Chapter 20 – Flowers on the Ice Lake
Years passed.
Empires shifted. Flags changed color. New maps replaced old.
But the Ice Lake remained.
And each midsummer dawn, before the mist burned off the surface, he would appear.
The man in the storm-gray coat. The bone-white pendant at his throat.
He never gave his name.
Children called him “the flower keeper.”
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He taught them how to graft red petals to white roots.
How to tell when a Wolfbone flower had been grown from kindness—not war.
He taught them how to split stems with a breath, not a blade.
But more than that—
He taught them how to listen.
To the soil.
To the wind.
To their own shaking hands when facing something fragile.
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“Why do you always bring two roses?” one girl asked.
He didn’t answer.
He only placed the pair side by side on the lake’s edge.
One red.
One white.
Together, they floated. Always together.
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He never missed a year.
Until one summer morning—
The children arrived early.
There was no gray coat.