The hush devoured his word.
Bloom.
It slipped from his tongue like silk dipped in teeth. The Thorn's cradle pulsed under Ren's knees — ribs flexed like wet branches, petals opened on the hush that was not air but a mouth pressed to his every breath.
The Tower's roots, coiled tight behind his ribs, shuddered — the warmth of Velvet Hunger, the leash on the Fang, Serika's claws tracing his throat… all of it flickered like candlelight drowning in deeper dark.
Here the Thorn's hush was not worship. It was claiming.
A whisper licked Ren's jaw — layered voices, too many to count, all speaking in a hush so soft it left frost on the sweat at his throat.
"…King who roots his own ribs…"
"…Bloom deeper, or drown softer…"
The cradle bent under his palms — bones shifting like living marble, petals slick with warmth that tasted of moans swallowed before they could escape.
Ren gasped — the roots behind his ribs uncoiled like serpents waking in his veins. Pleasure licked up his spine — sharp as teeth, soft as silk dragged across raw skin.
He felt Velvet Hunger moaning through him — the Fang's defiance bleeding silver through the leash at his wrist. Serika's laughter tangled in the hush, distant but warm where it bit.
The Thorn's hush pressed deeper — tasting the cradle's echo inside him, feeding on each secret he'd buried in the Tower's roots. The mirror behind his ribs cracked wider — shards of all his stolen whispers blooming into a crown no mortal throat could hold for long.
A shape formed before him — the Thorn's root. Not a throne, not a lover, but a wound that wanted to bloom teeth and drink him hollow.
If he spoke now, he could bind it — crown the Thorn with the hush, slip its root behind every mirror he'd ever cracked.
Or he could kneel — let it crown him, make his body the first mouth of ruin, the final hush that swallowed the Tower whole.
His breath misted the cradle's ribs — trembling, sweet, full of every secret he'd ever bled to the hush.
"…Speak, Mirror Walker…"
"…Bind, or Bloom…"
Ren's lips parted — roots coiled tight, breath a single glass edge trembling at the hush's throat.
Behind him, the Tower shivered — Velvet Hunger's moans pressed against the forbidden pane that would never seal shut again.
Serika's whisper slipped through the crack — low, wicked, almost tender.
"Choose it, my king…"
"…or it will choose you…"
Ren's tongue tasted the crown — bitter and sweet, ruin and silk. He could feel the Thorn's root slip around his throat, waiting for his final word.
He exhaled — voice raw silk wrapped in glass.
"Crown…"
The moment the word left Ren's tongue — Crown — the hush did not tremble. It bit.
The cradle beneath him bloomed open — ribs flexing like petals, glassy bones dripping hush that tasted of every moan Velvet Hunger had fed him. Roots uncoiled from the marble under his knees — cold and slick as silk dipped in iron, slipping around his calves, slithering higher until they brushed raw skin and the blood-slick marks the Fang's claws had left there.
Ren shuddered. His breath spilled mist that glowed faintly in the dark. Each pulse of his heart echoed louder — not just in his own chest, but in the hush's ribs too. It felt like kneeling in the body of something older than sin, older than the Tower, older even than the first mirror he'd ever begged to open for him.
A thousand cracks pulsed behind his eyes — the brand behind his ribs now a nest of living roots that twined through bone and breath. Every gasp Velvet Hunger gave him now dripped through the hush's cradle — feeding the Thorn as much as it fed him.
The voice of the Thorn uncoiled through the hush — no single tongue, but a choir of ruin pressed tight to his ear.
"…Crown-fed, hush-born, root-bloomed…"
"…you wear the hush like silk, but do you bleed it too?"
He gasped — the roots brushing higher, wrapping his hips, tracing the cuts at his ribs, each contact searing sweet and cruel. Every tiny bloom of pain fed the hush another taste of him. Every pulse of pleasure dragged it deeper.
It was not worship. Not exactly. It was claiming and being claimed at once.
Ren's eyes fluttered half shut. He felt Velvet Hunger moaning through the Tower's roots — the Fang's defiance a dull silver throb at the leash on his wrist. Serika's claws were nowhere near him, but the echo of her laugh still shivered in the hush, a promise that he was never truly alone when he bled this deep.
The hush trembled — the Thorn's cradle shifting under his knees until it rose up around his flanks like a living throne. Petals of bone brushed his sides, pressing in — cold, slick, breathing with him.
He could feel it then — the choice. Or maybe the illusion of it.
If he pulled the Thorn's root inside the Tower's hush, made it a crown he could control, every mirror would bow. Velvet Hunger would be just the first mouth in a chain of kingdoms fed on moans and ruin.
If he yielded — if he let the Thorn wrap its root around his heart — he would become the crown's vessel. Not king of hush, but its bloom. A living hush that devoured thrones instead of ruling them.
His breath stuttered — the roots pressed higher, brushing raw nerves, coaxing a moan that sounded almost like begging.
"…Which seed do you feed, little Walker?"
The Thorn's hush slipped a root against his throat — not choking him, but tasting the place where his voice lived.
"…Do you wear the crown, or open for it?"
Ren's pulse hammered — his lips parted around another gasp. Pleasure twisted with ruin — pain turned sweet by the hush's silk, the brand behind his ribs a nest of teeth aching to bite back.
In his mind's eye, he saw Serika's grin — soft and cruel.
"A king who devours the hush…"
"…or a hush that devours the king?"
The Fang's moan tangled in the roots at his wrist — a broken sound that reminded Ren of how soft defiance tastes when it surrenders.
