“These are saffron crocuses. The flowers’ stigmas are worth more than their weight in gold. It takes twenty thousand of them to make up an ounce of saffron.”
Briar whistled soundlessly. Saffron was the most expensive spice in the world and made fortunes for those who dealt in it. The cost of a pound of it would probably feed all of Gold Ridge for a year or two. “Gold is right. What happened—not enough water?” he asked without taking his eyes from the terraces before him.
“What they have they bring up from the castle, but that’s hard water and isn’t very healthy for the plants. Usually water isn’t an issue—saffron doesn’t need much—but the drought has gone on in this part of the country for three years.”
“I wish they had let us know earlier this summer,” said a light, crisp voice nearby. “We might have been able to help.”
Briar jumped. A man walked up to them around a curve in the trail that led into the pocket valley. He was ten inches taller than Briar’s own height of five feet, slender, with long hair streaked black and gray. At fifty-three he was older than Rosethorn by twenty years, with a craggy face and a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache. His eyes were his most interesting feature: black as sloes, they were framed with thick black lashes and set deep under heavy black brows. He was dressed well, in a pale yellow linen shirt, loose brown linen trousers, polished boots, and an open cotton overrobe dyed an exacting shade of bronze.
Little Bear whipped the path with his tail, raising a cloud of dust that made Rosethorn sneeze.
“Niko, you scared me out of a season’s growth!” snapped Briar, angry at himself for not sensing that another person was nearby. “For somebody whose whole life is about seeing things, you go invisible real fast!”
“That was my intent.” Niklaren Goldeye’s smile was half hidden under his mustache. “I know I’ve done well if I can surprise you, Briar.”
The boy sniffed and rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “I was thinking about the plants,” he replied. “Poor things.”
“Come take a closer look,” Rosethorn said, retrieving her water bottle from him. With Little Bear at her side, she led the way into the tiny valley. The man and the boy followed her.
Closer to the terraces and their contents, Briar could see what had grown there: small flowers, not much more than a few inches high. Everything was undersized; he guessed that the leaves and flowers might be somewhat bigger, had they gotten enough water. Stopping by one terrace, he crouched and held an open hand over the ground. It was sandier than the earth in the larger valley below, with good drainage to carry rain away. Gently he ran a dead leaf between two fingers. As if their lives flowed in his own veins, he felt the plants’ struggle to bloom only a week ago. It was too dry; the castle water was too hard with minerals. Without soft rain, these autumn-blooming flowers had given up.
“What are you?” he wondered aloud. “Have you anything left to grow from next spring?” Cupping a hand around the base of one plant, he stretched out his magic.
Something popped behind his eyes; heat pressed his fingertips and jumped away. The crocus he touched collapsed in ashes. White heat flooded from him, enveloping all the plants on that terrace. Under the ground, he felt razor-sharp darts of heat as the still-living bulbs fried. The sandy earth itself warmed. Within the length of a slow breath, every crocus on that terrace was burned, and the soil around the crisped bulbs had run together, half melted.
Briar’s jaw hung open. Little Bear whined and hid behind Rosethorn.
“That was lightning,” Niko said conversationally. “Lightning, where it had no business appearing at all.”
Slowly Briar pulled out a pocket handkerchief and used it to pick up a lump in the dirt. The lightning’s heat had turned parts of the sandy ground into glass.
“I don’t do lightning,” he protested, looking at the sun through the warm glass. The light showed him bits of dirt and plant matter inside the glob. “That’s Tris.”
“Looked like lightning to me,” Rosethorn pointed out.
Briar stared at Niko. “You have to do something about this,” he told the man who had brought him to Rosethorn. “I can’t go around killing plants. I can’t.” Dismayed, he looked at the pocket of earth he had changed. “And how am I ever going to pay for these crocuses?”
Creeping over to him, Little Bear licked one of Briar’s hands.
“Sit,” Rosethorn said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’re white as a sheet.”
He obeyed, settling on the rim of the short stone wall that contained the terrace. “Why couldn’t it have been rain, if I had to give out magic that’s not mine?” he demanded, burying his face in the dog’s fur. “There isn’t a plant mage born that couldn’t use a bit of rain!”
Niko sighed. “Every time I think we have a grip on the things you four must learn, you develop something new.” He ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. “None of the student mages at Lightsbridge ever broke out like this.”
“One of the reasons I never wanted to study magic there,” Rosethorn pointed out. “It must be dreadfully tame.”
When Briar looked up, startled at what sounded like a joke, she smiled at him. “It’s not that bad. Those bulbs wouldn’t have made it through the winter—they’re at the end of their four years of growth.” She stared up at the sky, veiled in its smoky haze. “No one’s going to starve because these are finished.”