We race through the Garden.
The paths blur beneath my feet—stone I’ve walked a thousand times, now slick with moisture and something that might be blood. Zrynok keeps pace despite his size, his movements smooth even as the infection drags at him. Every few steps, I feel his hand at the small of my back. Steadying. Anchoring me to the present.
The human-hybrids watch us pass. Some of them reach for us—flowering arms extending from raised beds, petals rustling with what might be recognition or might be hunger. I don’t stop to find out. Don’t look at faces that might be people I once knew. Don’t think about the initiate who slept in the cell next to mine, who disappeared into the Garden and never returned as anything human.
The pavilion grows larger with every step. An open-air structure at the Garden’s far end, silk curtains billowing in breezes that never seem to reach the rest of the monastery. The Abbot’s throne waits at its center—a carved wooden seat that faces the Garden like a stage, allowing him to observe his creations from the comfort of cushioned luxury.
And there, standing before the throne, crystal vial glowing in his hands?—
Father Verantus.
I stop.
Can’t help it. Can’t control the way my body locks up at the sight of him, the way my lungs forget how to breathe, the wayevery layer of conditioning screams at me to kneel, to surrender, to let him decide what I’m allowed to want.
Zrynok’s arm wraps around my waist from behind. Pulls me back against his chest. His breath is warm against my ear, his voice a rumble that cuts through the panic freezing my limbs.
“I’m here. We’re here. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
The words crack something loose. I force myself to breathe. Force myself to remember that I’m not the terrified girl who was dragged here. I’m a survivor. A strategist. A woman who chose her own pleasure for the first time in her life and discovered that wanting doesn’t have to mean losing.
I straighten in Zrynok’s arms. Press back against him once—drawing strength from the contact—then step forward.
“Hello, Father.” My voice comes out steady. I don’t know how. “I’ve come to return what you gave me.”
THIRTY-TWO
ZRYNOK
The Abbot hasn’t changed since the chapel.
Ageless features. Skin smooth as porcelain. Those eyes that shift from brown to red in the Garden’s filtered light, seeing everything, missing nothing. He watches us approach with the patience of someone who has never encountered a threat he couldn’t neutralize.
The Crimson Seed glows in his hands—a crystal vial the size of my thumb, filled with essence so concentrated it seems to pulse with its own heartbeat. One drop of that substance could transform a human completely. The whole vial...
“Sister Arwen.” His voice is warm. Welcoming. The voice of a father greeting a prodigal daughter, not a monster confronting the people who’ve come to kill him. “And her executioner. I’m so glad you could join us.”
My sword is drawn. Has been since we entered the pavilion’s shadow. But the blade feels impossibly heavy in my hands, and my arms shake with tremors I can’t control. The spores are working on me. The infection is spreading faster here, in the Bloom’s heart, than anywhere else in the monastery.
“Put it down.” I force the words through a throat that wants to close. “The vial. Put it down and face judgment.”
“Judgment?” The Abbot laughs—gentle, almost affectionate. “From an executioner who can barely stand? The Bloom has you, friend. It’s had you since the chapel. Every moment of resistance has only delayed the inevitable.”
He’s right. I can feel it—the infection surging with every breath, reaching toward my heart with tendrils that burn like fire. My vision blurs at the edges. My muscles scream for relief. The wanting is so overwhelming that I can barely distinguish between the need to kill him and the need to fall to my knees and beg for the sensation to stop.
“The inevitable—” I take a step forward. Stagger. Catch myself. “—is you dead.”
“Perhaps.” His gaze shifts to Arwen, and something in his expression changes. Sharpens. The affection becoming something colder. More possessive. “Eventually, all things end. But you’ll be here with me when it happens, won’t you, daughter? You’ve belonged to me since the day you arrived.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.” Arwen’s voice carries steel I haven’t heard before. “Least of all you.”
“The escape. The resistance. The executioner you’ve convinced yourself you love.” The Abbot gestures at me with the hand not holding the vial. “All of it was rebellion against your true nature. You were made for this Garden, Arwen. Made to bloom. I simply gave you the freedom to discover that for yourself.”
He’s trying to break her.
I can see it happening—the way she stiffens at his words, the way her breathing quickens, the way her hand trembles on the knife she’s holding. All the conditioning fighting against everything she’s learned since escaping. Everything we’ve built in the days since she found me in that forest clearing.
I force myself forward. Another step. Then another. The pavilion’s floor is smooth stone, easier to cross than the Garden’s slick paths. If I can just get close enough?—