The hush's root at his throat pulsed once, warm and cold at the same time. It pushed his jaw up — made him look at the cradle's true bloom.
A reflection — but not the boy who'd begged at the attic mirror. Not the king Velvet Hunger knelt for. This was Ren as a root given flesh — eyes blind white, brand split wide, moans dripping hush that fed every secret he'd stolen until there was no line between what was him and what was the Thorn.
"…Choose…" the hush purred.
"…Crown or cradle. King or root."
His pulse stuttered — pleasure and ruin braided so tight he wasn't sure where his voice ended and the hush's began.
Ren's hand rose — palm open to the Thorn's cradle.
One word would decide if the hush wore him — or if he buried it behind his ribs forever.
His lips brushed the hush's root at his throat — voice raw silk lined with glass.
"Bind."
The hush convulsed — a soft cry like glass shattering under silk. Roots slipped deeper — threading through his ribs, coiling around his spine, branding him not just as the Mirror Walker but as the first Thorn crowned by ruin and ruler of it.
His breath cracked. Moans slipped from him — pleasure that tasted like hunger, hunger that felt like worship, ruin that pulsed like a second heart.
In the Tower, Velvet Hunger knelt deeper — shadows moaning in unison as the hush behind every mirror flickered open, the Thorn's root stitching their throats into Ren's ribs.
Serika's laugh spilled through the cracked pane — soft and sharp.
"…My king of hush and Thorn…"
Ren gasped — the hush's root pulsed behind his eyes, blooming petals of ruin that tasted sweet on his tongue.
He was not devoured. He was becoming.
The Thorn's cradle did not vanish when Ren spoke Bind — it sank deeper. The roots curled behind his ribs were no longer just the Tower's veins, Velvet Hunger's leash. They were the hush itself, alive under his skin, blooming new petals of hunger each time his heart beat.
He knelt still — the cradle's ribs flexed beneath him, not stone but a living hush that pulsed with each moan slipping from the Tower far above.
Every sigh from Velvet Hunger tasted sweeter now — raw silk poured through roots that drank secrets and spat them back as whispered worship. The Fang's defiance trembled like a leash pulled tight around Ren's wrist — never enough to snap, always enough to remind him that pleasure tasted better when it bit back.
His breath fogged the cradle's air — thin frost feathering the hush's ribs where it pressed close, tasting the new crown pulsing behind his eyes.
"…You wear it…" the Thorn's voice purred — countless whispers folded into one hush that dripped warmth down his spine.
"…A crown that feeds, a root that devours…"
"…A king or a cradle? Tell me again."
Ren's lips parted — a gasp he hadn't meant to slip out. The roots coiled tighter when he gave them even that. Every flicker of surrender fed the Thorn another taste of him — and he felt it braid deeper into the hush that wrapped Velvet Hunger's throat far above.
He saw it then — through the hush's cracked mirrors:
The Tower — trembling on its marble bones. Velvet Hunger's shadows knelt around the Fang's prostrate body, masked mouths pressed to marble slick with sweat and moans. Each whisper they gave spilled downward — down roots of hush that licked Ren's ribs from the inside.
Serika knelt at the pane's bleeding edge — claws tracing circles over her own throat, grin split wide, watching her king become his own hush.
Ren's pulse throbbed. The hush slipped petals around his wrists — silk and thorns both. A promise that what he held could not stay caged forever.
"…King of hush…"
"…Crowned in Thorn…"
The cradle pulsed — the ribs beneath him cracked wider, not breaking, but opening. Beyond them flickered another pane — a mirror untouched by Velvet Hunger's roots, darker than the hush, older than the Tower's bones.
A reflection that did not moan or kneel — it laughed when the hush tasted it.
Ren's breath hitched — the Thorn's root coiled behind his teeth, tasting the edge of that other pane.
"…Will you spread, Mirror Walker?"
"…Bind another world?"
The hush pulsed under his tongue — every secret he'd devoured until now suddenly small compared to the kingdoms waiting beyond this cradle's ribs.
Roots craved new soil. Mirrors craved new cracks.
The Fang's moan drifted through the hush — silver and raw, a leash that tugged his pulse back to Velvet Hunger's warmth. But the Thorn's cradle pushed him forward — teeth parting silk, petals opening wider, promising new hush, new ruin, new pleasure that would drown the Tower if he let it.
Serika's laughter bled through the hush — half a purr, half a dare.
"…My king who roots so sweet — will you break the next mirror? Or kneel and let it bloom you instead?"
Ren's ribs ached — the roots threading through him ached — his crown pulsed hot and cold in the cradle's hush.
Another choice — or maybe the same one, dressed in deeper silk.
Does he crack the next mirror — push the hush into a world untouched, root deeper until the hush devours everything?
Or does he stay — cradle-bound, king of a single moaning Tower, safe behind glass that only shatters from the inside?
The hush waited — petals brushing his jaw, root coiled sweet at his throat like a lover's sigh.
Ren's breath trembled. His tongue tasted iron and silk.
His reflection in the dark pane beyond the ribs flickered — king, root, cradle, ruin.
He smiled — soft, cruel, inevitable.
"Open."
The hush screamed — sweet as moans folded into a blade.
Roots cracked the ribs wider — the new mirror bled light so raw it tasted like teeth pressed to silk. Velvet Hunger's shadows gasped as the Tower shook — Serika's claws sank into her throat, eyes wide as the hush bloomed beyond the cradle's crown.
Ren's moan spilled through every root, every leash, every secret — a king crowned not just by hush, but by the ruin he'd begged to wear.