Zrynok doesn’t respond immediately. Just observes me with those uneven eyes, something moving behind them that I can’t quite parse. The craving is still there—the Bloom makes sure of that—but there’s something else too. Something that warms instead of burns.
“I don’t know how to do this.” His voice is rough. Low. “Letting people in. Wanting. Whatever this is between us.” A pause. “I’ve spent my life keeping distance. Treating people as obstacles or assets. It’s simpler that way.”
“Simpler isn’t the same as better.”
“No.” A sound that might be acknowledgment. Might be agreement. “It’s not.”
The candle flickers. Outside the chamber, the monastery continues its dark work—Keepers patrolling, initiates suffering,the Abbot planning whatever horrors come next. But in this small space, carved from stone and silence, something takes root. Something neither of us expected.
“We should rest. The treatment needs time to work. Tomorrow we plan in earnest.”
“Rest.” He says the word like he’s never heard it before. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Try.” I lean back against the wall, close my eyes. “The Bloom is quieter when you’re not fighting it. Sleep might come easier than you expect.”
Quiet descends over the chamber. I don’t sleep—not really. But I drift, awareness flickering in and out, body finally surrendering to exhaustion while some part of me keeps watch.
At some point, I sense him move. Come nearer. Not touching—we haven’t crossed that line, not yet—but near enough that his presence registers. A warmth at my side. A body that could be threat or comfort depending on what comes next.
I choose comfort. I choose to let him stay. I choose to believe that the craving between us can be something other than weapon or chain.
The choice is mine.
FIFTEEN
ZRYNOK
Idon’t sleep.
The Bloom won’t let me. Even stabilized, even quieted by the treatment, the infection keeps me hovering at the edge of awareness. Every sensation registers—the stone beneath me, the air moving through the ventilation shaft, the sound of two women breathing in the darkness.
The sound of her breathing.
I let myself experience it. The craving. The pull toward her that the Bloom magnifies but didn’t create. I hold it in my chest rather than shoving it down.
She said the feeling is mine, and what I do with it is what matters.
I choose to stay. To be near her without touching. To want her without taking. To experience without surrendering.
Tomorrow we plan. The monastery’s destruction. The Abbot’s death. The rescue of everyone who can be rescued and the mercy-killing of everyone who can’t.
But tonight, in this small chamber beneath the monastery’s stone, I make a different kind of choice.
I choose to believe that wanting doesn’t have to destroy. That desire can be held rather than suppressed. That this woman—this survivor who taught me something about myself I didn’t know I needed to learn—might be worth protecting as much as the mission itself.
Somewhere above us, the Abbot observes through whatever dark means the Bloom provides. Seeing the executioner and the escapee drawing near. Cataloguing the want that he plans to weaponize.
Let him observe.
Let him think he understands what he’s seeing.
He’s used to people who break under desire. Used to victims who let the craving consume them. He doesn’t understand that the wanting between Arwen and me isn’t a weakness to exploit.
It’s fuel.
And when we come for him—when we burn his monastery and destroy his Garden and end his centuries of horror—he’s going to learn what happens when desire is channeled instead of controlled.
The candle gutters out. Darkness fills the chamber.
