“The Abbot is dead.” My voice carries through the Chapel, steady despite the memories clawing at the edges of my mind. “The Garden is destroyed. The cult is finished.”
“The Bloom endures.” He spreads arms that have become more branch than limb. “It lives in our flesh. In the stones ofthis holy place. In your blood and your executioner’s blood. The Abbot was just a vessel. We are the true faithful.”
Zrynok moves before the Keeper can continue.
His blade takes the creature’s arm at the elbow—a surgical strike that separates limb from body with brutal efficiency. The Keeper screams, a sound that’s more rustling leaves than human voice, and the Chapel erupts into violence.
I don’t join the fighting.
My role is different. I position myself at the Chapel’s entrance, knife in hand, watching for threats from outside while Zrynok and the others handle the Keepers within. The sounds of combat wash over me—steel on bark, screams, the wet thud of bodies hitting stone—but I don’t let myself focus on them.
If I focus, I’ll remember. And if I remember, I might hesitate at a moment when hesitation means death.
A Keeper breaks from the main fight, rushing toward the doors. Toward me.
I recognize her. Sister Fael. She taught meditation techniques during my first year of captivity. Gentle voice. Patient corrections. Kind, in her own twisted way.
The transformation has taken most of what made her human. Bark-skin covers her face now, blooms erupting from her skull where hair used to grow. But her eyes—still human, still holding consciousness—fix on me with something that might be recognition.
“Arwen.” My name emerges as a whisper of wind through leaves. “You were... I tried to help you...”
“I remember.”
My knife finds her throat. Quick. Clean. Mercy, in the only form I can offer.
She falls. I catch her. Lower her to the Chapel floor the way I lowered the first Keeper in the courtyard.
“I remember,” I repeat, softer now. “That’s why I made it fast.”
The fighting ends.
Zrynok stands over the last Keeper’s body, chest heaving, sword dripping crimson onto stone that’s seen blood before. Cael leans against a pew, his partially transformed features twisted with exhaustion. Tobias and the other initiates cluster near the altar, staring at the carnage with expressions that range from sick fascination to hollow-eyed shock.
I move through the Chapel. Check the bodies. Make sure none of the fallen are pretending, waiting for a moment of distraction to strike.
They’re all dead. All twelve. The last defenders of a faith that should never have existed.
“Arwen.” Zrynok’s voice pulls me from my systematic assessment. He’s watching me with concern that cuts through the executioner’s mask he usually wears. “Are you?—”
“Fine.” The word comes out automatically. Meaningless. “We need to check the rest of the monastery. Make sure there are no other pockets of resistance.”
“There aren’t.” Cael pushes himself upright with visible effort. “I can... feel them. The other Keepers. The transformation gives us—gave us—a kind of awareness. The ones who fled are in the forest now. The ones who stayed are dead.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” His eyes meet mine. “It’s over, Arwen. The fighting is over.”
The words should bring relief. Should feel like victory.
Instead, they feel like a door opening onto an empty room. The fighting is over. The Abbot is dead. The Keepers are destroyed.
What now?
THIRTY-NINE
ARWEN
Not all of them fled or fought.
