"The city thinks those orchids are a failed crop," he said softly. "But they're not crops. They're anchors. A long time ago, before the ocean swallowed the land, someone planted them so we'd never truly forget the sun. They only bloom for those who still dream of the surface."

Aviana Violet had never seen a sunrise. Not a real one.

It was Kael. He wasn't grumbling. He was smiling, his weathered face wet with tears. In his hand, he held a single violet petal.

She lived in Veridian, a city buried a mile beneath the Atlantic, where the "sun" was a holographic projection on the dome ceiling—a pale, clinical imitation that shifted from amber to gray on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Her name, Aviana, meant "bird," which her mother had thought was a cruel joke in a world without sky.