My blood goes cold.
Maret. My former friend. My former torturer. The woman who knows every trick I ever used to survive because she watched me learn them. Of course she’s been watching. Of course she found a way to witness what happened in this chamber.
“She reported to the Abbot an hour ago.” Cael continues. “Described what she saw in detail. The Abbot is... pleased.”
“Pleased?” Zrynok’s voice carries danger.
“He believes it proves his theories about the Bloom’s inevitability. That desire wins in the end. That even people who resist eventually surrender to their wants.” Cael’s features twist with what looks like disgust. “He’s been waiting for this. Hoping for it. The perfect subjects for his greatest experiment.”
“The Crimson Seed.” I force the words through a throat that doesn’t want to cooperate.
“He’s moving on the Garden now. Starting the final cultivation.” Cael’s eyes hold mine. “If we don’t stop him tonight, there won’t be anything left to burn.”
The chamber goes silent.
Zrynok’s fingers lace through mine. Squeeze once. Brief. Steadying.
“How long?” His voice has gone flat. The executioner emerging from wherever he’d retreated during our hours of intimacy.
“The ceremony requires preparation. Three hours minimum before he can deploy the Seed. Maybe four if we’re lucky.” Cael glances down the corridor, checking for threats. “The remaining Keepers are rallying. Not many left after the barracks, but enough to guard the Garden during the ritual.”
“And the initiates? The twenty-three he was going to transform?”
“Already in position. Waiting in the Initiation Pools for the final stage.” Cael’s expression tightens. “If we don’t stop this, they’ll be Keepers by dawn. And the two of you will be worse than Keepers.”
I think of the horror Cael described days ago. Zrynok and I seeded with the Crimson Bloom. Transformed beyond recognition. Bound by a hunger that makes our current wanting seem tame. Trapped in bodies that need each other with an intensity that destroys any capacity for independent thought.
The most beautiful specimens in the Abbot’s Garden.
“No.” The word comes out hard. Final. “We end this tonight.”
Zrynok rises. Gathers his weapons with the efficient movements of someone preparing for a battle he expects to survive. No more talk of suicide missions. No more accepting the infection’s victory as inevitable.
The man who was ready to throw his life away an hour ago has found a reason to fight.
I reach for my own blade. Find the knife that’s never far from my hand. Steel myself for what’s coming.
“The Garden entrance. Can you get us inside?”
Cael nods. “The maintenance passage. Same route we discussed. But we’ll have to move fast—once the Abbot starts the ritual, the entire Garden will be flooded with concentrated spores. Even brief exposure will accelerate your infection past any point of return.”
“Then we don’t give him time to start.” Zrynok’s scarred face hardens in the candlelight. Determined. The executioner who has killed countless targets over countless years, now focused on the one death that actually matters. “We go in fast. We go in hard. We burn everything that won’t burn, we kill everything that doesn’t die, and we don’t stop until the Abbot’s blood is on the floor and this nightmare is over.”
He turns to me. Reaches out. Cups my jaw with one scarred hand, the gesture tender in ways that contradict everything about this moment.
“Stay close. Watch my back. And if the infection takes me—if I become a threat to you?—”
“It won’t.”
“If it does.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “Don’t hesitate. The man who matters to you won’t be there anymore. Just the Bloom, wearing my face.”
I lean into his touch. Hold his gaze.
“Then I’ll burn the Bloom out of you before it comes to that. I’ll find a way.”
His lips curve. Almost a smile. He kisses me once. Hard. Brief. A promise and a farewell wrapped in a single point of contact.
Then we turn toward the door. Toward the Garden. Toward the man who destroyed my life and wants to destroy whatever remains.
