ZRYNOK
Ifind the Abbot at the Garden’s edge.
A hidden door leads into the forest—an escape route, I realize, prepared for exactly this kind of catastrophe. He’s halfway through when I catch up to him, his robes torn, his ageless face finally showing fear.
“Wait.” The word comes out like a prayer. “Wait, please. I can give you what you want. The infection—I can remove it. Cure you completely.”
My sword hovers at his throat. The Garden screams its death song behind us.
“You can’t cure what you created.”
“I can! The concentrated essence—there’s more, hidden in my sanctum. I can neutralize the infection entirely. Give you your old life back. No more wanting. No more fighting for control.”
For a heartbeat, I actually consider it. The thought of being free—truly free—of the constant hunger...
Then I think of Arwen. Of her hand in mine. Of what she said about wanting being real regardless of the Bloom’s influence.
“I don’t want my old life.” I meet his gaze. Let him see the certainty there. “I want the life I’m building now. You’re not part of it.”
The sword rises.
The Abbot’s mouth opens—another plea, another bargain, another desperate attempt to survive.
It dies on his lips.
The blade falls.
And the Abbot meets his garden’s fate.
THIRTY-SEVEN
ARWEN
The Abbot is dead.
The Garden is destroyed.
And the cult is eating itself alive.
I stand at the window of what used to be the Keeper Captain’s quarters—a room I was never permitted to enter during my years of captivity—and watch the chaos unfold across the monastery grounds. Smoke rises from the eastern wing where the Garden’s collapse triggered secondary fires. Keepers rush between buildings, their partially transformed faces twisted with confusion and fear. The structure that held them, guided them, gave their monstrous existence meaning—it’s crumbling, and they don’t know what to do.
Good.
Zrynok’s hand settles on my shoulder. Warm. Steadying. The touch is casual now—easy in a way that would have been impossible a week ago. We’ve crossed enough boundaries that physical contact no longer carries the burden of negotiation. He touches me because he wants to. I let him because I want him to.
“They’re regrouping near the main gate.” His voice is a low rumble near my ear. “Maybe thirty of them. The ones who fled the Garden when it started collapsing.”
“The fanatics. The ones who can’t accept the Abbot is gone.” I study their movements through the cracked glass. “They’ll try to restore order. Pretend nothing has changed.”
“Can they?”
“Not for long. The Bloom needs cultivation to maintain its potency. Without the Garden, without the Abbot’s techniques, the concentrated spores will lose their power within days.” I turn to face him, and the movement brings my body close to his. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his infected skin. “But they can still hurt the survivors. Can still kill anyone who tries to escape.”
His jaw tightens. The infection’s map has crept higher since the Garden—a dark lattice under the skin of his neck, slower than before but not stopped, not gone, not going to be gone.
“Then we take them out.” Simple. Direct. The executioner’s solution to every problem. “Before they can organize.”
“We take them out strategically.” I press my palm flat against his chest. Feel his heartbeat—steady despite the chaos outside, despite the infection in his blood. “We use that knowledge to minimize casualties.”
