The Abbot hasn’t forgotten.
His voice echoes through the stone passages, emerging from vents I can’t see, filling the air with words that crawl across my skin.
“Beautiful work, my children.”
We freeze. All three of us. The sound of that voice—warm, cultured, carrying the patient amusement of someone watching a game he’s already won—roots us to the spot.
“The violence suits you both. I watched from the Garden, sensed every death through the Bloom that connects us all. Such passion. Such fury. Such perfect, glorious destruction.”
Arwen’s hand tightens on my arm. Her breathing has gone shallow, her body rigid with the kind of fear that comes from years of conditioning.
“Rest now. Gather your strength. The Garden will be ready for you when you’re ready for it.” A pause. The silence stretches, pregnant with threat. “And Zrynok?”
My name in his mouth. Violation. Intimacy I didn’t grant, spoken by someone who’s never met me but somehow knows exactly who I am.
“The Crimson Seed is complete. I finished refining it while you slaughtered my servants. Appropriate, don’t you think? Your violence gave me the time I needed.”
The cold that washes through me has nothing to do with the passage’s temperature.
“Time is no longer on your side, executioner. Come to the Garden by dawn. Come willingly, and I’ll make the transformation beautiful. Make me wait, and I’ll make it agonizing.” Another pause. “Either way, you will bloom. Both of you. Forever.”
The voice fades. The speaking tubes go silent.
Arwen doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Her hand remains on my arm, gripping hard enough that I sense her fingernails pressing crescents into my skin through the leather armor.
“We go at first light,” I say into the silence. “Before he expects us.”
“The Crimson Seed?—”
“Won’t matter if we destroy the Garden before he can use it.” I turn to face her. The Bloom quiets in my blood, sated by the violence of the past hour. “He aims to make us afraid. To make us hesitate, second-guess, give him time to consolidate what’s left of his forces.”
“And if he’s not bluffing? If the Seed really is complete?”
“Then we die trying to stop him.” I reach up. Touch her face with a hand still stained with other people’s blood. “But we don’t stop. We don’t surrender. We burn his Garden and kill his Keepers and make him watch everything he built turn to ash.”
She leans into the touch. Just slightly. Just enough to let me know she’s not pulling away.
“At first light,” she agrees.
Cael says nothing. Just watches us with those luminous eyes that hold more humanity than they should, given what the transformation has done to him.
“I can get you into the Garden,” he says finally. “The maintenance entrance. Like I promised.”
“Can you fight?”
“I can do whatever I have to.” His changed face twists into a grim smile. “The Abbot made me into a weapon. At dawn, I show him what happens when weapons choose their own targets.”
We reachthe storage chamber without further incident.
Circe is waiting—pacing, anxious, her young face tight with worry that breaks into relief when she sees us. “You’re alive. I heard the sounds—the screaming?—”
“The barracks are dealt with.” Arwen moves past her, already gathering supplies from the shelves. “Casualties on both sides, but we crippled their force. At first light, we hit the Garden.”
“That soon?” Circe’s relief shifts to alarm. “But the ceremony?—”
“Has been moved up. The Abbot knows we’re coming.” I settle against the wall, trying not to wince as my cracked rib protests the movement. “Doesn’t change anything. Just means we have less time to prepare.”
Arwen kneels beside me. Medical supplies in her hands—bandages, the treatment herbs, water for cleaning wounds. Her touch is clinical as she examines my injuries, but her eyeshold something else. Something that has nothing to do with medicine.
