Chapter 30
THIRTY
ZRYNOK
The tunnels are too narrow.
My shoulders scrape against stone walls that haven’t seen maintenance in decades, accumulated grime coating leather armor that’s already stained with blood from the barracks assault.
Every step brings the Garden’s creeping presence—fainter here in the maintenance passages than it will be above, but still leaching into the air.
Still working on the infection in my blood.
Arwen moves ahead of me, her smaller frame navigating the tight spaces with ease. Every few feet, she glances back. Checking on me. Making sure I’m still upright. Making sure the infection hasn’t claimed whatever progress we made in that storage chamber.
Her fingers interlock with mine in the darkness. Squeezes once. A silent acknowledgment.
The touch sends heat racing through my veins. Not just the Bloom—though the parasite certainly amplifies every point of contact—but something else. Something that started hours ago when she pressed her body against mine and chose to want me despite everything the cult taught her about desire.
“Almost there.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “The passage opens beneath the central fountain. We’ll emerge in the Garden’s northeast corner, behind the tallest cultivation beds.”
“And the Abbot?”
“The pavilion. Far end of the Garden.” She pauses at a junction, orienting herself by touch in the near-total darkness. “If we’re lucky, he’ll be focused on the ceremony preparations. Won’t notice us until it’s too late.”
I don’t believe in luck. Never have. But I believe in her—in her knowledge of this place, her instincts honed by years of survival inside these walls, her determination to see this through.
“Cael?”
“Already in position. He’ll create the distraction we discussed—draw the remaining Keepers away from the pavilion. Give us a window.”
A window. Minutes at most. Enough time to cross a garden full of horrors, reach the Abbot, and end this before the Crimson Seed can be deployed.
Not enough time if anything goes wrong.
Arwen’s fingers intertwine with mine. The casual intimacy of it still surprises me—this woman who flinched from touch for so long, now reaching for me in the dark like contact is the most natural thing in the world.
“Whatever happens up there.” Her voice carries an edge I recognize. Fear transmuted into determination. “Stay close to me. The Garden’s spores are concentrated enough to overwhelm anyone who isn’t prepared.”
“I’ve been exposed before.”
“Not like this.” She turns to face me, and even in the darkness, I can feel the intensity of her gaze.
“The chapel was nothing compared to what’s growing in that courtyard.
The Bloom has had three hundred years to cultivate its purest strain.
One deep breath could accelerate your infection past any point of return. ”
I reach for her waist. Pull her closer until her body presses against mine in the narrow tunnel. The touch steadies me. Reminds me what I’m fighting for.
“Then I won’t breathe deep.” I press my lips to her forehead. “And neither will you.”
The tunnel opens into hell.
The Garden is worse than Arwen described.
Worse than anything I could have imagined.
The air hits me first—so thick with spores that breathing feels less like inhaling and more like drinking.
The sweetness hits my lungs like drowning.
Something in my chest strains toward the cultivation beds before my mind catches up to refuse.
The Bloom in my blood surges in response, recognizing its kin, straining toward the source like iron to lodestone.
I stagger. Catch myself against the tunnel mouth.
“Shallow breaths.” Arwen’s hand presses against my chest, steadying me. “In through the mouth, out through the nose. Don’t give the spores time to settle.”
I follow her instructions. Force my breathing into a rhythm that fights against instinct—short, controlled, deliberate. The initial overwhelming rush fades to something manageable. Terrible, but manageable.
The Garden stretches before us in shades of crimson and shadow.
Stone paths wind between raised beds overflowing with Bloom flowers—massive blooms, some with petals wide enough to shelter under, their surfaces glistening with moisture that might be dew or might be something worse.
The red haze hangs at eye level, visible in the torchlight that filters from somewhere beyond the cultivation beds.
And the bodies.
The flowers grow from bodies.
Human forms twisted into living trellises, flesh split open to allow stems to emerge, faces still recognizable beneath the petals that bloom from eye sockets and open mouths.
Some of them move—subtle shifts of flowering limbs, turns of heads that should no longer turn.
They watch us with awareness that hasn’t died despite the transformation claiming their flesh.
Prisoners in their own bodies. Gardens growing from human soil.
“Don’t look at them.” Arwen’s voice is flat. Professional. The voice she uses when describing horrors she’s processed so many times they no longer register as horror. “There’s nothing we can do for them. Focus on the objective.”
I tear my gaze away from a woman whose chest has become a cascade of crimson petals, her hand still reaching toward something she’ll never grasp.
Force myself to focus on the paths ahead.
The pavilion at the Garden’s far end. The Abbot who waits there with weapons designed to turn us into more decorations for his collection.
“Stay behind me.” I draw my sword. The blade feels heavier than usual—the infection sapping strength I can’t afford to lose. “If anything moves toward us—”
“I’ll handle it.” Her knife appears in her hand with practiced ease. “I know these paths. Know which flowers are just flowers and which are... something else.”
We move through the Garden like ghosts.