Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
ZRYNOK
The speaking tubes.
I’d forgotten the monastery has them—an ancient communication system built into the walls, allowing messages to carry from chamber to chamber without the need for runners.
Arwen mentioned them once, during our early planning sessions.
Mentioned that they were rarely used, that most of the faithful had forgotten they existed.
The Abbot hasn’t forgotten.
His voice echoes through the stone passages, emerging from vents I can’t see, filling the air with words that crawl across my skin.
“Beautiful work, my children.”
We freeze. All three of us. The sound of that voice—warm, cultured, carrying the patient amusement of someone watching a game he’s already won—roots us to the spot.
“The violence suits you both. I watched from the Garden, sensed every death through the Bloom that connects us all. Such passion. Such fury. Such perfect, glorious destruction.”
Arwen’s hand tightens on my arm. Her breathing has gone shallow, her body rigid with the kind of fear that comes from years of conditioning.
“Rest now. Gather your strength. The Garden will be ready for you when you’re ready for it.” A pause. The silence stretches, pregnant with threat. “And Zrynok?”
My name in his mouth. Violation. Intimacy I didn’t grant, spoken by someone who’s never met me but somehow knows exactly who I am.
“The Crimson Seed is complete. I finished refining it while you slaughtered my servants. Appropriate, don’t you think? Your violence gave me the time I needed.”
The cold that washes through me has nothing to do with the passage’s temperature.
“Time is no longer on your side, executioner. Come to the Garden by dawn. Come willingly, and I’ll make the transformation beautiful. Make me wait, and I’ll make it agonizing.” Another pause. “Either way, you will bloom. Both of you. Forever.”
The voice fades. The speaking tubes go silent.
Arwen doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Her hand remains on my arm, gripping hard enough that I sense her fingernails pressing crescents into my skin through the leather armor.
“We go at first light,” I say into the silence. “Before he expects us.”
“The Crimson Seed—”
“Won’t matter if we destroy the Garden before he can use it.” I turn to face her. The Bloom quiets in my blood, sated by the violence of the past hour. “He aims to make us afraid. To make us hesitate, second-guess, give him time to consolidate what’s left of his forces.”
“And if he’s not bluffing? If the Seed really is complete?”
“Then we die trying to stop him.” I reach up. Touch her face with a hand still stained with other people’s blood. “But we don’t stop. We don’t surrender. We burn his Garden and kill his Keepers and make him watch everything he built turn to ash.”
She leans into the touch. Just slightly. Just enough to let me know she’s not pulling away.
“At first light,” she agrees.
Cael says nothing. Just watches us with those luminous eyes that hold more humanity than they should, given what the transformation has done to him.
“I can get you into the Garden,” he says finally. “The maintenance entrance. Like I promised.”
“Can you fight?”
“I can do whatever I have to.” His changed face twists into a grim smile. “The Abbot made me into a weapon. At dawn, I show him what happens when weapons choose their own targets.”
We reach the storage chamber without further incident.
Circe is waiting—pacing, anxious, her young face tight with worry that breaks into relief when she sees us. “You’re alive. I heard the sounds—the screaming—”
“The barracks are dealt with.” Arwen moves past her, already gathering supplies from the shelves. “Casualties on both sides, but we crippled their force. At first light, we hit the Garden.”
“That soon?” Circe’s relief shifts to alarm. “But the ceremony—”
“Has been moved up. The Abbot knows we’re coming.” I settle against the wall, trying not to wince as my cracked rib protests the movement. “Doesn’t change anything. Just means we have less time to prepare.”
Arwen kneels beside me. Medical supplies in her hands—bandages, the treatment herbs, water for cleaning wounds. Her touch is clinical as she examines my injuries, but her eyes hold something else. Something that has nothing to do with medicine.
“The rib is cracked, not broken. You’ll live.” She presses a cloth against the blade wound on my shoulder. “The infection—”
“I know.” The Bloom spreads through my blood, claiming more ground, pushing closer to the transformation threshold with every hour. “It’s getting worse.”
“Worse than you told me.”
“Worse than I told you,” I admit. “The violence feeds it. The more I kill, the more it grows. By dawn—”
“By dawn, we end this. One way or another.” Her stare locks onto mine. “And when it’s over, you let me decide whether you’re worth saving.”
“What if I’m not?”
“Then I’ll decide that too.” Her hand rises. Touches my face the same way I touched hers in the passage. “But I don’t think that’s how this ends. I think you’re going to survive. I think we’re both going to survive. And I think what comes after is going to be worth whatever we have to do tonight.”
The infection pulses in my blood. The need that never goes away, the craving that’s slowly claiming me, the transformation that waits at the end of this road if we fail.
But her hand is warm against my face. Her eyes hold what looks like faith. And since the Abbot’s voice echoed through the speaking tubes, hope surfaces where only fear existed before.
Fragile and foolish and impossible to ignore.
“At dawn,” I say.
“At dawn.” She leans closer. Rests her forehead against my shoulder. “Tonight, we rest. Let me treat your wounds and watch over you while you sleep.”
“I don’t sleep.”
“Then let me watch over you while you pretend.” Her lips curve. Almost a smile. “I’ve learned to tell the difference.”
The chamber grows quiet. Cael tends his own wounds in the corner. Circe settles against the far wall, exhaustion finally claiming her. And Arwen stays close—her hands working medicine into my damaged flesh, her presence grounding me in ways the Bloom can’t override.
When the sun rises, we face the Garden. The Abbot. The Crimson Seed.
Tonight, I let myself believe we might actually win.