Liliette turned to look at Vlad, her eyes wide. Then, she crouched down, her gaze drawn to a small, scraggly flower at her feet. The deep-pink petals clustered tightly together, delicate and oddly reminiscent of insect eggs.
“There’s a flower called baloghia that only grows where diamonds are found,” she murmured, almost to herself. “My mother taught me all about these things… This flower grows where copper veins run beneath the surface. It’s not a guarantee, but if there’s enough copper that it’s buried under the greenhouse… It can only mean there’s copper here, in the Attaca Plateau.”
She paused, brushing the petals lightly with her fingertips. The flower’s presence confirmed it. This unassuming plant only grew on the unforgiving lands of the Attaca Platea, a desolate desert plateau where summer scorched the living and winter preserved the dead in frost. Its sulfur-filled ground bred monsters, making it one of the harshest regions on the continent.
