Page 75 of She Touched His Vine

CHAPTER 27

CLARA

Ican smell honeysuckle before I even reach the clearing.

It’s clinging to the wind, sweet and thick, braided with the scent of campfire smoke and summer leaves still sticky from morning dew.

The Festival of Bloom only started five years ago, but this time it feels like something ancient. Something rooted.

Like the Grove’s been waiting all this time for a reason to celebrate.

Julie’s strung moss lanterns between the birches, and Hazel’s enchanted them to flicker like little floating suns. They drift gently in the breeze, casting warm halos on everything they pass. Tables line the trail with flower-petal cookies, jars of compost tea, and wildfruit tarts that are already half-eaten by the time I get there.

People areeverywhere.

Campers. Council members. Alumni. A cluster of dryads from the northern ridge. Even Eliorin Vask, in an open-collar robe and sandals, pretending not to enjoy himself.

And me?

I’m standing at the edge of it all, heart hammering like it wants to claw its way out of my chest.

Because today… they’re unveiling the new botanical wing.

My wing.

I almost bolt.

Thorn’s the one who finds me.

Of course he is.

He steps out of the treeline like he was carved from the dusk itself—runed skin warm in the lantern light, eyes steady, grounded.

“You’re hiding,” he says.

“I’mpausing,” I mutter, smoothing my skirt with both hands. “Strategically.”

He raises a brow. “From what?”

I glance toward the stone archway where Councilwoman Juna is already calling for attention. “From the moment where I have to get up there and say words with mymouth.”

“You’re good with words,” he says, stepping closer.

“I’m good with plants.”

His mouth quirks just slightly. “Same thing.”

I let out a shaky laugh, then swallow it down. “I’m scared.”

He doesn’t try to tell me not to be.

He just takes my hand.

Warm. Steady. Rooted.

“You’ve grown something worth seeing,” he says quietly. “Let them see it.”

So I go.

---