Willow’s brother just had to ruin the moment.

  “Did she leave anything for me?” He asked, clearly upset at being left out.

  “You’ll be getting plenty from me when you’re older, boy.” Rowan admonished his son. “This is something that we shoulda hashed out a while ago, but talks of inheritance always lead to bitterness in families.” He rubbed his head sheepishly. “So I kept putting it off.”

  Maple connected some dots. “You’re talking about Ma’s spirit aren’t you?” Her gaze turned accusatory. “I thought you said they moved on after she… passed.” She stumbled a bit over the last word, and Willow felt the pain the young woman felt whenever their mother’s passing was mentioned.

  Their father winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I did say that, didn’t I? Not my finest moment.”

  Her sister gave him a withering look. Meanwhile Willow was just kind of confused, why would her father hide the fact he still had their mother’s spirit? Though she realized she didn’t really have a leg to stand on in that regard considering she still hadn’t revealed Change and Harmony to her siblings.

  Her father cleared his throat a bit and continued. “Part of why I had put off having this conversation was due to a promise I made to your mother.”

  “What promise?” Questioned the youngest at the table, eyes bright with curiosity, and her previous bad mood forgotten. It wasn’t often any of her family spoke about her mother.

  Her father looked at her sadly. “She made me promise to give her spirit, Meteoros, to you when you grew old enough to bear the weight of its power.” Frustration came off him in waves as he continued. “However, fate seems to have other plans in mind. You started walking a path that means you can’t use them, and the spirit beast I arranged for your sister to bind has turned into a demon.”

  “Wait what?” “There’s a demon nearby?” Her brother and sister called out simultaneously, both alarmed by the news. Willow didn’t know that the rot in their guardian was a sign it had turned into a demon, but she could believe that’s what it had become after everything she saw.

  Her father arced a thick brow. “I already said the Emerald Bloom has turned to rot didn’t I? What’d you think that meant?”

  Maple blinked. “I was going to bind the Emerald Bloom?”

  Rowan nodded. “That was the plan, yes. Part of the deal we had made with Ping and the Bloom was that when she passed on, one of our daughters would take her place. It was why she was so upset when Willow bound her candle spirit. She felt it was a violation of the agreement.” He gave the cause of the trouble a pointed look. “One of many reasons I tried to convince you to break the binding, but what’s done is done.”

  The girl in question just looked back stubbornly towards her father. She would never get rid of her friend like that!

  Shaking his head with a light smile at his daughter’s stubbornness, Rowan continued with the main point of their discussion. “The reason we’re talking about all of this now is that we need the power, and more importantly the speed, of your mother’s spirit to deal with the Bloom. I can’t make use of them due to the way they’re sealed inside of me. So I have to give them to one of you girls so that we can access their strength, and since Willow’s core is now fire aligned she wouldn’t be able to make use of Meteoros’ earth energies.”

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  Her mother’s spirit was an earth one! That explained the earthy feeling she felt she vaguely remembered when trying to think of her mother. There was something that Willow felt she needed to correct her father about though.

  “I hate to go against her wishes, bu-” “My core isn’t fire aligned though.”

  Rowan blinked at his daughter’s interruption. Her brother and sister stared at her with disbelief and confusion respectively.

  “It’s okay if sissy binds the spirit though.” The girl continued, nervous about the sudden attention, but the flame in her heart sent her some extra courage. “It sounds like they’re too strong for what I need anyway.”

  Yew scoffed. “What do you mean your core isn’t fire aligned. You’ve had that candle spirit of yours for over a year, is it so weak it can’t even affect you? Also what do you mean it’s too stro-”

  Rowan cuffed his son lightly on the back of the head, stopping his building rant. “Don’t belittle your sister’s spirit, it’s rude.” He turned his attention back to Willow, his eyes searching his daughter’s for falsehood. “Are you telling the truth, sprout?”

  She nodded.

  He held out his hand towards her. “Not that I don’t believe you, but would you mind if I checked?”

  The girl shrugged and placed her tiny hand into her father’s much larger and more calloused one. She felt her father’s qi pulse from his hand towards her core, and had to fight the instinct to resist the foreign energy entering her body.

  Rowan cocked his head to the side as he processed what he was sensing. Not only was her core not fire aligned, it felt far more developed than a child’s core should be. What’s more, for all that the energy inside the core was pure and unaligned, the core itself had thin alternating layers of yin and yang energies on its surface. He hadn’t seen anything like it, but he wouldn’t call himself an expert on core development.

  He sent a message to Willow using his qi, not wanting to reveal the girl's secrets to her siblings if she wasn’t ready. “I take it that what I’m sensing is the result of your newer friends?” At her small nod he broke the connection and said to the group. “Her core isn’t fire aligned.” He gave his youngest a searching look. “Are you sure you don’t want them? It was your mother’s wish.”

  The child nodded, curls bouncing as she did. “I’m sure, it feels like Maple wants them much more than I do anyways. Besides, it's important she has a spirit friend of her own!” Willow wasn’t supposed to mention what she felt others feel with her senses, but her sister seemed hesitant to speak up about their mother’s legacy despite how much she wanted it.

  Her sister tried to protest, looking the younger girl in the eyes and holding her hands. “But Willow, you haven’t even seen them yet! What if you regret it later?”

  “I won’t.” She replied with the kind of conviction only youth could provide.

  Maple pulled Willow into a hug “Thank you, little gnome.”

  “Welcome sissy.” Came the muffled reply.

  Rowan let the two girls have their moment together. This had worked out better than he had feared. While he definitely wanted to respect his late wife’s wishes, it was better for the plan he had laid out with the others if Maple was the one bound to Meteoros. However, they were under a bit of a time crunch so it was time for the main event.

  He cleared his throat. “If everyone is in agreement then it’s time to get this binding underway!”