Chapter 6: The Garden of Forgotten Things
The morning light spilled through the palace windows like melted gold.
Alaida wandered alone, her bare feet silent against the marble. No one stopped her. No one guided her. It was as if the palace itself was watching, waiting to see what she would touch.
She found the garden by accident.
A hidden courtyard tucked behind a wall of ivy, its gate half open, its path overgrown. Vines curled around statues of lions and winged beasts. Flowers bloomed in strange colors—silver, dusk-blue, pale violet. A fountain trickled softly, its basin carved with ancient runes.
Alaida stepped inside.
She knelt beside a patch of wild lavender, brushing her fingers over the petals. The scent reminded her of her mother's hair. Of lullabies sung in the dark. Of a time before silence.
She didn't notice Thalion watching.
He stood in the shadows of the archway, arms folded, gaze unreadable. He hadn't meant to follow her. But something in her steps—unafraid, untrained—pulled him like gravity.
She was touching things no one touched.
She was softening things no one softened.
Alaida turned suddenly, sensing him.
Their eyes met.
"You have a garden," she said.
Thalion stepped forward. "It was my mother's."
"She must have loved beauty."
"She loved silence."
Alaida tilted her head. "Then why did she plant music?"
Thalion didn't answer.
He looked at the fountain, at the vines, at the girl with white lashes and moonlight hair kneeling in the ruins of memory.
And for the first time, he wondered if softness was not weakness.
But a kind of strength he had never learned.