Instead, she saw people.
Not one. Not a handful. Countless people, more than she could ever hope to count, layered within the unfurling petals like images caught in facets of glass. Heroes stood shoulder to shoulder with villains. Kings shared the same fragile light as beggars who had never owned anything worth naming. Children too young to understand the concept of legacy appeared beside the very old, those who had lived long enough to become legend in their own right. And beneath all of them, quiet and unremarkable, were the ordinary lives — the farmers, the merchants, the parents who had done nothing extraordinary except live and love and eventually be forgotten, the way most people eventually are.
