SWNOVELXO Chapter 8: CHAPTER 7 — PETALS IN THE DARK
Long after the council's echoes died under marble arches, Lumiel could not sleep.
The orchard prince had shed his cloak and boots, but no warmth wrapped his restless thoughts. The fire in his chamber guttered, its light licking the walls like fleeting ghosts. Every flicker threw Seraphine's painted face across the ceiling — her smile caught forever in frescos, immortal only in stone.
He rose from the bed — silk sheets kicked aside — and dipped his feet into cold boots. His shirt hung loose on his frame. He didn't bother to tie the belt at his waist.
Outside, the palace slept in uneasy silence. The sentries at his door startled but did not stop him. Who stops a prince wandering his own orchard?
He slipped down the servants' stair, taking the narrow spiraling steps two at a time, his shoulder brushing cold walls slick with moss. A torch guttered at the landing. He did not light another.
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Aetheris by night was another kingdom altogether. The grandeur and gold leaf gave way to echoing halls that held old secrets tight. Rats squeaked from the kitchens. Somewhere in the lower courtyard, a pair of drunken guards argued about dice and debts they'd never repay.
Lumiel did not pause for any of it. His feet knew the way — past the banquet hall where his mother once laughed, past the covered walkway where Seraphine taught him the names of constellations that only she seemed to know.
He reached the orchard gate by instinct, not sight. His palm found the iron latch worn smooth by his father's hand and his mother's before him. The gate moaned as it opened, like a giant roused from ancient sleep.
Beyond, the orchard lay silvered by moonlight — boughs heavy with blossoms that seemed to glow, frost-kissed petals drifting like snowflakes.
He stepped inside. The hush greeted him like an old lover.
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He walked a path only he could see — winding through gnarled trunks, the scent of earth and blossom thick in his lungs. His boots left prints in the soft moss underfoot.
At the orchard's heart stood his mother's tomb, low and simple. No gilded crown carved above the arch — only the sigil of the Dawnstar: a single sunburst behind a flowering bough. Seraphine had hated crowns. She had loved flowers.
He knelt on the cold stone path. His fingers traced the edges of her name — Seraphine Aetherion, Light of the Orchard — until his skin numbed.
"Mother," he breathed into the hush. His forehead rested on the marble. "They whisper about Father now. They whisper about me."
The wind sighed through branches above him, carrying the ghost of her voice — or maybe only leaves brushing leaves. Hold your orchard close, she used to say. It remembers you, even when men forget.
His throat tightened. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I am trying," he whispered. "I don't know if it's enough."
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Behind him, twigs cracked under clumsy boots. Lumiel did not lift his head.
"I know you're there, Caelum."
A breathless chuckle answered him — soft, sheepish. "You're impossible to sneak up on, Dawnstar."
He heard the squelch of mud under Caelum's boots, the soft thud of him dropping to his knees beside him. Caelum smelled of straw and horse sweat — and orchard bloom too, somehow, like he belonged here more than any marble statue.
Lumiel sat back on his heels. Caelum's eyes darted to the tomb, then back to him — wide, earnest, catching the moonlight like a startled fawn.
"Couldn't sleep?" Caelum asked, trying to sound light, but his voice snagged on the hush.
"Couldn't dream," Lumiel corrected, rubbing his palms together for warmth.
Caelum nudged his shoulder, a half-hearted bump that made Lumiel nearly smile.
"So here you are," Caelum said, "praying to ghosts who never really leave."
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They sat like that for a time — silence pressing close, broken only by wind combing through blossom-laden branches. Every so often, a petal drifted down and stuck in Caelum's wild hair.
Lumiel reached out, brushed it away with his thumb, fingers grazing the warm line of his friend's brow.
"Your hair's a mess," Lumiel murmured.
"You love it."
"I tolerate it."
Caelum grinned. "Lie better, Dawnstar."
For a heartbeat, the orchard felt like it used to: soft, safe, untouched by steel or marble conspiracies.
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But the hush could not hold out the truth forever.
Caelum leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the moss between his boots. "They're saying things, Lumi. In the stables, in the kitchens. The soldiers too."
Lumiel stiffened. "About Father."
A nod. "About you."
A petal landed on Caelum's shoulder. He didn't brush it away this time.
"They say the generals meet without you now. The high lords too. The Iron Wolf tries to keep them close, but…" He spread his hands helplessly. "Wolves eat what they can't guard."
Lumiel's jaw clenched. His breath frosted the night air. "Do they think I don't hear them? That the orchard doesn't?"
Caelum's laugh came out more like a sigh. "The orchard hears everything. But the orchard can't bleed for you."
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A cold knot curled in Lumiel's chest. He thought of his father's shadow cast long across the council table — of the bishop's silken poison, of the generals' clipped nods and averted eyes.
And he thought of Seraphine — her soft hands that never held a sword, her smile that once turned hard men gentle for a moment.
"I wish she was here," Lumiel whispered, so low Caelum almost didn't catch it.
His friend's shoulder pressed into his. Warm, solid. "She is. Right here." He tapped Lumiel's chest once, gently, over the beat that wouldn't calm. "The orchard's roots, remember?"
Lumiel's laugh was wet and raw. "You sound like her, you know that?"
Caelum tilted his head back, squinting through the branches. "That's impossible. She was a goddess, Lumi. I'm just the idiot who mucks your horses."
Lumiel shoved him sideways, playful but soft — enough to feel like boys again for a moment. "My mother liked idiots."
"Lucky for you then," Caelum shot back, flashing teeth.
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They fell quiet again, leaning shoulder to shoulder beneath the ancient tree. The petals kept falling — white on dark hair, moonlight on marble roots.
Neither noticed the figure at the orchard's gate this time — cloaked, half-shadowed, watching from beneath the twisted iron arch.
A slip of parchment traded from gloved hand to gloved hand. A nod in the darkness. A retreat before dawn.
The orchard, for all its hush, held secrets tighter than any throne.