Ves'Sariel stood in the heart of the Hollow Garden, surrounded by things that no longer grew. The roots did not curl with life; they twitched, pulsing with a rhythm alien to soil, as if something older and hungrier had learned to wear the earth as a disguise. Their colors slipped from memory whenever she looked away, like dreams the mind refused to name. Nothing here belonged to the waking world anymore, and she preferred it that way. Kneeling in the moss-ringed center, she let her robe pool around her like spilled ink while her bare feet sank into the soft mulch that had once been sacred grass. The altar before her throbbed bone-white and cracked, its veins crusted with dark sap steaming under lanterns. The trees leaned inward in unnatural reverence; their bark split with black seams that bled resin thick as blood, branches swaying without wind.
The flowers, once white and symbolic, were now mouths. Their petals curled back to reveal tiny rows of blackened teeth, and they shivered when she passed, craning toward her with childlike devotion and starved hunger. When Ves brushed her fingers along one, it quivered like touched flesh, its teeth clicking softly in approval. She whispered, "It is nearly time," her lips barely moving, but the garden heard—roots, altar, soil. A slick faceless creature crawled along the wall behind her, reflecting not the chamber but memories she had buried. It froze on the ceiling like a patient spider, but she did not look back; stray thoughts given legs were common here.
Her mind was elsewhere anyway, pulled backward through corridors of memory scraped raw. She remembered moonlight instead of lanterns, laughter instead of murmurs, and the night the stars blurred with stolen wine while Nyxia's hair caught the temple fires like frost on obsidian. They had danced barefoot in Silvyrin's reflecting courtyard as citrus blossoms perfumed the air. Nyxia had grabbed her hand and spun her until the sky smeared, robes twisting, bodies colliding in graceless joy. Nyxia had warned, "You're going to fall," laughing, and Ves had answered, "Good. Trip. Fall. Maybe take you with me." They had tumbled into the grass by the moonwell, tangled and breathless, the kiss that followed soft, nervous, and unforgettable. She had kept that heat inside her even when vines later took root in her veins and remade her into something that fed on silence and prayer. Once, she had told herself that love was a promise. Now she knew it was a hunger that refused to starve.
Rising from the altar as it pulsed beneath her palms, she let her hair fall in dark ribbons threaded with violet lights. Roots slid up to touch her legs, tasting memories on her skin; they recognized and obeyed her now. The voice that lived in the rot murmured through the air, "You cling to ghosts." She tilted her head toward the massive black bulb pulsing above and answered softly, "I remember her because I want to. Because I loved her." The voice sighed, "Love is a leash," and she stroked the altar's edge with a faint smile as she murmured, "No. Love is a seed. It grows. Even in rot." She whispered that Nyxia would come—Perseus with his silver fury, Loque with his tether of light, but Nyxia most of all, "still smelling like wildflower smoke and bloodied pride." The thought tasted like wine. She remembered Nyxia's voice saying, "I cannot follow you down that path," and Ves smiled as she thought, I carved a new one. You only need to step onto it. I will do the rest. With that, she left the garden, the roots flexing and flowers clacking behind her.
Entering the vault below, Ves moved through a space that made the garden feel young. She padded across fractured obsidian etched with glyphs older than elven tongues, her void-silk robe dragging like a second shadow. The air pressed heavy around her, full of memory and old wounds. The walls hummed, leaking thin trails of crystal and bone. At the center stood a pedestal grown from the stone like a twisted spine, pulsing with emptiness. Her choir followed—no longer disciples, but remnants. Some floated with limbs too light for gravity, others crawled on root-grown hands; their mouths were sewn shut with silver thread, and onyx eyes wept black mist while their throats hummed an old, wordless psalm.
She opened her hand, revealing a pulsing root the color of deep bruises, and pressed it into the pedestal. It vanished instantly. The vault shuddered—alive, not stone—and glyphs around the chamber ignited in thin, pale lines. The air bent, sound warped, and the room itself seemed to breathe. Ves whispered, "I have planted the seed," and the ancient voice answered, "I will feed it." Tilting her head back, she allowed the watching darkness above to taste her thoughts. Then she spoke a name no mortal throat should shape. The vault froze. The altar gasped. Something in her spine unraveled and rewove; ink-dark veins spiraled across her skin, flashing with images too fast to catch—girl, priestess, lover, monster. When the transformation eased, she knelt sweating, surrounded by her trembling, worshipful choir. She rose with steady certainty: the seed was planted, the song begun, and Nyxia would come to stand at the edge of what she had grown. Ves thought, It does not matter what she chooses—light or hollow, devotion or rage. I can devour them all the same.
And far above, in a quiet room not made for nightmares, Nyxia woke like someone yanked out of drowning.
She lurched upright with a gasp that scraped her throat raw. The divan cushions bunched in her fists as if she could drag the dream into the light and kill it. Sweat chilled her skin while the blanket slid forgotten to her waist. Her chest hurt—not bruises, but a hook lodged between her ribs. She could still feel the vines crushing her throat, coiling around her ribs, whispering in Ves's soft, terrible voice to "submit, remember, choose." Her mouth opened without sound, lungs refusing to believe air belonged to her again.
Perseus was already beside her, his hands warm at her jaw, grounding her. His voice reached her first as he murmured, "Nyxia. Nyx, breathe. You are here. You're with us. Come back." Her vision flickered between the vault and the velvet room, between roots and Perseus's eyes. She dragged in a ragged breath, fingers digging into his wrists as if he might disappear. She choked out, "I felt her," the words splintering under tears. "It wasn't remembering. It was like she was in my head. She's awake. She's building something, and she's so sure I'll walk into it."
Perseus's expression twisted—not in confusion but understanding, having seen bonds turned into weapons before. He tried to tell her gently, "You didn't leave her," but the last word cracked because he wasn't fully sure. Nyxia gave a broken laugh and whispered, "I did. I walked away while she was begging. I told myself I couldn't follow her path and then did nothing else. I left her in a temple that hated her and pretended the story ended there." The velvet room felt too soft to contain such grief, and Loque lifted his head with slow alarm.
Perseus leaned closer, his forehead almost brushing hers as he murmured that she had tried to save Ves, fought for her, bled for her, and that she couldn't keep carving herself apart for a past she couldn't rewrite. She didn't argue for once. Tears slid freely as she whispered, "You didn't see how she looked at me. Like I was the one thing the world couldn't take. And I still let her go." Her shoulders curled inward as years of grief finally broke loose. Perseus pulled her gently into his arms, letting her rest against his collarbone while saying nothing, holding her until silence did what words could not. Loque pressed his head to her leg, rumbling with shared tension, feeling the lingering bond that refused to sever cleanly.
Far below, Ves felt a tremor run along unseen roots and smiled without knowing why, a faint sense of rain on soil blooming in her chest. The old voice hummed, "The seed has taken," and she breathed, "Yes. It has."
In the velvet chamber, Nyxia clung to Perseus until the shaking eased, but she refused to close her eyes. "If I close them," she whispered, "she'll be there." Perseus brushed a tear from her cheek and murmured, "Then keep them open. I'll keep mine open with you." And he meant it, which somehow hurt too. Nyxia exhaled, the breath trembling, and felt something cold and sharp settle inside her—not hatred yet, but something steadier. She looked toward the door, imagining the path leading down into whatever Ves had woken. She thought, "I am coming," unsure whether it was warning or confession.
Below, Ves tilted her head as the distant tremor reached her again, answering in thought, Good. Let it rain.