Chapter 5
FIVE
ARWEN
The passage swallows us whole.
I lead blind, my free hand trailing along damp stone while Zrynok follows with Circe slung over his shoulder. The darkness is absolute down here—no torches, no windows, nothing but ancient air that tastes of mold and forgotten things.
I focus on the path. The passage curves left here, then descends three steps—worn shallow by centuries of secret feet—before leveling out again.
Behind me, Zrynok’s breathing has gone ragged. Wrong. Too fast, too shallow, punctuated by sounds that might be words bitten off before they can escape.
The Bloom has him.
“How much farther?” His voice scrapes against the darkness. Gravel wrapped in broken glass.
“Not far. There’s a storage chamber ahead—hidden, small enough that the spore concentration stays low.” I keep my tone clinical. Practical. The way I learned to speak about bodies and needs during my years here. “You can rest there.”
“Don’t need rest.”
“You need something. Your body’s fighting a parasitic infection that feeds on desire.
Either you rest now or you collapse later.
” I pause at a junction, orienting myself by touch.
Left branch. The stone here is smoother—water erosion from an underground stream that dried up decades ago.
“And if you collapse, I can’t carry you. ”
Silence. Then a sound that might be acknowledgment or might be pain.
Circe hasn’t made a sound since we fled the chapel. I can hear her breathing—quick, shallow, the rhythm of someone trying very hard not to exist—but nothing else. No questions. No sobs. The quiet of someone who’s learned that silence is safer.
I know that quiet. Wore it myself for years.
The passage opens into a wider space—I feel it before I see it, the change in air pressure, the way sound stops bouncing so close.
My searching fingers find the shelf where I hid supplies years ago, and yes, the tinderbox is still here, the candle stub, the small bundle of dried herbs I never thought I’d actually need.
Light flares. Weak, flickering, but enough to see by.
The storage chamber is exactly as I remember—barely ten feet across, ceiling low enough that Zrynok has to duck, walls lined with empty shelves that once held root vegetables and preserved meats.
A single ventilation shaft in the corner, too narrow for anything larger than a rat, provides air that doesn’t taste of Bloom.
Zrynok sets Circe down with surprising gentleness. The girl immediately curls into herself, knees to chest, arms wrapped tight, making herself as small as possible against the far wall.
In the candlelight, I get my first clear look at the executioner since the chapel.
He’s covered in blood. Most of it belongs to the Keepers he slaughtered—splattered across his armor, drying in dark patches on his gray-green skin, matted into his close-cropped hair.
But some of it is his. A gash across his forearm, still seeping.
Scrapes along his jaw where someone got close enough to claw.
And beneath the blood and bruising, something worse.
Faint lines of red tracing his veins from the inside—not wounds, not bruising.
The Bloom’s infection, visible through his skin.
I’d seen it on Keepers before, in its advanced stages, when the tendrils had thickened into something like bark.
Zrynok’s were still thin. Still climbing. Still early enough to matter.
None of that concerns me as much as his expression.
The flat detachment I saw in the forest is gone. In its place: a struggle visible in every line of his face. Jaw clenched. Tendons standing out in his neck. His hands—those massive, scarred hands that wielded death so efficiently—balled at his sides, knuckles bloodless.
He’s looking at me. Trying not to look at me. Failing.
“Sit.” I gesture toward the wall opposite Circe. “Before you fall.”
He doesn’t argue. Just moves—too controlled, too deliberate, like a man walking across ice and feeling it crack beneath him—and lowers himself to the stone floor. His back hits the wall. His head tips back. His eyes close.
The tremors start almost immediately.
I should check on Circe first. She’s the one we came back for. She’s the one who needs comfort, reassurance, all the things I’m not equipped to give but should try anyway.
Instead, I find myself moving toward Zrynok.
“Let me see your arm.”
His eyes snap open. The look in them stops my breath—heat and hunger and something close to desperation, all of it locked behind will that’s visibly cracking.
“Don’t.” The word comes out strangled. “Don’t come closer.”
I stop. Not because he’s a threat—though he could be, could crush me without effort if the infection takes full hold—but because I recognize what he’s doing. Fighting for control. Trying to protect me from what the Bloom wants him to do.
“The gash on your arm is still bleeding. If it gets infected—”
“Already infected.” A harsh laugh, nothing like humor. “The Bloom. The spores. Whatever the bastard pumped into that chapel. Can feel it. Spreading.”
My stomach drops. I knew it was bad. But hearing him say it makes it real in a way observation didn’t.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that you standing three feet away is—” He bites off the words. His jaw flexes. His hands tighten against his thighs. “Bad.”
I should be afraid. Every survival instinct the cult drove into me says run, hide, protect yourself from men who want things you can’t afford to give. But fear isn’t what’s twisting in my chest right now.
Something else. Something I can’t name.
“I know treatments.” I keep my voice steady through effort. “The Keepers get exposed sometimes—accidents, carelessness. There are herbs that grow in the lower gardens. If I can get to them—”
“You’re not going anywhere near those gardens.”
“You don’t get to decide that.” The words come out sharper than I intend. “I spent years in this place. I know what grows where, what helps and what hurts. You need treatment, and I’m the only one who can provide it.”
He stares at me. The candlelight flickers across his features, highlighting the struggle written there—the wanting warring with refusal, hunger clashing with control.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why help me?” He gestures at himself—at the blood, the tremors, the barely contained violence of his infected state. “I’m dangerous. The Bloom is making me want—” Another bitten-off sentence. Another flexing of his jaw. “You should be running in the opposite direction.”
“Running hasn’t worked out particularly well for me today.” I crouch, putting myself at his eye level, close enough to touch but not touching. “And you’re my ticket to killing the Abbot. Can’t collect on a deal with a dead partner.”
Automatic deflection. Practical reasoning. Something to keep emotions at a safe distance.
He sees through it. I watch the recognition flicker across his face—one liar identifying another’s tells.
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Does there need to be?”
Silence stretches between us. The candle sputters, shadows dancing across the walls. In the corner, Circe’s breathing has evened out—exhaustion claiming her, pulling her down into sleep or unconsciousness.
Zrynok’s hand moves. Slowly, deliberately, giving me time to pull away. His fingers brush my cheek—barely a touch, the lightest possible contact.
“I’m trying.” His voice is rough, raw, the words pulled from somewhere deep. “Trying not to want—” He stops. Swallows. His hand drops away, leaving my skin burning where he touched.
“I know how they work.” I stand. Put distance between us. My heart hammers against my ribs, and I don’t know if it’s fear or something else. “Rest. I’ll check on Circe, then we need to plan.”
He nods once. Brief. An acknowledgment that doesn’t require words.
I turn away. Check on Circe.