Bloomkeeper (Prologue)

Written By DK. (New Chapter By Chapter Release) Free Content

The earth never should’ve known me twice.

I woke in silence beneath the ash tree, where the frost had kissed my skin last. My fingers were buried in soft moss, as if the forest had kept me warm after all. But it wasn’t warmth I felt—it was a bloom, slow and unsettling, rising beneath my skin like vines curling through bone. The roots of the world knew my name, and they whispered it with every heartbeat that shouldn’t be mine.

The morning was pale and wet, mist curling low across the forest floor, hugging the damp ground like a secret not ready to speak. I sat up slowly, my joints crackling like thawed branches. There was no pain. That, I think, scared me more than anything. I had expected pain. I had expected the weight of death still draped across my shoulders. Instead, I felt light. Hollow. Like something important had been scooped out to make room for something else.

The cloak they buried me in was still clinging to my shoulders, torn at the hem, muddied where it had soaked in the last of winter. I remembered it well—my mother had sewn the stitching by candlelight, fingers nimble, eyes tired. She’d pressed it to her cheek before wrapping it around me for the last time. I didn’t cry when I remembered her. I just sat there in the fog, with petals blooming in a slow, deliberate spiral around where I’d risen.

They grew fast—faster than any flower should. Pale pinks and soft purples, their edges trembling in the wind. They followed me. With every step I took, something green and living curled up from the soil, reaching for my heels like they knew me. Like they were happy I was back.

I didn’t speak. Not yet. My throat felt strange, like it remembered silence better than sound.

The path home was still there, barely. Overgrown. Unused. No one came here after winter. Not until the spirits came calling in spring. And yet I walked it, barefoot, feeling the hum of the forest through the soles of my feet. The Gift had rooted itself. I could feel it. Life bent toward me. Trees leaned in. Branches sighed. Something watched. Not in fear. In reverence.

I was the Bloomkeeper.

And I was not supposed to be alive.

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