Ae held the fading sprout in her palms. As its final glow went out, she felt warmth spread through her own body. A month later, she learned she was pregnant. Her daughter, born that autumn, had Lumen’s same crescent-shaped birthmark on her wrist.

She whispered to the soil, "This is not for me. It is for the baby I never got to hold."

But every miracle has a season. On the spring equinox, Lumen began to fade. Its light dimmed leaf by leaf. Ae panicked—then remembered the herbalist’s last words: "When it returns to the earth, you will understand. Love does not die. It seeds again."