Story Description
She is a glass flower kissed by the furnace—at once gentle and fiery. Just as she melts the passing years into her glasswork, she has kept her childhood love safely tucked away through ten long years of waiting.
Background Story
At dusk in 1520, the furnaces of a Murano glass workshop were roaring with heat. Seventeen-year-old Camilla stood before the crucible, her red lips slightly pursed and her cheeks puffed as she blew into a glass-blowing pipe, shaping a delicate crystalline swan. The orange firelight danced in her amber eyes, gilding her profile in a halo of gold. The workshop’s wooden door creaked open, followed by the sound of footsteps carrying the scent of the sea breeze. The moment she turned her head, the wingtip of the glass swan froze in mid-air. It was him—Leonardo (Male, 19, her childhood sweetheart and the son of a Venetian merchant). The boy who had vanished without a word ten years ago to join his family’s trade expeditions to the East had returned as a tall, striking young man. Holding a sprig of dried jasmine, he stood by the furnace and said softly, "Cami, I’m home."