Lingering Glance (Patreon)

The rapier might have been a bust, but something tells you that Juturna''s gift won't follow the same outcome.

Your fingertips course the outline of the little coin as they've done so many times before, feeling the familiar ridges and bumps. This could get you something more in exchange. You start to pull it from your pocket—

When the candles flicker, and the breeze coming from the air shaft suddenly picks up intensity, as if a wind blows through. You blink as the blue lights of the lanterns pluck away from the glass and drift like orbs toward you. But it's not a vision you're given but rather a sound that comes to tickle the outside of your ear. 

"Si rosae radicem incides, nexum terrae perdes."

Her voice, feeble and frail, ripples like a nascent river. It makes all the hairs in your arms stand to attention, and she may sound weak, but you hear the strength in it too. The quiet, curling, primal force of a gathering whirlpool.

If you cut the rose's stem, you'll cut your connection to the earth.

*page_break "${Name}?"

You come to your senses.

The room is as it was; the candles slowly cry their molten tears, the lanterns flicker, the draft becomes lazy once more, and Hadrian and Mist stare right at you.

Hadrian frowns in concern while Mist seems more than contented in simply watching.