she hissed. "Your My little sister saw them with her own eyes! You just want your father to rot in that ice box!"

"I’m not lying!" I sobbed violently, looking frantically at my brother. "My brother, please! You know me! I would never hide them!"

He looked away in disgust. "Just do it, Clara. Don’t be so greedy."

I twisted my head toward my husband. "You know I gave my last Petals to your My little sister! I cured her brain! I have nothing left!"

My husband sneered. He grabbed my bound arms and violently dragged me to my feet. "Save the acting. You just hate that another woman gave me a son. You are pathetic. Move!"

He shoved me forward. 

I stumbled and fell onto my knees right in front of the giant, gaping hollow of the tree trunk. The Keeper stood there silently, draped in heavy shadows, wearing his featureless wooden mask. 

My husband pressed his hand hard against the back of my neck, forcing my chest toward the hollow. 

"We demand a resurrection for her father, and a revival for my unborn son," my husband ordered the Keeper, his voice thick with anticipation. "Take whatever amount of Petals you need from her."

The Keeper slowly raised his pale, slender hand. 

He plunged his fingers directly into the center of my chest. 

There was no blood. There was no physical wound. But a freezing, absolute emptiness gripped my soul. I gasped, my entire body violently arching backward against my husband’s grip. 

The two families leaned in, holding their collective breath. Their eyes were wide with desperate greed. They were waiting for the warm golden glow of the Petals. They were waiting for their miracles. 

The Keeper slowly pulled his hand out. 

His palm was completely empty. 

"Seed empty," the Keeper’s voice echoed through the clearing, devoid of all human emotion. "No Petals to harvest. Forced extraction initiated."

Silence dropped over the roots like a heavy stone. 

I looked at the people standing around me. My mother, who gave birth to me. My husband, who vowed to protect me. My siblings, my husband’s mom. They had all dragged me to my execution. 

A sudden, twisted sense of absolute relief washed over me. I stopped crying. I looked at their confused faces, and I smiled. 

It’s finally over.

Then, the agony hit. 

CRACK.

My ribs shattered outward. A deafening crunch of breaking bone echoed across the silent clearing. 

Thick, pitch-black roots erupted from the very center of my chest.

I couldn’t even scream. A thick, thorny black root shoved its way up my windpipe and burst out of my mouth, dripping with my own blood. 

My body was being ripped apart from the inside out. My flesh, my bones, my organs—everything was shredded into fertilizer by the violent, expanding flora. Blood sprayed through the air in a fine red mist. 

My physical body vanished. All that remained on the ground were my shredded, blood-soaked clothes and a few writhing, dying black vines. 

The first trade had failed. I was dead.