He arrived on foot, at noon, when the sun was high and the air smelled like scorched mint.
No convoy.
No flamethrower.
Just a long coat, ash on his boots, and eyes that had seen too many things burn.
I knew him before he spoke.
Kael Vance.
Leader of the Fire Clan.
The man who'd laughed at me when I said I could save the nursery.
Now he stood at the gate, silent, scanning the yard — the glowing vines, the too-green grass, the sapling that hadn't been there three days ago, its trunk already thick as a wrist, twisting toward the sky like it was hungry for light.
He didn't step in.
"Heard a girl healed a poisoned kid," he said.
"Didn't think it was you."
I didn't answer.
Behind me, the cactus rustled — a dry, warning sound.
"He reeks of flame and suspicion," it muttered.
"One spark, and I'm throwing every thorn I've saved."
Kael's gaze shifted to the oak.
"That tree was struck by lightning. Dead six months ago."
"It's not dead," I said.
"It's older."
He exhaled, slow.
Not disbelief.
Not anger.
Something worse:
Recognition.
"My grandmother used to talk about places like this," he said.
"Said there were pockets where the world still remembered how to breathe.
Called them wound-healers.
Said people always tried to burn them down."
I looked at him.
Really looked.
He wasn't here to fight.
Or steal.
He was here because he remembered.
"Then why did you laugh?" I asked.
A flicker.
Almost shame.
"Because power like this… it doesn't stay quiet.
And when it moves, the strong come to crush it.
I thought if I made you small, maybe they wouldn't see you."
Silence.
Then, from the roof, Thistle swayed.
"Too late," he said.
"They already do."
A drone buzzed overhead — low, metallic, out of place.
We both looked up.
It wasn't military.
No insignia.
But it hovered, circled once, then shot east — back toward the city.
Kael's jaw tightened.
"That's the third this week.
They're mapping the wild zones.
Calling them biohazards."
I didn't need to ask who "they" were.
Hollow's shadow was spreading.
Kael stepped forward — one step, no more.
"You can't hide this place forever."
"No," I said.
"But I can make it hard to find."
"And when they come?"
"Then the garden will decide."
He studied me — not the girl he'd mocked, but the one the plants obey without command.
Then he reached into his coat.
I tensed.
But he pulled out not a weapon —
but a seed.
Small. Black. Encased in cracked resin.
"Found this in the dead zone," he said.
"Ground was rotted. Nothing grew.
But this was buried deep.
Like it was waiting."
He held it out.
"I don't belong in a garden.
But maybe this does."
I took it.
The moment my skin touched the resin, the seed pulsed.
Not like the one from the oak.
This was different.
Darker.
Angry.
But alive.
And beneath my feet, the original seed — the one that sank —
answered.
A low, slow throb, like a heartbeat under soil.
Kael felt it.
He stepped back.
"You're not just protecting this place," he said.
"You're waking something."
"I'm not waking it," I said.
"I'm remembering how to listen."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he turned.
"They'll come with more than drones soon.
Be ready."
"I'm not ready," I said.
"But the garden is."
He left without another word.
And when he was gone, I knelt, pressed the new seed into the soil beside the sapling, and whispered:
"You're not alone anymore."
The roots shifted.
The leaves trembled.
And somewhere deep below,
the network began to grow.