Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
ARWEN
The Garden hasn’t changed.
That’s the worst part. Years of absence, and every stone, every flower, every twisted body is exactly where I remember.
The meditation benches with their restraint rings.
The fountain basin overflowing with soil instead of water, the largest blooms emerging from its heart.
The careful spiraling patterns of cultivation that took the Abbot decades to perfect.
I spent so many hours in this place. Forced to kneel between the beds, breathing in spores until my thoughts became honey-thick with wanting.
Forced to watch initiates transformed, their screams becoming gurgles as flowers bloomed from their throats.
Forced to tend the garden itself—feeding the soil with blood drawn from willing and unwilling donors, pruning flowers that had grown too large, harvesting petals for the Abbot’s rituals.
Now I’m back. Not as a prisoner. As an executioner’s partner.
Zrynok moves beside me, his massive frame somehow silent despite his size. Every few steps, his hand brushes mine—not grasping, just touching. Reassuring us both that we’re still here. Still human. Still ourselves despite the spores coating our lungs with every breath.
The casual contact would have terrified me a week ago. Touch meant danger. Touch meant someone taking something I hadn’t offered. Touch meant losing whatever control I’d managed to claim.
Now his fingers against mine feel like safety. Like home.
Focus. You can think about what he means to you when the Abbot is dead.
We round a cultivation bed taller than Zrynok’s head, and I freeze.
Keepers.
Two of them, patrolling the path ahead. Their transformation has progressed since I last saw them—skin hardened to bark-like texture, Bloom flowers sprouting from shoulders and backs, luminous gazes that can spot movement in near-darkness.
They haven’t noticed us yet. Their attention is fixed on the pavilion, on whatever ceremony the Abbot is preparing.
Zrynok grips my hip. Pulls me behind him. The protective gesture is automatic now—as natural to him as breathing, despite the spores making every breath dangerous.
I lean close. Press my lips to his ear. “Wait for Cael’s distraction.”
His jaw tightens. I can feel the tension coiling through his muscles, the hunger for violence that the Bloom has magnified into something barely controllable. He wants to charge them. Wants to carve through them the way he carved through their brethren in the barracks.
But he waits. Because I asked him to. Because he trusts my judgment in matters concerning this place.
The seconds stretch. The Keepers continue their patrol. The spores continue their work on my blood, on his, on whatever time we have before the infection claims everything.
Then—distant, muffled—a crash. Shouting. The sound of combat from somewhere outside the Garden’s walls.
Cael’s distraction.
The Keepers react instantly, their gazes snapping toward the source of the commotion. They exchange a look—communication that no longer requires words—and then they’re moving, abandoning their patrol route, heading toward the sounds of fighting.
“Now.” I grab Zrynok’s hand and pull him forward. “Move.”
We race through the Garden.
The paths blur beneath my feet—stone I’ve walked a thousand times, now slick with moisture and something that might be blood.
Zrynok keeps pace despite his size, his movements smooth even as the infection drags at him.
Every few steps, I feel his hand at the small of my back. Steadying. Anchoring me to the present.
The human-hybrids watch us pass. Some of them reach for us—flowering arms extending from raised beds, petals rustling with what might be recognition or might be hunger.
I don’t stop to find out. Don’t look at faces that might be people I once knew.
Don’t think about the initiate who slept in the cell next to mine, who disappeared into the Garden and never returned as anything human.
The pavilion grows larger with every step.
An open-air structure at the Garden’s far end, silk curtains billowing in breezes that never seem to reach the rest of the monastery.
The Abbot’s throne waits at its center—a carved wooden seat that faces the Garden like a stage, allowing him to observe his creations from the comfort of cushioned luxury.
And there, standing before the throne, crystal vial glowing in his hands—
Father Verantus.
I stop.
Can’t help it. Can’t control the way my body locks up at the sight of him, the way my lungs forget how to breathe, the way every layer of conditioning screams at me to kneel, to surrender, to let him decide what I’m allowed to want.
Zrynok’s arm wraps around my waist from behind. Pulls me back against his chest. His breath is warm against my ear, his voice a rumble that cuts through the panic freezing my limbs.
“I’m here. We’re here. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
The words crack something loose. I force myself to breathe. Force myself to remember that I’m not the terrified girl who was dragged here. I’m a survivor. A strategist. A woman who chose her own pleasure for the first time in her life and discovered that wanting doesn’t have to mean losing.
I straighten in Zrynok’s arms. Press back against him once—drawing strength from the contact—then step forward.
“Hello, Father.” My voice comes out steady. I don’t know how. “I’ve come to return what you gave me.”