Glaze Lilies Novels & Stories

she asked as she flipped through fabric samples. I glanced up from the parchment I was pretending to study. “They’re both flowers.” She gave me a look. “They are not just flowers, Aiden. The lilies bloom under full moonlight; the orchids only at dawn. You can’t mix the two at the altar; it’ll ruin the symbolism.” “Right,” I muttered, rubbing my temple. “Moon lilies only.” Siarah sighed. “You’re hopeless with decorations.” “That’s because I'm the Alpha's heir and could easily pay someone to do these things… of course not for Father,” I said dryly.

"Look at these 'Moonshade Orchids'!" She pointed at the ethereal blue flowers that seemed to glow with their own inner light. "They only bloom in thousand-year glacier crevices! Every single harvest requires teams of expert climbers risking their lives, dangling over bottomless abysses! One wrong move means death!" The guests began looking around with new appreciation—and shock—at the floral arrangements. "Yet you've filled the entire hall with them!" Lydia's voice cracked with emotion. "Do you know how much this cost? How many lives were risked for these flowers alone?"

Lily stretched out her arms, fluttering like a butterfly on the soft flower bed. "Stop." Suddenly, with a loud scream, Elias pulled Lily's arm from the flowers. Lily couldn't help but look at Elias in surprise. He quickly explained: "Do you see those yellow flowers?" Lily nodded, and Elias continued to explain: "It's a carnivorous flower. If you touch it lightly, it can eat a piece of your flesh." Lily took a few steps back in fear. Venn looked at Lily's expression and laughed. Lily didn't understand why the two of them were laughing, but feeling like she was being tricked, she turned around angrily and walked forward.

And then I saw them. Lilies. Rows and rows of them, stretching out in quiet elegance beneath a wooden arch trellis wrapped in climbing jasmine. Ivory petals, some with pink centers, some kissed with gold, all open like they were bowing to the morning sun. The breeze made them sway just slightly, like they were dancing to a song only they could hear. I stopped walking. “You planted these?” I asked, breath catching in my throat. Adam nodded beside me, and for once he wasn’t smug or teasing—he was just... still. Calm. “Last month. I asked Bridgette to help source the best bulbs. I wanted them to bloom now. For when you’d be here.”

The great glazed lamp on the roof had fallen to its lowest brightness, and only the crystal lamp on the table gave off a faint but steady glow. All the lilies in the hall glow in the dark, like countless yellow fireflies rising in the dark. The mirror under my feet reflected the fluctuating light, and the whole hall seemed to fall into a sea of night flowers. “Dear Delia, do you like it?” The deep voice slowly invaded my eardrums. I turned and saw his gentle eyes.

"These say peace." "They also say funeral," Lilith countered with an arched eyebrow. I laughed, feeling the tension in my shoulders ease slightly. "What about a mix? The lilies for strength, the roses for healing, and—" I reached for sprays of purple lavender, "—these for calm." "Perfect compromise, Alpha," Lilith said with an exaggerated bow that made Emma snort.

Pale yellow lilies with great star-shaped blooms, speckled with pink, bloomed from the snow. I knew these flowers. They’d been my mother’s favorites. She’s called them Rising Moon Lilies. She’d grown them in the garden when I was younger, and she’d told me that they were drops of light the moon had left behind when it was closest to the earth. The rising moon was always yellow because it was coming up from the soil, and it would shed that dim yellow light back to the ground before rising, naked and pure, back into the sky. She said they were a sign of awakening. Of the dawning of a good night.

"That... is some kind of distilled lava you people enjoy around here." Lilly's tinkling laughter joined the hypnotic symphony of sound swallowing the surrounding environs. "Please, you act like I'd let you near anything uncouth or déclassé during your debutante seance." She placed a steadying hand on my shoulder, the gesture suffused with a tactile substance that should've felt impossibly lurid... yet somehow didn't. "That little devil is Lyra's proprietary signature - a potent ambrosia synthesizing a bounty of rare herbal elixirs and forbidden floral nectars into a spiritually expansive, mind-unlocking tincture."

And looked. The pink lily across her back was lush and vibrant; she could almost catch the scent of its delicate petals as they unfurled. The leaves were a cool, dark green, the pollen was a warm gold. She looked hard, she really searched, but that ugly word that Gideon had inked into her back was hidden, it was gone, replaced by something breathtakingly lovely. Zoe had so cleverly used the lines and curves of those awful four letters to draw the petals and the leaves, and somehow she had completely covered over, erased, destroyed the word.

Eric blurts out angrily, pushing past me to get into the room. Glenda gives me a half smile, patting my shoulder quickly before walking towards Lily with a handful of different herbs. I take a deep breath before turning around and walking to the side of the bed. I place my hand on Lily’s, trying to reassure her that I’m here. “Glenda, what are you doing?” I ask, watching her mix different herbs together in a bowl before mixing it into a paste. “I will place this behind her ears…” she says while placing a tiny bit behind Lily’s ear, “a tiny bit… on her nose. And… the rest onto her chest.”