His hand covers mine where it rests on his chest.
“I feel the Bloom. All the time. This hunger that doesn’t care about circumstances or consequences. It wants sensation. Contact. Release. It doesn’t distinguish between violence and tenderness—both feed it equally.”
I don’t pull away. Let him speak.
“I feel rage. At the Abbot. At the cult. At everyone who participated in what happened to you. The Bloom takes that rage and amplifies it until I can barely think past the need to destroy.”
“And?”
“And I feel—” His fingers tighten on mine. “I feel purpose. Real, not hollow. Stronger than anything I’ve experienced in decades. Maybe ever. Unrelated to the infection, even though the infection makes it louder.”
“What kind of purpose?”
He turns his head. Meets my gaze in the candlelight.
“I’m not here because a warlord commanded it. I’m here because this place deserves to burn. Because you deserve to be free of it. Because for the first time in a life built on other people’s deaths, I care whether I survive past the mission’s completion.”
The words land in my chest with unexpected force.
“You care about surviving?”
“I care about what comes after.” His damaged eye reflects the flame, amber bright with something I don’t have a name for yet. “The partnership you offered. The future where we hunt thepeople responsible. The possibility of—of having something to come back to. Someone to come back to.”
I lean closer. Rest my forehead against his shoulder. Feel the tension in his muscles, the heat radiating from infected skin, the rapid pulse that betrays everything he’s trying to control.
“Then survive,” I murmur against his skin. “Fight the Bloom. Fight the Keepers. Fight whatever the Abbot throws at us. And when it’s over—when the monastery is ash and the Garden is burned—we figure out the rest.”
His arm wraps around me. Pulls me closer. Not demanding—holding. The embrace of someone who doesn’t know how to ask for comfort but recognizes it when it’s offered.
“Tomorrow night.”
I don’t sleep.
Neither does he. But we rest—tangled on the narrow floor, his body curled around mine, his breath warm against my hair. The Bloom hums in both our blood, magnifying every point of contact into intensity that borders on overwhelming. I let myself feel it without fighting. Let the sensation wash through me, crest, recede.
I let myself stay. Press against him in the darkness. Let his heartbeat steady mine while Circe sleeps oblivious and the monastery prepares for a ceremony that might destroy us both.
And I notice—in the hours before dawn—that his movements have grown even more precise. His breathing more controlled. His focus, even in rest, sharper than it should be.
The Bloom is claiming him. Slowly, inexorably, despite the treatment, despite the rest, despite everything I can offer.
Tomorrow we assault the barracks. Burn the Garden. End the cult’s power forever.
If the infection doesn’t take him first.
TWENTY-TWO
ZRYNOK
The Bloom has tasted victory, and it wants more.
I don’t tell Arwen how much ground I’ve lost. Don’t need to add to the burdens she’s carrying. But the infection’s path through my body tells its own story—the red web has spread past my collar, claiming ground the herbs couldn’t hold, and every heartbeat brings surges of need that take more effort to suppress than they did yesterday.
What happened in the chapel broke something in the infection’s cage. The treatment bought time, held the line, kept me functional. But the Bloom fights back with every breath, and midnight approaches with all its promises of violence.
I channel the craving into focus. Into anticipation. Into the steady rhythm of checking my weapons one final time.
The drainage grate waits ahead, barely visible in the darkness. Beyond it—the Keeper barracks. Thirty guards at full strength, maybe fewer now after the chapel massacre. Enough to overwhelm us if the assault goes wrong. Not enough to stop an executioner who has nothing left to lose.
