Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
ZRYNOK
The thing that used to be human moves through the burning forest like fire doesn’t touch it.
And maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the Bloom transformation has gone so far that normal rules no longer apply. The creature walks through falling embers without flinching, through smoke that would choke any living thing, through heat that has already blistered the skin of my forearms.
It walks, and it watches, and it keeps coming.
I put myself between the monster and the survivors. My body screams for rest—every muscle burning, every wound from tonight’s fighting reopened and bleeding fresh. My sword is notched and dulled from hours of killing, its edge ragged where Keeper blades have bitten into the steel.
It will still cut. That’s all that matters.
“Get them moving.” I don’t look at Arwen. Can’t look at her. If I see her face, I’ll hesitate. And hesitation will get us both killed. “Whatever happens, don’t stop.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Someone has to survive this. Someone has to use those records. Find the people responsible.” I shift my stance, tracking the monster’s approach.
It’s closer now. Close enough that I can see what the transformation has done to it—the split-open chest cavity, the flowers blooming from wounds that should have killed it, the face that holds no expression because it no longer has the capacity for expression. “Finish what we started.”
“Zrynok—”
“That has to be you, Arwen.” I finally turn to her.
Let her see what I’m feeling—the fear I’m barely controlling, the love I’ve barely admitted, the absolute certainty that what comes next isn’t something she should witness.
“You know the cult. You know how to find the trails that lead to the patrons. If I die here—”
“You’re not dying here.”
“If I do—promise me you’ll finish it.”
She doesn’t promise. Doesn’t argue either. Just holds my gaze for a single heartbeat—gray-blue eyes burning with emotions I don’t have time to catalogue—then turns and starts moving the survivors toward the open ground beyond the forest.
I watch her go for exactly one breath.
Then I turn back to the monster.
It closes the distance with unnatural speed.
One moment it’s twenty yards away, walking with that terrible deliberate purpose. The next it’s on me—clawed hands reaching for my throat, flower-covered limbs moving faster than anything that broken should be able to move.
I get my sword up. Barely. The blade catches its arm and carves through transformed flesh that parts like wet cloth. Black ichor sprays across my face. The arm keeps coming, momentum unaffected, and I have to throw myself backward to avoid the claws that would have opened my chest.
The severed arm hits the ground. Flowers bloom from the wound instantly—crimson petals unfurling with impossible speed, their edges sharp enough to catch the firelight.
The arm keeps twitching. Keeps reaching for me.
The monster doesn’t slow. Just keeps coming, one-armed now but no less dangerous, its remaining hand already reforming the claws I avoided.
This is what the Abbot created in his basement. This is what Bloom transformation looks like when it’s allowed to run its full course. A body that regenerates damage faster than damage can be inflicted. A mind that has been erased, replaced with nothing but purpose.
Hunt. Kill. Destroy everything that threatens the cult.
The Abbot is dead. The cult is destroyed. But this thing doesn’t know that. This thing only knows what it was programmed to do.
And right now, it’s programmed to kill me.
I fight.
Not with strategy. Not with the efficient brutality of all my practice. There’s no time for efficiency when your opponent regenerates faster than you can wound it.
I fight with desperation. With fury. With the absolute refusal to die before I’ve seen this through.
My sword carves chunks from the monster’s torso—and flowers bloom in the wounds, making it more dangerous rather than less. I sever its other arm—and tendrils of flowering tissue reach from the stump, reforming fingers that end in thorns instead of nails.
I drive my blade through its chest—and the wound closes around the steel, trapping my sword in a cage of transformed flesh that I have to wrench free before the creature can pull me into its embrace.
The Bloom in my own blood responds to the creature’s presence.
I feel it surging—the infection I’ve carried since the Garden, the tendrils that thread beneath my skin. They pulse with recognition. With want. The Bloom in me wants to join with the Bloom in it. Wants to merge, to transform, to become something like the monster I’m fighting.
The wanting is overwhelming. Every strike I land sends waves of sensation through my infected blood. Every moment the fight continues makes the urge to surrender stronger.
But I don’t stop. Can’t stop.
Behind me, survivors are escaping. Behind me, Arwen is watching. Behind me, everything we fought for depends on me winning this one last battle.
I keep fighting.